The group brings together ten ministers to identify the actions required across a range of portfolios to prevent and end homelessness and then to collectively ensure the delivery of these actions.

Set to complement the existing Homelessness Prevention and Strategy Group (HPSG), the group’s current membership includes:

• Paul McLennan MSP, minister for housing, Paul McLennan MSP (chair)
• Elena Whitham, MSP, minister for drugs & alcohol policy
• Maree Todd, MSP, minister for social care, mental wellbeing and sport
• Emma Roddick, MSP minister for equalities, migration and refugees
• Natalie Don, MSP, minister for children, young people and keeping the promise
• Jenni Minto, MSP, minister for public health and woman’s health
• Joe Fitzpatrick, MSP, minster for local government and planning
• Siobhan Brown, MSP, minister for victims and community safety
• Patrick Harvie, MSP, minister for zero carbon buildings, active travel and tenants’ rights
• Graeme Dey, MSP, minister for higher and further education; and minister for veterans

Members will meet quarterly and should be prepared to discuss action planned and underway within their portfolio which supports the group’s ambition; funding attached to such activity and whether there are opportunities to combine funding streams for greater impact. Members will also be encouraged to share best practice examples where progress is recorded.

The remit of the group is:

• deliver improved outcomes for groups experiencing multiple disadvantage in terms of experience or risk of homelessness and wider challenges reflected across the Ministerial portfolios of the membership
• to help Scotland become a world leader in preventing and ending homelessness by taking a joined up approach to policy, planning and resources
• to understand and promote the societal and economic benefits of a settled home and the prevention of homelessness duties and in particular the need for prevention to be a shared public responsibility
• to consider creative solutions, deliverable within current funding and resourcing arrangements, which could be taken forward between housing and non-housing portfolios to contribute to achieving the relevant outcomes set out in the Policy Prospectus
• to recognise policy synergies, break out of policy silos and ensure a coherent focus on preventing and ending homelessness
• to task officials to work together to deliver actions agreed by this group, to support impact on priorities for improvement across respective portfolios

The Scottish Government said: “Problems faced by people who are homeless or threatened with homelessness do not exist in isolation but are often multi-faceted and linked to other social and economic factors, such as poverty, drug and alcohol use, mental ill-health and leaving care or prison. This group provides an opportunity for members to drive action within their own portfolios to prevent and end homelessness in Scotland.

“The group will provide a space for shared political leadership, enhanced policy linkages and ownership of barriers and solutions to ensuring everyone has access to a settled home, as a vital foundation in meeting our wider social justice ambitions.”

The announcement follows an update from the Scottish Housing Regulator which concluded that there is now systemic failure in the delivery of homelessness services in some areas of Scotland.

Homelessness charity Crisis said it welcomes the decision to establish the group and the Scottish Government’s recognition that “the causes of homelessness do not exist in isolation, but cut across policy portfolios”.

Neil Cowan, head of policy and communications for Crisis in Scotland, added: “With record numbers of people in temporary accommodation and pressure growing within the system, this group provides an important opportunity for political leadership on preventing and ending homelessness.

“We know that the best way to tackle homelessness is to prevent it from happening in the first place. Joint working will be essential for the success of the proposed new homelessness prevention duties which the Scottish Government has committed to introducing in its upcoming Housing Bill.”