Helping homeless people: homelessness statement 21 December 2005

At the heart of the ministerial statement is a requirement that, by 2009, local authorities halve the number of non-priority determinations they make. Since local authorities currently assess 75 per cent of all homeless applications as priority, this means that they need to increase this, on average, to 87.5 per cent by 2009. So by 2009, only 12.5 per cent of homeless applicants will be judged not to be in priority need. The means by which local authorities achieve this target is left open to them. Of course, the current 75 per cent is a Scottish-wide average: councils vary a lot around this average, from as low as 54 per cent to as high as 89 per cent. For some councils, halving the number of non-priority determinations will be more of a leap than others.