FOR the second year in a row, Fife Council has “regularly” breached the Scottish Unsuitable Accommodation Order (UAO) due to pressures on housing.
The problems revolve around the way the local authority have been using hotels and B&Bs as temporary accommodation for people who present as homeless.
According to the UAO, councils should not place homeless households in “unsuitable” temporary accommodation – it’s intended to prevent the use of B&B and hotel accommodation.
However, Fife’s annual assurance statement 2024 said that despite a slight reduction in new homeless presentations, the “pressure on temporary accommodation remains disproportionate”.
The council has also breached statutory duties for tenant and resident safety.
They were forced to tell the Scottish Housing Regulator that 890 of their properties did not comply with fire and smoke alarm requirements in 2023-24. More than 3900 properties did not have a valid electrical safety certificate.
The council ris down to just five cases of failure for gas safety checks within time scale, but it’s still considered a breach.
“This is the outcome of denied property access and a backlog of outstanding checks due to system issues,” a report by John Mills, head of housing, said.
“Work to rectify this has already commenced which should address no access issues and increase compliance levels moving forward.”
When it comes to homelessness and temporary accommodation, the council have improvement actions in place, including: enhanced monitoring, reporting and escalation of temporary accommodation situations and the development of housing advice and preventive actions to prevent crisis.
There is a temporary accommodation strategy and a voids improvement plan as well.
“We do have properties that are not compliant with fire and smoke alarm requirements and properties that don’t have valid electric safety certification,” Mhairi Mullen, a Fife housing service manager, told the people and communities committee.
“There is an issue with non-engagement and non-access that has been identified and we’re working closely with building services to progress and improve on this.”
She added: “We’re looking at options around enforced access to enable this work to be completed. We will be doing an increased level of electric safety checks – over 6000 per annum are being programmed – and increasing work on smoke alarms to ensure we get the backlog cleared.”
Mills’s report stated that the Scottish Housing Regulator continues to “maintain regular contact” with Fife Council about these issues – particularly around homelessness.
