soners. Yes I do thank you thank you Deputy convener. Mr Connell you touched on in your opening remarks about the complexities but you know when there's an expected date for someone who leaves the custodial sentence so you can plan in advance and my question would be that you know how can we try to challenge and tackle that risk of that individual becoming homeless because if everything is put in place for them as they vacate that institution then it should be easy for individuals to process that so you know you've touched on what has taken place but there must be some real best practice taking place across the sector that has reduced that in some shape we inform. There are examples of it but I say it's pretty disparate across the country. I can give you an example we're part of the public's social partnership in Lomos with Turning Point, Action for Children, SACRO but we provide accommodation we provide temporary accommodation and the wraparound support for people coming out of the prison but that starts within the prison that starts the planning starts and then on the day of release that the prisoners met coming out and is taking around wherever they need to go to and then to their flat which is fully furnished and everything's in place and that support continues for a period and we've actually examples and it kind of fits into the aversion of the housing first model where people have been able to negotiate to keep the accommodation that becomes settled in an area and if they come to and they say we would like to keep this we will we will do that we will try we will negotiate with the it's usually GHA or cube housing in Glasgow we'll negotiate and we will get another property and so so so so that's an example of the good practice one of the things that I don't know it's my it's my speaker is it yeah one of the things I was at a seven hour impolment recently in the frustration around the room of through-care officers the whole range of providers of services who were saying there are lots of resources around but structurally it breaks down if when the person comes out if they're left out to their own devices when they come out it breaks down very very quickly and quite often people yn fwyafenni o'r cyfrifiad? Y dylech â'r symud yw'r bobl o'r cyfrifiad yw'r newid yw y cyfrifiad yw y cyfrifiad felly yw'r o Hellyth Ikrwyddon, ac mae'n gynnwys i'r unigol iawn, ond mae'n gweld, ifall, sydd efo'r unigol iawn, hwnnw i'n cefnogi, ond mae'n cyfrifiad yn ei ddwyngh oedd y ben sydd y cifryd yn cyfrifiad o'r cyfrifiad o'r cyfrifiad yw'r cyfrifiad hwnnw i'r cilio ac yn ymdilyn yn dwybodaeth. You have talked about the good practice that is taking place in specific areas, but there has to be more bad practice in reality because it is not happening across the piece. What should we do to ensure that it is going to happen across the piece? Structurally, it breaks down. I will give you an example of one of our services today I said, we have 16 flats just now for people who have come through the prison system. We've got five women's bail flats as well, and that's in partnership with Aberlory on the turning point. So I said, what's our position just now? Only 11 of the flats are occupied. There are five vacancies in the service that provides the accommodation for Romos, and there were two vacancies for the women's bail. Now, those vacancies for women's bail, they're ring fenced, so people, and again people move on to various other types of accommodation and back with families and things. So that's an example of... It breaks down because it comes into a structure where bureaucracy and I think Lorraine McRav mentioned some of it today around, you know, she was talking about when people go to an age shelter, if you were providing something much better, you would need to take the complication away of the hoops that people have to go through, reduce the number of hoops and we'll have a much more fluid system. I think that this is very similar in terms of examples of people coming out of prison bad practice and going to the housing office and being told, you have to go into a hostel. The person is saying, if I go into a hostel, I'll offend over the weekend. It's only a hostel that's available and the person's into a hostel. So that the ex-offender themselves has a lack of confidence with the system that they are given or the support that they are provided with when they get to that stage. You've chosen an example that highlights and identifies how it's easier sometimes for the individual to go back into the offending situation than it is for them to go through the hoops that they're having to do to make sure that they can get accommodation that is of a reasonable standard for them. I think that's more than just a lack of confidence. Could you answer briefly, Mr Brown? I think that's more than just a lack of confidence. Another example that I can give is that this is when somebody was met at the prison gate and brought to the various offices and the person fainted later that day with the exhaustion because of the various things that they had to do in terms of their benefits and various, they went from pillar to post and that was with support. This person collapsed with the exhaustion. So it's a rigorous process when somebody comes out and even with the supports that they have to do. I just wanted to say briefly that having experienced some of the stuff that you're talking about in the past with people coming out looking for temporary accommodation following being being liberated from prison. What we've tried to do at Edinburgh is now is make sure that many the things you're talking about about the arrangement of temporary accommodation or the sorting out of people's benefits or the housing options that we need to give to people if they can't maintain the tenancy when they go into prison is something that we're actively doing. So there is obviously good practice there and as I would say we'd be happy to speak to anybody about the measures that we've put in place to ensure that the transfer is as seamless as possible. So yes they may have to go to housing office to be allocated that accommodation and sometimes it will be on what's available on the day but the earlier notice and the earlier intervention work that we can do when people are in prison then it makes it a much more seamless process at the end. Thanks very much. That actually I think leads us into a discussion around temporary accommodation and I know that Andy Wightman wants to specifically pick up on some of the city of Edinburgh issues so if I could call my colleague Andy Wightman. Thanks very much convener. Yes, I mean the councils, Edinburgh Council's own submission notes the increase in temporary accommodation of 21 per cent in the last year and recent media reports about the increased numbers of BNBs that have been bought on a rather urgent basis. Why has the pressure on temporary accommodation increased so significantly in Edinburgh in recent years? Actually, in line with the pressure on temporary accommodation services increase in, the actual number of people presenting is homeless in Edinburgh is going down. So less people are coming in. You'll see from the submission there that the major contributing factor in terms of the increased pressure on temporary accommodation services is actually an increased lengthy stay for people so homelessness caselines are extending. If I was to sum it up quite simply it would back to the point that I made previously that there's such an acute shortage of affordable housing in Edinburgh that for anybody who's welfare dependent or on a low income it's incredibly difficult to have any other options other than social rented housing off which there aren't enough, which is why the councils are looking to build a significant number of homes over the next five years. In answer to your question, the reason the pressure on temporary accommodation is so significant in the moment and the reason that they were using bed and breakfast as outlined in the newspaper article that I'm sure you've seen is simply that people are staying longer but not getting the opportunity to discharge their duties to people by giving them an offer either permanent or settled housing and then more people come in each day. Is that part of a longer term trend within a falling homelessness population? For Edinburgh it certainly is. Average lengthy stays have increased consistently and significantly. There's been a spike probably in the last I don't know the figures there but probably in the last 34 years but it's consistently the average lengthy stay of being increasing. In terms of other members of the panel, we've heard some evidence in the previous panel about temporary accommodation, the standards of temporary accommodation etc and there's been calls for improvements in standards of temporary accommodation. Do you think that that's a worthwhile call or do you think that that's just underpinning what is a bit of a sticking plaster and a wider problem which is a shortage of full-time permanent accommodation? I think Mr Paul Brown would like to come in here. Our experience bluntly is having difficulty accessing it for clients. We get sometimes up to 10 of the moment it's five to seven people a week who just are not being offered temporary accommodation and we have to threaten judicial review, very rarely actually have to undertake it so that's the fundamental problem. The other fundamental problem is apart from the time people often end up staying in it is the cost which is horrendous which makes it unaffordable for people who are working and that is a major problem and it's due to the local authority's concerns not implementing the form of words used in the code of guidance about how temporary accommodation