West Dunbartonshire has the highest homelessness rate in Scotland, according to new figures.

A report published by the Scottish Government last week showed 1,404 people per 100,000 in West Dunbartonshire are homeless. That’s significantly higher than Glasgow and more than double the Scottish average of 632.

The local authority area is eighth in terms of the number of homeless households, and its total increased in 2021-22, as did neighbouring Glasgow.

Households in temporary accommodation as of March 31, 2022 were just above the Scottish average.

But political parties traded blame for the figures.

Community Party councillor Jim Bollan said: “It is concerning and unacceptable that West Dunbartonshire Council (WDC) has the highest homeless rate in Scotland, whilst we have dedicated staff who go above and beyond to assist homeless applicants.

“Staff are burnt out with stress, are under-paid, and under-resourced. We need more investment to create more temporary units, more staff positions.

“We also need to build more houses for rent instead of rejecting projects like the 25 homes rejected by the Labour council last week.

“The lack of affordable housing for rent is one of the key drivers of homelessness. We are having to allocate homeless families with children to B&B because of the shortage of temp units.

“The council tried to prevent homelessness by supporting and sustaining new tenancies to arrest the revolving door syndrome, but this appears to have faltered given the latest depressing and soul-destroying figures.

“Labour needs to make homelessness a priority and think out of the box about taking actions to reduce these horrendous figures.”

West Dunbartonshire Council leader and Labour councillor Martin Rooney said the homelessness figures had been under the previous SNP-led administration. He said a big part of the problem was the number of voice properties and re-let times increasing.

He said homeless households were spending 17 weeks in temporary accommodation.

Cllr Rooney said: “All of the delays put additional hardship on existing tenants as the lost income from void houses.

“In the current year the housing service is predicting a further loss from void properties as the number of properties are higher than was budgeted for. It was expected the number of void properties would reduce following the Covid delays but the numbers continue to be high.

“We need more new homes in West Dunbartonshire to be able to meet local needs but we also need to improve the supply of existing housing stock, this means getting homes ready quicker and processing applications quicker. This is a huge task given the increase in demand and the backlog of work left by the SNP.”

He added: “The Labour council has a manifesto commitment to build 2,500 new affordable and socially rented homes. We had previously set a target of one thousand new homes and delivered them so this will be a huge challenge but we believe that it is both required and achievable.

“Just last week we approved new housing for Jamestown, and in Alexandria, rather than wait for the planning committee to reject the original Lidl proposals.

“We separated out the houses out so that the demolition of Mitchell Way can be accelerated and the new store built. This left council officers free to put together the development plan for the new houses for the town centre and preventing an unnecessary delay.”

Jackie Baillie, Dumbarton constituency MSP, said they were “really grim” figures.

She added: “Although we may not see many people rough sleeping like we do in our big cities, there is clearly still a serious problem here where people don’t have secure homes.

“There has to be urgent action taken before the cost of living crisis which leaving many struggling to make ends meet makes this bad situation even worse.

“The SNP have already ignored numerous warnings that they created a cliff-edge for tenants when they scrapped protections without putting the necessary support in place.

“Now they are sleepwalking towards disaster by ignoring this.”

The charity Shelter warned homeless people were being asked to move to England because of a lack of accommodation.

There were more than 35,230 Scottish applications for homelessness assistance made in 2021-22, a 3 per cent increase from the year before.

And 8,635 children are currently stuck in temporary accommodation, up 17 per cent on last year and the highest number on record.

Shelter said the figures showed that the homelessness system in Scotland was on the “brink of failure” and that the country was “unable to provide for the most basic of human rights”.

Responding to the figures, Housing Secretary Shona Robison said: “These statistics remind us why our commitment to prevent and end homelessness is so important, and show us that we still have work to do.

“While it is encouraging that rough sleeping is at its lowest level in 20 years and repeat homelessness is at a ten-year low, I am deeply concerned at the increase in the number of children in temporary accommodation.

“This is especially disappointing as 20 local authorities are managing to reduce the use of temporary accommodation.”

A spokesperson from West Dunbartonshire Council said: "“We remain committed to doing all we can to tackle homelessness by ensuring our most vulnerable residents get the support they need.

“Our focus remains on offering long term and sustainable housing solutions to those in need through our rapid rehousing and Housing First initiatives. Households with children are typically allocated Council homes within the community, and we avoid use of hotel-style accommodation for any resident presenting as homeless.

"In addition, we provide support on employment, benefits, health and wellbeing, to ensure the root causes of people finding themselves homeless are addressed.

“We are proud that our homelessness and housing options team’s efforts to achieve positive outcomes and meet housing need in an exceptionally challenging period mean there is no known rough sleeping in West Dunbartonshire; there have been no breaches of the Unsuitable Accommodation Order and all homeless households are provided with accommodation without fail.”