THE COUNCIL'S head of social care has rejected criticism of the homelessness service and pointed the finger at housing associations.

Councillor Malcolm Cunning spoke to the Evening Times after we revealed recently that hundreds of people are sleeping rough because they local authority is failing to meet a legal obligation to provide emergency accommodation.

Research by Glasgow Homelessness Network (GHN) has found that 65% of people who asked for help were told there were no beds left in the city. They estimate that 504 people "obtained an outcome of no accommodation available" last year.

The Evening Times turned up at Glasgow's homelessness out of hours service at The Hamish Allan Centre and seconds into an interview a council worker admitted "I've got no accommodation in Glasgow tonight".

We then sought help from one of the city's three homelessness casework teams and we were told we'd have to take legal action against the council to force the local authority to find emergency accommodation.

One solicitor told the Evening Times he has represented hundreds of homeless people in the last year and raised fears that lawyers have become part of a "dysfunctional system which denies legal rights to some of the most vulnerable in society".

Frank Jarvis of Legal Services Agency (LSA) said: "It is a rare day that we don't have at least one client attend having been refused temporary accommodation by the local authority. Sometimes we will have three of four in a single day. Mostly they will have spent the previous night sleeping rough.

"Some caseworkers have told us that there is such pressure on the system they will only accommodate homeless applicants with legal letters like the ones we produce."

Mr Jarvis said LSA had taken on more than 1000 cases in the last three years.

Meanwhile, figures provided by Govan Law Centre show that their solicitors helped 600 homeless people secure emergency accommodation in the last two years.

Councillor Cunning has dismissed the concerns and insisted an increase in the number of homeless people using lawyers to force the council to provide emergency accommodation is down to "awareness".

"I recognise and we've already accepted that there are continued pressures on the service but dysfunctional is not a description of the service we provide that I'd recognise," he said.

"The figures are a product of a greater number of people being aware of the sort of letter and sort of service that law centres can provide, quite legitimately.

"I'm absolutely not criticising the organisations or the individuals that make use of them but I don't think there is a correlation between the number of people using their services and the total number of homeless people experiencing either delays or difficulties.

"I think part of the causation is that those organisations are quite legitimately offering a service and the fact they are offering it is more and more widely known. That's why there has been a rise in the use of their services. That's a suspicion I'd strongly have."

Councillor Cunning also defended the council's failure to provide the same number of emergency accommodation places which were lost during a Scottish Government-funded hostel closure programme which ended in early 2013, leaving only 400 emergency beds in the city.

"We were trying to reduce the number," he said. "The core of the strategy at the moment is to get earlier intervention to prevent the situation where the person becomes effectively immediately homeless and the street or emergency accommodation is the only option.

"It's not only the number of places available, it's the speed at which people move through them. If people move through quickly, there is enough from the throughput."

Councillor Cunning has previously criticised Glasgow's 69 housing associations for failing to provide enough flats for homeless people.

Director of Glasgow and West of Scotland Forum of Housing Associations David Bookbinder told the Evening Times they are "making a good contribution" and have been "trying to work with the council to sort out the system used to refer homeless applicants to local associations".

He added: "The real issue here is that for the referral system to work more efficiently there needs to be a much better connection between the referrals made and the number and type of stock held by housing associations, its location and its turnover."

Councillor Cunning suggested the council is considering a new system to ensure homeless people have easier access to affordable homes.

He said: "We as a council certainly continuously attempt to provide assistance to those who are in immediate crisis, as well as finding long term accommodation for individuals that is in an environment where our access to long term accommodation has been restricted because of what the registered social landlords are making available to us.

"There is a particular issue in Glasgow. One of the difficulties for people in Glasgow is simply the plethora of housing associations. There are efforts being made to try to get to a position where we have a single application that somebody can fill in and then be forwarded to every single housing association and considered."

The councillor added that he couldn't put a timescale on the change but said it is "something that is being raised" by the council and the housing associations.