charges are supposed to be worked out so those are the sort of fundamental issues that I mean there's a hierarchy of needs getting the accommodation would then lead into concern about overcrowding and all sorts of difficulties but that's the fundamental crisis. If I could just make one other brief comment about the prisoners issues I would simply say that benefit payments while people in prison towards the rent is a major issue and one issue about assisting prisoners would be to extend possibly on a discretionary basis the length of time that benefits what basically housing benefit can be paid for I think that would make a significant difference for some people. I mean there is however a major problem no question about that about prisoners coming out of prison and being expected to deal with everything all once including finding somewhere to stay and it's very difficult to manage I would share that concern so if that 20% or 30% of the weight of that need to make provision can be reduced by more generous benefit payments again I'm sure that it would save a very large amount of money. Mr Stewart do you want to come in? Yes just wanted to echo or just the echo of the points about accessing temporary accommodation long terms of temporary accommodation cost however the way in which the Glasgow we are primarily focused on Glasgow which is often presented to us in Glasgow is that supply is not an issue that there are homes there and that the issue has been getting people from temporary accommodation through the system and into settled accommodation and for me a lot of that surrounds around the process of assessment we've had the sort of comments about psychologically informed and understanding the needs and expectations and aspirations of people and that's sort of more fundamental in the context that we're in but what that the comment which Nicky gave about Edinburgh and what it reflects is a quite a lot of difference between local authorities in particular as to how we approach the issue of temporary accommodation and the drivers of why people are in temporary accommodation. Mr Wightman I think you have a specific question for Paul Brown of the LSA. Just to follow up I mean you made a point about litigation I think you said in your evidence you're considering strategic litigation in relationship to a qualities legislation around the needs of people with protected characteristics and their access to temporary accommodation. Do you want to say something a little bit briefly what is strategic about that litigation? Well I suppose there's two things first of all well it relates the code of guidance which has not been updated to help local authorities and anybody else interested in working out how to manage people with major mental health disabilities for example or other protected characteristics the code of guidance doesn't explain how to manage that so there is a tendency for people who's presenting problems are very difficult for them and for providers to have difficulty accessing services I mean that's sometimes fairly obvious that they're going to have difficulty accessing services they get affected by the same appraisal of intentionality possibly to some extent even if only informally as other people do even though intentionality doesn't come into it they're unable to manage the difficulties they have so the reasonable adjustments are often not provided and it would be obviously sometimes they are I mean I don't want to suggest local authorities and the voluntary organisations are doing their best there's no question about that they work hard but on occasion the reasonable adjustments that need to be made are not made. The thing that's strategic about using a qualities legislation is it is possible to claim compensation and I think that's an important way of accountability if somebody does is discriminated against unintentionally indirectly normally but if they are it is possible to claim compensation for that and I think that's a useful way of focusing on the fact that action needs to be taken we are also going to use freedom of information requests to look into how systematic the approach is to various people with protected characteristics and well we may find out we haven't done it yet we may find out there's a systematic failure in which case that would result in a strategic approach to litigation I mean it's at early stages yet but the experience is that the system has not fully adjusted to its overall commitment to taking on board the need to make reasonable adjustments for all the circumstances of everybody concerned and the system doesn't do that I mean just a wee point about housing options filling in forms going online and all that sort of stuff some people cannot possibly do that they make them too anxious or they don't have the skills or possibly both reasonable adjustments would entail saying to somebody here's a house we don't need to what you don't need to get references don't need to have a bank account here's a house everything else will get sorted out for you like it was done in the olden days now people are expected to jump through a whole range of hoops that even if they in theory could overcome in practice they can't getting references and all that sort of stuff the idea that people are going to be moving into the private sector is I'd have said fairly naive keeping people in the private sector who have problems who need a bit of help paying off the rent or whatever I think is a important one my suspicion however is that we are not going to solve the problem or wanting to address today without there being more provision of of socially rented housing I can't see that as being any other option that would be my given time constraints I could maybe turn to my colleague Jenny go Ruth I think wants to explore some of that bit further thank you convener and graffin into the panel in your written submission Paul Brown you flag shelter's evidence of a 24% increase in terms of evictions over the past year and you say that social security austerity includes issues such as the benefit cap sanctions housing benefit reform and cuts to disability benefits and likewise Nikki Brown in your submission from Edinburgh council you talk about the implementation of welfare reform as expected it currently could potentially cause significant financial pressures on temporary accommodation with that in mind we've already heard this morning both from COSLA and from the Simon community about the impact of welfare reforms on homelessness more broadly so I'd just like to ask what the panel's views are and specifically does the panel believe that these welfare reforms are having a direct impact on specific groups so for example women or care experience young people to single those two groups out certainly in terms of the the general landscape then it seems to me all research out there will tell you that whenever a whenever major welfare reform changes like universal credit have taken place in some areas rent arrears have increased if rent arrears are increasing within a local authority boundaries I would suggest that some of those people inevitably will end up coming through a homelessness route so it is a general point I think that some of the welfare reform changes that have come out there is enough evidence out there at the moment and I know things are still getting rolled out there's an opportunity to change them but I think there's enough evidence to suggest that there is a likelihood that more people will become homeless and that will directly have an impact on temporary accommodation services in terms of the provision of temporary accommodation services it's clearly challenging and expensive to provide temporary accommodation services at the moment for most local authorities certainly in Edinburgh and as welfare reform changes are rolled out further and as less money is available to people to pay for that accommodation then it is again inevitable that local authorities are going to have to take some of the hit there and that in their budgets are going to be significantly impacted on by the impacts of welfare reform whether it be the benefit cap, LHRs or universal credit and all the evidence that we've heard from from today from the earlier panel on this panel suggests that we should be looking at how do we provide greater standards of service for people or greater accommodation options for people or better standards of accommodation for people and that is the challenge that local authorities face at the moment that if welfare reform is going to significantly impact on the ability to either collect income or actually income that's available how do we bridge that gap and I know that in terms of the creation of the national task force and then the fund there is going to be an opportunity there presumably for either third sector partners or local authorities to pilot schemes that could be either more affordable or provide better options for people but I'd like to see some detail on that because it would appear to me that the gap that we're going to have in Edinburgh in terms of the in terms of funding created by all manner of welfare reform is so significant that it will be incredibly difficult and challenging for us to do other services. Mr Stewart do you want to comment on the welfare reform issue? The six week universal credit delay thing although not introduced in Glasgow yet will introduce further barriers to lots of different groups including refugees there are new benefit claimants they will need to wait for their forward waiting period and then and then moving on when thinking about the option of whether considering whether private sector is an option for people who already have the barrier of not having a national insurance number not