Kezia' Dugdale MSP The Scottish Parliament EDINBURGH EH991SP

Our Ref: Your Ref: Date:

ceo\admin\dugdale01

24 August 2011

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Dear

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Thank you for your letter which I received by email on 23 August 2011 regarding the consultation on the Commissioning Plan for Advice, Support and Accommodation Services to Prevent Homelessness. It may help if I explain the context. The draft commissioning plan was subject to consultation from 24 May to 6 July 2011. The consultation process was overseen by a Checkpoint Group of external stakeholders. Most of the comments on the commissioning plan were submitted electronically or were received from focus groups. However, on the day consultation ended, 38 survey responses were hand delivered to Waverely Court. Unlike the rest of the survey responses these responses disagreed with virtually all of the proposals in the consultation questionnaire. The Checkpoint Group were of the view that these responses needed to be explored further and help the Checkpoint Group understand the opposition towards, for example, a focus on preventing homelessness. To allow these voices to be heard the Checkpoint Group asked that the survey respondants be contacted to try to understand what was behind their opposition to the proposals. It was the view of the Checkpoint Group that two further focus groups, one during the day and another in the evening, should be offered to the people who had submitted responses on 6 July 2011. These focus groups were held at the offices of Checkpoint Group members and independent members of the Checkpoint Group attended these to ensure anyone attending had that reassurance of independent scrutiny. No survey respondents attended either focus group. You will appreciate that these were very unusual circumstances but the Checkpoint Group were keen to understand the views of this significant number of respondents.

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Sue Bruce, Chief Executive

Waverley Court, 4 East Market Street, Edinburgh EH8 8SG Tel 01314693002 Fax 01314693010 sue.bruce@edinburgh.gov.uk

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-2We have recently extended the deadline for survey responses to the consultation on the City Housing Strategy from 11 to 31 July and additional consultative focus groups, meetings and conferences have continued to take place to inform the development of that strategy throughout August. This was originally due to close on 11 July. The consultation period for the overarching Commissioning Strategy for Social Care was extended from 18 February 2011 to 4 March 2011, with later responses also being accepted in order to allow people opportunity to express their views and have them taken into account. The results of earlier consultations to inform the development of the commissioning plan have been made available on the Council's website. Correspondence will be sent to providers, stakeholders, those who helped facilitate focus groups and through EVOC to thank them for-participation-in-the-consultation-and detail-the-next steps-including-how-further consultation will take place on different phases of implementation. We will ask these groups to pass this information on to those who participated. This will be sent out by 7 September 2011 and will also be placed on the web. If I can be of any further assistance please do not hesitate to contact me. Yours sincerely

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SUE BRUCE Chief Executive