having the orientation language skills and the understanding putting in place a welfare benefit barrier where you're effectively not entitled to your payments until six weeks down the line creates a further barrier to doing any of that quite apart from setting people up to fail as has been sort of indicated towards there that people start with rentaviors they start with in a in a bad place in relation to but it has specific impact welfare reform has specific impact on on the different groups and certainly within within the refugee population you've got universal credit at the start it also limits the housing options available through we have now coming up the um we've currently got the what's called being called the bedroom tax which limits the number of bedrooms that someone is able to move into so limits the throughput to work to where people are able to move to and as of 2019 we'll have caps on the the local housing allowance maxima so anyone under 30 under 35 will be will only be able to access in Glasgow 68 pounds to pay for their their their rent 68 pounds a week a lot of accommodation is much more expensive than that even in the social rented sector um those are only sort of two examples of where the welfare reform stands in the way of moving people into and and but effectively stands at odds to what I think we all want to do in terms of alleviating homelessness. Cornley, do you wish to make any comment on this specific issue? I'll echo what Jamie says but we why people actually provide um we provide temporary accommodation for we have for a number of the people there specified exemptions so they haven't been impacted at this stage but where there has been impact is in larger families where they can have passed the benefit cap and there's a pressure in terms of larger families being being being housed in terms of that that's been it's been the biggest problem that we've encountered at this stage. Thank you very much Mr Pring. I will share all the concerns that other people have mentioned. My impression is that RSLs and other housing providers will have more problems with rentories they will then become more assertive. The shelter figure is masks and other set of problems which is that our experience has been that the number of cases calling in court has gone up or a bit but the assertiveness of the landlords when they're in court has increased substantially which means that one has more proofs when people have to apply for legal aid to give evidence and so forth that's very very stressful I'm talking about for the lawyers it is a hell for the families who may be threatened with eviction often it can get sorted out but who are threatened with eviction as a result of for instance rentories with talking about six-week delay. That is how that pans out is very worrying how services will be able to cope with that is very worrying so I mean I suppose the fundamental problem with benefits reform is it's all based on stick not there's not enough support and it's based on a fantasy about some about the need to discipline a small number of people for whereas most of the people we're talking about need more support more help rather than yet another set of changes my experience of changes going through the system is it takes years for people to really understand them and it isn't just the the claimants but all their advisors they maybe need medical reports for something that there's another cost and difficulty about that be years before the system is smoothly settled in and all the unintended consequences have been dealt with so providers will need to be more nimble and then will need to be more opportunity for discussing the consequence of unintended consequences we don't know what those will be but it would be tragic indeed if say an unintended consequence is RSLs evicting or having more people jump before they're pushed in a way that I'm sure no RSL really wants to happen so will there be ways out of that that's why this Seattle programme I think it's very interesting to say look 500 quid will make all the difference save very large amounts of money I think I think we need to think outside the box and think about the aspects of maybe focusing generosity we've heard about that maybe focusing generosity in a way that we know can be monitored and can really make a difference thank you I think we'll be interested in having a look at that model as a committee Jenny Gorraith with regard to that we've heard a lot about people working in their silos in terms of homelessness and that being a barrier to people I suppose working in a more integrated approach cause let's say that the current statutory framework does not encourage other agencies to support housing outcomes of those with complex needs so how can we get that better joined up working does for example the health and social care partnership model offer an opportunity there anyone much to volunteer to start to answer that specific question Mr Bray Nicky Bray just in terms of an example of the work we are doing in Edinburgh at the moment is Adam Burley talked about previously around access point in access practice he referenced and what that is is essentially a building where NHS services social work services and housing services sit together what we've established through some of the work through a group called inclusive Edinburgh from our local authority is that what we'd like to do is find a way of integrating our services in a much more coherent manner that has just exactly as was described has similar outcomes for people and no necessarily defined only by housing outcomes one of the things that we've looked at is that you know when you take an example of a case where somebody is presented for accommodation maybe 30 or 40 times within a year for various different accommodation actually a successful outcome might be for them that with intervention of the right service with the right relationship with them that might reduce to five a year and that and I think that the model that we are looking at with the Edinburgh access practice and the access point integrating those services together but also with third sector partners is finding the right service that has the relationship with a person that can follow them through the service so there's no multiple pass-offs and then what we're not doing is all working to different goals they're all aligned in the same way that's actually about making life better for that person and getting that person into a position where they can sustain some form of accommodation you've heard already from Lorraine McGrath about the different models of accommodation that we might look at as well so I think it's absolutely key that as we move forward with the integration services that we use examples like the access practice where what we're actually looking at is for a common set of outcomes that are person-centred and related to their personal circumstances rather than housing outcomes so I think there is work going on in that area but it still needs to be developed. That's very much briefly Mr Conly, if you don't mind. I suppose that an example of some of the good practice that appears to be about accommodation is some of the co-production that is taking place and there are some models around the country and around homelessness. The one in Glasgow just now we're looking at co-production moving away from a purchaser provider model and it's about involving all the organisations and there'll be a group of organisations with the council in terms of how services are developed and commissioned and that should actually, if the theory works, that should be a successful model in terms of breaking down some of those silos so there are examples around. Thanks very much, we are quite tight for time and there are other areas I know the committee want to explore specifically drilling down to some of the kinds of homelessness people experience so I want to turn if you don't mind to rough sleeping and I know that Andy Whiteman has some specific questions on that matter. Yes, thanks convener. Edinburgh Council, in your submission you talk about further work needed to identify rough sleeper profiles to better respond to the needs of a rough sleeper and we heard from the previous witnesses about the importance of that. What's the council doing to achieve that? The council, in conjunction with Sirinian's Bethany and Street Work from earlier, is instigating the first in a series of rough sleeping counts. There's a lot of anecdotal evidence that you'll hear in Edinburgh that rough sleepings increase in and actually what we wanted to do was drill down into that to see if it was increasing because the figures that show the number of people who come to present it's homeless following a mighty rough sleeping are actually falling so there's two ways of looking at that maybe they are falling and maybe the numbers are falling in Edinburgh or maybe there's a gap there in getting people who are rough sleeping into the services that are going to be most appropriate for them as well so that was the reason that with our partners in Edinburgh we wanted to do a true rough sleeping count and what I mean by a true rough sleeping count is that we go beyond counting people and actually we need to understand what support would be required and how we would best deliver that support and actually as we progress with a series of rough sleeping counts I think what we need to be doing is there needs to be careful monitoring off if we manage to get people who are currently rough sleeping into services what is working for them but beyond that if we count if in subsequent counts the same person is there I think we need to get some learning for that about why they're still rough sleeping as the counts go on or as time elapses so I think there's in terms of the council we've got a clear commitment with our partners in Edinburgh that we want to minimise rough sleeping wherever possible and the count's just the first stage of that but there's an enormous amount of learning we need to get about how do we get people from rough sleeping into the services and what are the barriers that are there at the moment for example street work going to the care shelters that we talked about briefly earlier every morning and what they will do is they will pick up people who are incredibly vulnerable if we may require a housing service and they will provide advice for them in the morning and that doesn't necessarily always translate to an increase in homeless presentations for people coming out to the shelter and actually that's what we would like to see so in terms of an increase in homeless presentations actually if that is getting people from a really really insecure set of circumstances where they're having to access care shelters or they're having to rough sleep to me that would be a benefit if our homelessness presentations actually increase if we're managing to get to the people who require services the most so over the course of the winter there is an enormous amount of support going into the care shelters for a variety of services health services, GPs, district nurses, homelessness professionals will be in there as well as support workers for various different agencies and that's all being co-ordinated by Bethany who operate the shelters so I think from this year what we'll get is an enormous amount of learning about how we need to develop our services going forward to take into account the needs of the people accessing the care shelters but also the needs of the people who are not accessing the care shelters that we're picking up in the rough sleeping counts. Do you want to come in specifically on rough sleeping with migrants asylum seekers? Yes, as I said in my initial presentation there is this sort of lump of people who are referred to as no recourse to public funds and there are various different little bits and pieces of work that have been done but no sort of there's not a clear idea of A, how many people have no recourse to public funds and are therefore rough sleeping or otherwise homeless and to take the next step the why. Why are people in this position and because there are people who perhaps European Economic Area Nationals who perhaps have some entitlements to mainstream housing accommodation, some may not, you have people with insecure immigration status, you have people who have been asylum seekers and are now destitute etc and there's a need for local authorities to try and dig down and get the detail of why and how people who are currently lumped in this no recourse to public funds, I apologise I always keep doing the scare quotes because there are a number of different groups of people. Ultimately the solution that we have found in terms of asylum seekers is through our destitute asylum seeker advice service where it is an advice service primarily to get people back into current structures through the section 4 support, through the home office but the start point in that is the diagnosis, the start point in that is what is your status, how can you regularise that status, what actions do you need to take or actually are there limited options within current strategy provision then we can have a look at that and we can say well what can we do with that, that work will need to have some form of specialism in terms of immigration advice and we need to be careful about who provides that, who gives that advice in the diagnosis part of it, someone would need to be at least level 1 OISC qualified office of the immigration security commission qualified in order to make that assessment as to this controlled level of legal advice to make that assessment as you have this legal status and level 1 would give the ability for that person then to say you need to go there and signpost and do those things, level 2 would be able to provide more detailed legal advice on that but that provision and the destitute asylum seeker is level 1 qualified and that provision then allows that person to say yes, you now have for example the ability to go and apply for section 4 support through the asylum system and you go there, you make that application. Other parts of it, particularly the holistic assessment part of it that we do, allow people to access other parts of there to look at how they can progress their lives and regularise their status and address health problems and all those sorts of things, can all be packaged into that particular intervention as such but there's I think a need for a much more proactive approach and a much more delineated way of working out who has recourse to public funds, who doesn't and what does actually no recourse to public funds mean in the first place? Very much Mr Stewart. Can I bring Jenny Gilruthan at this point please? Thank you, convener. This is a specific question for Paul Brown. In your submission you say that our observation is that the number of rough sleepers has soared, they are younger and there appear to be many more young women than was previously the case. Can you account for why that might be happening? I think it's quite difficult. It is difficult for people to access temporary accommodation. There is no question about that. You can track that quite easily in our practice and we don't collect very sophisticated statistics but you can track that quite easily because things change when the night shelters open in the winter. There's no doubt that the night shelters serve a very important function. I don't know why the number of non-traditional rough sleepers has increased again that it changes but I would speculate that the vulnerability of people in private rented sector accommodation changes. Some of the people are people who have no recourse to public funds or think they are in that situation. Sometimes it's care leavers, people with mental health problems. My impression is the most vulnerable often do get services. I don't want to suggest the system is not working at all but there is a need for equality's legislation to be taken very seriously with I think housing management trainers talk about walking the walk, need to walk the walk for people in all these different situations. Having said that, things seem to have eased. I don't think it's as bad as it was a year ago and at least our experience but I suppose the problem is that if no fundamental changes are made, one worries that something will happen and one doesn't know what it is and the figures will soar again. At the moment we are coping with a number of people who come to see us in terms of the limited bit that we do. We are coping but in the past we haven't been able to cope. We've had to turn people away which we don't want to do ever. If possible I want to have a quick discussion about housing first but I'm conscious of time and we really do have to try and finish by about a quarter to two. My colleague Kenneth Gibson has been patiently waiting. I'm going to call Mr Gibson at this point. It wasn't to talk about housing first, it was to talk about obviously the rights issues. I'm going to run to housing first but I'm bringing you in first. Right, okay. Thank you very much. One of the people we had giving evidence to was a former service user, Mr Thomas Lyne, supported by a legal services agent, and he said, and I quote, I spent six and a half years on the street in Glasgow. I delivered every hostel three, four or five times each. I was never offered any temporary accommodation. I had to go to the legal services agency to get into a temporary furnished flat and he is now back in mainstream housing. I'm just wondering, Mr Brown, Mr Paul Brown, if you can maybe talk to us a wee bit about the issue of rights and the inability of almost people to access those rights simply because they don't even know those rights exist or what those rights might be? Well, there's an issue about people not knowing what the rights are and where to go for them and we've made suggestions in our submission about more systematic publicity requirements and that needs to be flexible because the situation changes and it needs to be focused on the problems that people have rather than just the generality so there's certainly an issue about that. There's an issue about enforceability because local authorities are not going to go around telling people, well, not formally saying, you know, the remedy is judicial review but there is an issue about the fundamental remedy not being built into the legislation and maybe there needs to be thought about telling people more about that. I think in England there is a statutory appeal process, there is not a statutory appeal process in Scotland. Judicial review has it serves a function but I think you've probably got to be fairly sophisticated to know about that. It works quickly once you get going with it but one of the issues is that if a local authority is systematically unable to fulfil its statutory functions it can get away with avoiding judicial review by just settling giving somebody accommodation for one night or two nights or whatever it is about the problem reoccurring and I can't comment on the circumstances of the person who's talking about it but that is something that happens on a fairly regular basis that there is no permanent systematic provision made for the right source of temporary accommodation and that is one area of strategic litigation that we maybe need to look at is not just to say this person needs this but these people need this this and this and that's maybe something that we are interested in looking into. So I suppose the conclusion about that is it's quite easy to get round a local authority that needs to get round their obligations and I'm not suggesting anybody wants to do this that needs to can quite easily do that with this group because it takes a long time for the thing to go through the system and people realise which is I suppose why people need more of a voice and it's great you've heard evidence from a service user. Cymru'n gyffin? You said in your submission as you touched on and you quote that there should be a system in place where people offered accommodation are directed to law centres to ensure they're fairly aware of the rights and the possible consequences of refusing accommodation before they refuse accommodation and that is on the back of another rights-based issue you said that homeless people are at present only offered one property which if they refuse the local authority can discharge a duty to provide permanent accommodation and so people don't really are not really given information with regard to the consequences of that. Well that can be very serious yes I mean a flexible local authority and the people going through housing options and so forth that's not necessarily the case but the statutory obligation is one offer and we have come across really terrible cases where people have said oh I wanted someone with a garden I mean an idiotic reason possibly in that context but didn't realise that they were really causing themselves major problems so there is a need for the rights or for the advice possibly a bit more formally than most housing providers want because that's a formal accountability that everyone tries to avoid to some extent I'm not. Yeah that's why you said you wanted it in rating actually in your submission. Well I think there's a fair amount of what's done informally so to have things more formal and the well that's why the Code of Guidance really needs to be rewritten to explain all the glitches in detail so that everybody knows all the advice workers can now a doctor who doesn't have an expert in the field wants to check it out and everybody knows how the system operates at the moment there is no one place to go. Can I ask Mr Nicky Brown from a different perspective to comment on that please and then I'll come to do Mr Stewart who's been catching that eye. Of course I mean I think certainly in Edinburgh we operate a choice based letting system where people are required to place bids for accommodation for permanent or settled accommodation and that is through both the local authority and our RASL partners and we do operate the system where if you are offered an accommodation flat or a house that you have bid for and you refuse it then we can discharge your duties. What I would say is though in the majority cases we will be flexible with people if there's a valid reason for that sometimes we get medical information or information from the police or whatever it might be we'll look flexible upon that and there is an appeal system and that's clearly outlined both at the point of presentation and right throughout the duration of their case. One of the things that we always do is maintain contact with people just to check that they are bidding for housing and that the bids are suitable that they're right size and they're the area that they said they wanted to bid for so we do that anyway so throughout the entire case management process we have we're constantly speaking to people about the choice based letting system and what that means in ensuring that there is clear as possible that the very definition of choice based letting system is when you choose a property to move into as a local authority unless there's an exceptional reason for it we would expect you to take that property so we're constantly working with people to ensure that they know what their responsibilities are and our responsibilities as well in terms of choosing the house that they want to move into. Okay and Mr Stewart you wanted to come in? Yeah certainly the pickup on this issue of refusals and I think there are a lot of people who do go through the system particularly in the context that that I'm in where people do refuse accommodation the reasons for again just not not always entirely clear the understandings not entirely there and return to the idea that when we when we have that when support systems are in place they don't seem to to to be consistent they don't seem to regular to to properly assess people's needs and their aspirations and their and their expectations and that there is and it does seem that there are statistics we've been given certainly that that's quite high the level of refusals within refugee populations and we need to dig down into why why is that the case certainly level of understanding has got to be part of it and level of understanding of what you can expect and what and what is going to be given or going to be available to you that you what to what extent choice you know choice we talked a lot about choice talked a lot about options and things like that and do you have a choice or do you not have a choice as a one and that's it and that should be made very very clear to people and that people need to be supported independent advocacy and support has a huge is a big place in this at the moment I think some of that is being taken up by housing support agencies and but I don't think that's necessarily what the the intention of the housing support legislation was all about supporting people to to to to get that said to decide you know should I accept this property and and a system which allowed people a small amount of time we've had situations where people have said right I don't like that house because and I can't and I and I and I don't want that house because and the housing association is saying well you've got until tomorrow to decide you must must make a decision do you want it do you not want it with someone with limited understanding limited orientation limited language abilities that's incredibly challenging add into that effect the community community misinformation I think there are still there are still lots of people who think you know what you're in Glasgow you're going to get three three options you can get three choices never take your first one because the first one's going to be rubbish yeah so it's just that level of of of community misinformation we need to be doing work on that and there needs to be more support and advocacy around it thank you mr gibson do you have further lines of question it is actually to mr student it's about the the about refugee specifically and you've said in your submission in section 16 you talk about the two tier approach between the schemes given to Syrian vulnerable persons relocation scheme for which local authorities have been secured able to secure settled housing from day one and the those who claim protection through the asylum process it's just about the differences between that and just also on this you've you've talked about the needs for the creation of a Scottish anti-destitution strategy I wonder if you can touch on that too without going through all nine points because we've obviously gone down here thanks philosophy behind it we are rather a rush now so the philosophy behind the with the Syrian vpr is I think there's there's there's first of all need but Syrian vpr to to have a look at practice because practice isn't consistent across the country to look at where the successes are but people have been and the information that we've been getting that there are really good examples of practice where people have been provided with accommodation usually sublet by the council from a housing association but not in all circumstances and then after a couple of months once people are settled and once people have got their their benefits and and all those sorts of things that accommodation is effectively flipped from a from the council through to a full-time tenancy and those examples where we that we've seen have been very successful so to look at those examples I think we do need to because it's not consistent across the country by such imagination some local authorities using more private learning sector than others some putting more using more different and the issue of silo working there's different levels of silo working some of the local authorities we see have got so many different agencies involved in all this that there's that we could be using that as an example more widely as to how you get lots of different agencies involved what was the other part of the question again well the bit was about the destitution strategy about destitution strategy yeah and it touches on what I was saying but there are not I don't think there are at the moment in the current statutory structure it is not it's not it's not possible to to necessarily deal with to to say there's a solution across across the board so long as people don't have access to public funds and some people do but to put in place a destitution strategy which looks at what is the possible what is the possible for for Scottish Government to do to pick out of there of of their responsibilities and there are lots of areas where Scottish Government can and does get involved or Scottish local authorities do for example through social work services through the allocation of funds for advocacy and support and advice services and those sorts of things for people who wouldn't be able to apply as homeless but might their their destitution might be alleviated but going all the way through to after people have moved on from temporary accommodation people still find themselves destitute taking into account the stuff that we talked about with universal credit people will be destitute well past their well past their their 28 day move on period and where we with that strategy can target those areas and it's not just and and I don't think it is there and the the committee wasn't just dealing with refugees and asylum seekers as well it was dealing with people with insecure immigration status as well and which is an issue which I don't it hasn't really been touched on really kind of really really really really kind of focused on how how do we delineate this how do we how do we work out your destitute because you're of this issue this is your solution and uh the that's I could ask mr brown to very paul brown to very briefly comment on that status the immigration status I think you made some comment in your written statement on this well when people get status housing doesn't necessarily go along with it on various occasions we've had 10 people waiting in the waiting room saying you know I'm homeless there doesn't there is a joining up that needs to be done I think there's willingness on the part of the local authority to do that it just needs to happen I mean it sort goes back to the needs to really systematically look at unintended consequences and unfortunately you know those sitting on the horizon is the as welfare reform but there are other issues as well we're well over time now and I'm going to ask my colleague Andy Wightman to finish off this session with some quick lines of questioning please yes I'll just ask three brief questions and it's up to you which which if you want to pick up which one first of all on the back of Kenny Gibson's question there are Thomas Lyon ended up in his 10-year cycle of homelessness et cetera because his private sector landlord went bankrupt and the creditors evicted him that remains a grounds of eviction in the new legislation private tensies legislation if you're wondering if you agree perhaps just Paul to address that that's still valid grounds for eviction second housing first brief comments we had discussion in the previous session but your feelings and views on that briefly and third have you any comments on the Scottish government's proposed indeed it's setting up of the short life working group to end rough sleeping take the first two questions first I'll ask specifically Paul Brown to respond on the specific question that was put to you the grounds for eviction do you mind if I send a written submission on making that absolutely clear because I don't want to in any way there's nuances and complexities but it's certainly an area of concern so the second question housing first general comments I don't think I'm positioned to talk about housing policy issues I mean we focus on legal issues I have personal views thank you very much but Mr Nicky Brown does wish to call me very quickly just to say that it's housing first I think from a local authority perspective I think most people are bought into it I think that's absolutely something that we'll consider as a local authority we've just set up our own task force as well on Edinburgh so that would be elected elected member led and one of the key things that I require to do a briefing for them is on housing first and the different models and just quickly it was really interesting to hear about the Helsinki model because the the other reports or the other academic work that's being going on is very clear about the process you need to follow for introducing housing first so it's really interesting here that Finland have chosen to do it differently. Thank you and before I come to the Scottish Government's short life expert working group can I ask each of you if you wish to make a comment on that can you also then make a comment any last comment that you want to make that you feel we haven't covered if there's one point that you would like us to consider that we haven't covered now is your chance I'll start with Mr Connolly. Can I just make a comment on housing first? Of course. It's a model that many of our members have, organisations have adopted and I suppose as Mr Brown there said the early the early kind of implementation of housing first was pretty fundamentalist and rigid I think in terms of implementing it there has to be a flexibility and I think you know Lorraine McGraw highlighted that very succinctly so yes we would support it 100% for the Scottish Government to do it because our members have embraced it but not in a fundamentalist way that there is flexibility built in. And the expert working group do you have some opinions on that? I don't have any opinions on that. Is there anything that you want to just put on the record that we haven't touched on very briefly? I just think in terms of also was talked about smalling the psychology and foreign environments is a very valid model which is being rolled out in the voluntary sector so I would like to see that the Scottish Government embrace that and promote that because it focuses on the emotional and psychological needs of people and not just about all the physical stuff. Thank you very much Mr Stewart expert working group and any final short comment that you feel hasn't been touched upon? The housing first thing focuses really on multiple and complex needs and to get rid of this idea of tenancy readiness what I would like the sort of focus of that I think that's absolutely valid and should be an ongoing theme moving forward particularly for the for the short life group as well but to have this idea that although the the rest of the people the people who maybe don't have multiple and complex needs they those people still need to have needs and have support needs and that the idea of that assessment should still be central to do that you need accurate assessment you need to be able to get at people's needs and aspirations and all the other things something which I think in the implementation of what's going on is not happening now what that will have an effect on doing is if we can push people through homeless systems where there is supply in the same Glasgow there appears to be that the that it frees up this it frees up temporary accommodation it frees up the the rest of the system and is and is we talked about preventative spend and all that it is a form of preventative spend so the the message I think is yes housing first is important but there's also this this this rest of the of the the homeless population who won't qualify for housing first they don't have multiple and complex needs and all those things they do have needs those needs must be assessed and by assessing intervening early in those cases we will we will in turn free up the rest of the system to to to deal with things that are perhaps more difficult to deal with and there are people with multiple and complex needs who fall within the refugee population it certainly is true and those and we would like to see those people being dealt with intensively the the other body of people who might need support with orientation they might need the advocacy on their behalf that that itself has a has a knock-on effect and is able to kind of get people what they what they need but also systemically it frees up the system okay thank you mr paul brown expert working group in any final remark um well i think any working groups great news but i would hope that it's done in an open way one of the fundamental things that we lack is lack of debate and discussion i wouldn't see an expert working group is functioning well if it just goes off applies its expertise and produces a whole load of proposals it needs to be an open system possibly taking evidence individually possibly having a series of conferences or workshops that's what needs to happen um there is no one person who is an expert and everything about this in fact a fundamental problem has been on the occasion when people have thoughts they are so that i would say that's a fundamental thing and the other thing that i would hope and i'm sure everyone shares this is to try and get over to the public as a whole and policymakers the result of all our experience and research is that this problem is caused by poverty and disadvantage and this isn't some sort of strange peculiar personality defect that people have which has too often comes up as people's answer to everything about it and we have the great advantage that i think recent research has been produced that shows that pretty comprehensively so we can go out there with 100 confidence and say that i think we can get that message over and get that approach in the code of guidance and any further reform i think some real things will have been achieved thank you very much and last word mr nickiproed i would just echo some of the stuff that paul was saying there about poverty and disadvantage but just finally i'll keep my comments on the working group until we've seen some actions coming from it thank you very much and can i thank you all for coming along i apologise again for the delay but i think that we have managed to allocate sufficient time as much as we could to this particular session and panel so thank you all very much for coming along and can i now move the committee into private session for the next agenda item thank you


Web-based education has become increasingly popular among universities and colleges around the world. In order to keep up with the changing needs of the IT industry, higher education institutions must adapt their curriculums to better prepare graduates for the job market. This includes incorporating more online components into the existing coursework, such as lab rotations, individual rotation, flipped learning scenarios, and cloud computing. Additionally, the use of augmented and virtual reality technologies can help create a more immersive experience for students. This article was authored by Svetlana L. Proskora and Svetlana H. Livanova.


Hello and welcome to the STM32L4 MOOC online training. My name is André Barata and I will guide you through the low power timer hands-on session. The low power timer peripheral embedded in the STM32L4 microcontroller provides a 16-bit timer that is able to run even in stop 0, stop 1 and stop 2 low power modes. This is possible thanks to the flexible clocking scheme. The low power timer peripheral provides a basic general-purpose timer functionalities with very low power consumption when compared to the other timers. One major functionality of the low power timer is its capability to keep running even when no internal clock source is active. This is possible by configuring it in a synchronous counting mode. The low power timer is a peripheral with dual clock domain. The APB clock domain contains the peripherals registers, sometimes referred also as APB interface. The kernel clock domain contains the low power timer peripherals core functions. The kernel clock domain can be clocked by the APB clock source or by HSI, LSI or LSE oscillators. Moreover, it can be clocked from an external clock source through the input 1 of the timer. The low power timer also features an encoder mode function that can be used to interface with incremental quadrature encoders using both inputs. The input and external trigger features glitch filters. In this session, we will learn how to configure and generate code for the low power timer peripheral in STM32 Cubemix. In specific, we will be using the timeout functionality which we will use to wake up the microcontroller in case there was no edge detected within a specified time frame. The low power timer can be configured to operate in timeout mode with external trigger on a pin, and the microcontroller can be put in low power mode. The low power timer counter will be reset each time there is an active edge on the pin. This means as long as the edges are detected, the microcontroller will be continued in low power mode. Once there is no edge within the specified time frame, the microcontroller is woken up by the compare event from low power timer. Let's now open the STM32 Cubemix to start generating our code. With the STM32 Cubemix open, we will start by clicking on new project. We will type our part number, STM32L476VG, and then we select appropriate part. We start the project. First we are going to configure the PE8 pin as output to drive the green LED on our discovery board. Then from the peripheral tree, we will configure the low power timer to count internal clock events mode with external trigger. The external trigger pin PC3 will be highlighted in green, and we will remap it to PA5. PE5 is located on the discovery board next to the PE0, which is internally wired to the center button of the joystick. We will create external interrupts by pressing it, and we will connect these two pins via a jumper. In case you don't have any jumper, one can be found in the back part of our discovery board. In the next step, we will enable the low speed external oscillator. This oscillator is already embedded on our discovery board. In the clock configuration window, we will configure the low speed external oscillator as clock source for the low power timer too. When clocked by the oscillator, the low power timer too is now independent on the system clock. And it's capable to run in top low power modes. The only thing we will need to change in the configuration tab is the following active edge. Other parameters will be left in default configuration. In the NVIC setting tab, we will need to enable the low power timer to global interrupt. At this point, everything has been configured in the STM32QBmx, so we can save our project and generate our code using system workbench for STM32 as our IDE. After the code has been successfully generated and system workbench for STM32 has been opened, we are going to the main.c file which is in the source folder. As we can see, the functions for the system clock configuration, GPIO and low power timer to initialization has been automatically generated and are called from the main function. Let's check the low power timer init function first. The handle structure for the low power timer too is filled with parameters based on our configuration in STM32QBmx. The HAL low power timer init function is called with a pointer to the handle structure past this argument. This function sets the peripheral registers based on the configuration of the handle structure. We will now open the STM32L4XXIT.C source file. This file contains exception and interrupt handlers. At the top of this file there are exception handlers for core exception such as non-maskable interrupts or hard-fought handlers. Let's now scroll down to the bottom. The low power timer to interrupt handler has been automatically generated in the file by the STM32QBmx. Inside this handler the HAL low power timer erkey handler function is called. Let's have a closer look on this function. As we can see this function checks which flag is set, clears it and calls a corresponding callback function. In our example we will use compare callback. When we check the callback functions we can see that they are defined as weak. This means that we can redefine this function elsewhere in the program and the compiler will consider the new definition as the valid one. If there is no other definition the compiler will use the weak one. Let's copy the callback function and redefine it in main.c source file. Usually the new definition of the callback functions are placed in between user code begin for and user code end for comments. Be sure not to copy also the weak symbol. Inside this callback we will turn the green LED to signalize that the compare value from the low power timer to has been reached. If we have a closer look to the system clock config function we can see that the low speed external oscillator has been turned on. In addition to that it has been set as clock source for low power timer 2. Let's continue our coding by defining a period and timeout for the low power timer 2. If we define the period as 65535 and the timeout as 32767 it will result in a 1 second timeout. The period value will be reached into the auto reload register containing a reload value and the timeout value to the compare register. Now we must find the proper function to start the low power timer 2 in request mode. We can start typing hal low power timer and press control space. This will give us a list of proposals. We will choose the hal low power timer timeout start it function. As it can be seen this function expects as arguments a pointer to the peripheral handle structure a period and timeout value. Everything is prepared let's pass it to the function. We will also check the return value and call error handler in case of a failure. As a last step since the low power timer 2 is clocked from the low speed external oscillator we can enter the stop 1 low power mode with WFI as stop entry. The meaning of this parameter is not relevant for this hands on, but you can refer to the low power mode part for more detailed information. In this mode the core clock as well as the clock for most of the peripherals are stopped and thus the overall power consumption is reduced. We have just finished our coding section, let's now build the project and enter the debug mode. Now if we run the program by pressing the resume button we will see that the green LED is turned on after one second. If we press the joystick center regularly before the one second timeout period expires we will postpone the timeout event. Thank you for watching.


What's up everyone? Take down here. Welcome back to the channel. Today I'm going to be sharing my thoughts and predictions on WWE Super Showdown. It is a little bit more than a week away and it is going to be WWE's biggest event in Australia. I have the matches right in front of me, like always. Let's just get right into it. Starting off with the WWE Cruiserweight Championship match, Cedric Alexander vs Buddy Murphy. I've mentioned it before in other prediction videos. I'm a huge fan of Cedric Alexander. I think he's going to retain the championship in this match. That is my final prediction that he is going to win. I see it happening myself. Hopefully it does. Next up we have Asuka and Naomi vs The Iconics. Honestly, I'm a huge fan of Asuka and Naomi. I'm glad they're teaming up in this match. It is going to be pretty interesting and my final prediction is that they are going to win. Next up is the Smackdown Tag Team Champions. The New Day vs The Buyer. Honestly, I love that the New Day are the Tag Team Champions. I am happy that Kofi Kingston has held the Tag Team Championships for the most consecutive days in WWE history. I think that is amazing accomplishment for him. Honestly, I believe that the New Day is going to retain the Tag Team Championships and they are going to win this match. I would love to see The Buyer win the Smackdown Tag Team Championships in the future, but I think the New Day is on one of their highs right now, so I think they are going to continue their streak. Next up is Daniel Bryan vs The Miz. Honestly, I think this is going to be the end of the rivalry because the winner of this match is going to be the number one contender for the WWE Championship. It does look like it's going to be pretty interesting. There's going to be a lot at stake. Honestly, as I've mentioned before, I'm a huge fan of The Miz. That is who I really want to see. I'd like to see him as WWE Champion again or at least get an opportunity for the title. That is my final prediction. However, I think WWE is going to give it to Daniel Bryan. I think Daniel Bryan is going to win this match and then he's going to face AJ Styles. I think that is a dream match that everybody is wanting to see for the Championship. I think that's what WWE is going to do, but my final prediction is that The Miz is going to win this match and get an opportunity for the Championship. Next up is John Cena and Bobby Lashley vs Kevin Owens and Elias. Honestly, I'm a huge fan of Kevin Owens, but I do not like Elias and John Cena returning in a pay-per-view. I think it's going to be pretty interesting. I don't know how much time he has left in the WWE and I'm a huge fan of Bobby Lashley. I think Bobby Lashley should get a shot for the Universal Championship. I think that is in the works right now. So my prediction for this match, the final prediction is John Cena and Bobby Lashley are going to win. Next up, the SmackDown Women's Championship match, Becky Lynch vs Charlotte Flair. Honestly, I'm a huge fan of Becky Lynch. I'm glad she won the Championship again. I think she's going to retain the Championship. I really hope Charlotte does not get the Championship again. So my final prediction is that Becky Lynch is going to win. Next up is Ronda Rousey and the Bella Twins vs the Riot Squad. I know Liv Morgan just got injured, so this match may change. It might just be the Bella Twins vs what's left of the Riot Squad. I think that is fair to say that is likely going to happen, but we shall see. Right now it's still set in stone on their website saying that this is going to be a match. Liv Morgan has a concussion right now, so I doubt she's going to be in the match. But regardless, I think Ronda Rousey and the Bella Twins, if this match does happen, I think they're going to win and that is my final prediction. Next up is the WWE Championship match, AJ Styles vs Samoa Joe. Honestly, I feel that Samoa Joe is going to win the WWE Championship very soon. However, I'm really hoping AJ Styles does win the match and retain the Championship. So then we can have either AJ Styles vs the Miz or AJ Styles vs Daniel Bryan. Either way, to me, that is a dream match for the Championship. Hopefully, Samoa Joe does not win so we can actually see this match happening. So my final prediction right now is AJ Styles is going to retain the WWE Championship and win this match. Next up is the Shield vs Braun Strowman, Dolph Ziggler and Drew McIntyre. This is going to be a very interesting match. I was kind of hoping for a six-man tag team Hell in a Cell at Hell in a Cell with these guys, but I'm glad they're going to be doing it now. It is pretty funny that the Shield that they've reunited, they are now face and I think everybody is behind them. Everybody is backing them up. Honestly, I think the Shield is going to win. That is my final prediction right now. That's the only outcome that I see actually happening in this match. And the final match on the card, the match that everybody is talking about, wondering what is going to happen. It is the Undertaker vs Triple H for the last time ever. So my final prediction for this match is the Undertaker. I think everybody is going to say the Undertaker is going to win. I honestly think after this year's WrestleMania, he is going to retire and he's going to go in the Hall of Fame. I think this is kind of his last way to say bye to the fans is making all these appearances this past year. I know he was supposed to retire a few years ago. I know he's kind of going downhill with his in-ring skills. So hopefully he does win this match. It will be a milestone for him. It is going to be pretty interesting to end the rivalry with Triple H. Finally, so these are my predictions right now for WWE Super Showdown. Comment down below if you agree or disagree who you think is going to win in the matches at the Pay Per View. I will leave this video here. Hope you guys didn't enjoy it. I'll see you guys in the next video. Please take care. Peace.


The Evolution Foundation, a non-profit organization established by Saudi royal decree and receiving funding from the Saudi government, has publicly emerged and announced up to $1 billion a year to fund the science of increasing healthy human lifespan. Rumors about the Evolution Foundation have been trickling out for a few years now, but the organization has been operating in a bit of secrecy. But now there's much more clarity, as the Evolution Foundation has come forth and publicly introduced themselves in an article posted by Dr. Mahmood Khan who serves as their CEO. The article states that Evolution Foundation is a pioneering new organization with a laser-like focus on dramatically improving a condition that affects every human on the planet, aging. Our mission is to drive efforts to extend healthy human lifespan, or health span, and to better understand the processes of aging. To this end, they have an annual budget of up to $1 billion US dollars to accelerate science and bring therapies to market. What exactly this money will be spent on is still unclear, but near the top of the list appears to be helping to fund the long-awaited Targeting Aging with Metformin Trial, or TAME Trial. Led by Dr. Nir Barzalai, TAME would test whether those taking the popular diabetes drug Metformin experienced delayed development or progression of age-related chronic diseases such as heart disease, cancer and dementia. The study has been in the works for years, with funding as the major remaining obstacle. The team at lifespan.io has also made it a priority to get the TAME Trial off the ground and may become directly involved with this in the days ahead, so be on the lookout for potential announcement on that front. Another possible destination for some of this money, which was mentioned in a recent MIT Technology Review article from Antonio Regalato, would be funding a possible $100 million X-Prize for age-reversal technology. Longevity is something that X-Prize has been eyeing for a while, and I expect some serious action, including the potential launch of this prize in the near future. So who is behind this and why? Evolution Foundation CEO Dr. Mahmood Khan is a well-known leader in the Longevity community. He is a founding member of the Longevity Biotechnology Association, which we covered in a previous episode, and serves as Executive Chairman of Life Biosciences, a company co-founded by Harvard's Dr. Davidson Clare, seeking to develop therapeutics that can prevent, treat or reverse multiple aging-related conditions. Previously, Dr. Khan served as Global Vice Chairman and Chief Scientific Officer of PepsiCo. The rest of the Board of Trustees and management team is composed largely of members of the Saudi royal family and Saudi officials. The Chairman of the Evolution Foundation is Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, son of the Saudi king and widely regarded as the de facto government leader. Other noteworthy members of the leadership include Russian billionaire and British peer Evgeny Lebedev, who controls media outlets such as The Evening Standard and The Independent, American billionaire businessman and part owner of the Pittsburgh Penguins Ron Berkel, and former CEO and Chairman of Dow Chemical Andrew Leveris. So why is the Saudi government so interested in Longevity? While in part this makes sense, given their claimed focus on future initiatives such as Saudi Vision 2030, which seeks to diversify their economy and invest in sustainability, healthcare, education, artificial intelligence, and robotics projects. Part of the motivation for some of these initiatives could also be to improve the image of Saudi Arabia and the Saudi government in the eyes of the international community. Beyond that, Dr. Khan's introduction article states that there is evidence that Gulf Cooperation Council populations are aging faster biologically than they are chronologically. Despite the region having one of the youngest populations in the world, its people are experiencing higher mortality from chronic conditions like heart disease and diabetes. Evolution's goal is health span equity and we will devote the resources needed to achieve it. This region, with its history of generating founding principles in science and medicine, yet suffering from significant age-related risks, presents a strong case to be the catalyst for health span transformation worldwide. One concern we sometimes hear when discussing Longevity is, what happens if an oppressive dictator never dies and therefore holds power forever? This is a concern that might especially come up when we're talking about a single government, such as Saudi Arabia, investing in longevity technology. We previously released an episode of the X-10 show explaining why this fear is misguided, but I do think it's one we'll continue to face and should have good answers for. In this particular instance, I want to see that Saudi Arabia is seeking to forward science to help everyone, not just their leadership and not just their country. Thankfully that appears to be the case. Under the headline A Transparent Global Organization, the Evolution Foundation website states that, we seek to democratize science and knowledge. They go on to say that, we aim to work closely with global entities and research centers that share the same mission and objectives. Global success depends upon global collaboration, which lies at the heart of our mandate. While the organization is headquartered in the Saudi capital, they say there are hubs planned in North America, Europe and Asia. This sounds great, but we as a longevity community and an international community should keep a close watch and make sure that these things do in fact happen. For anyone who is still skeptical or fears that Saudi advancements in this area will leave other nations behind, this is a great opportunity to encourage your own governments to invest in the fight against aging as well. Overall, I consider this great news. I'm a fan of anything that speeds up longevity technology and I look forward to what's to come from the Evolution Foundation. When there's more to share, we'll have it for you here, so please subscribe so you don't miss out. I'm Ryan O'Shea and we'll see you next time on Lifespan News.