Ministers have come under fire for ending a fund set up to help prevent homelessness and child poverty in Scotland with no plans to replace it with a new one.

The multi-million pound Homelessness Prevention Fund was launched with a fanfare in 2019 to support housing associations and social landlords to work with their tenants to prevent crisis and stop families from becoming homeless in the first place.

A commitment of the SNP's Programme for Government and which was initially set to run till the end of 2023, it has emerged there are no plans to continue it or replace it.

Administered by the Scottish Federation of Housing Associations, it was aimed at delivering support for those households at most risk of poverty including, lone parents, families with three or more children, people with a disability, young parents and women facing homelessness and/or recovering from domestic abuse.

The money provided by the taxpayer would support families to help pay rent arrears where there was a significant risk of homelessness and there was no other means of support and through the provision of financial advice to reduce household costs and employment support.

It made nearly 7000 interventions and some 2,764 people have been supported over three years across five stages of homelessness prevention.

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And social housing sector charity HACT has been calling for an extension or widening of the funding programme which it said would outline a commitment to resourcing housing support services and help reduce the numbers in temporary accommodation.

And an analysis by the SFHA, tenants have suggested the short-term support "is required as a foundational step".

But housing minister Paul McLennan has confirmed that the "time-limited fund" would not be extended and there were no plans to replace it.

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He has said in a response to a question about its future: "We have not extended this particular scheme as the work required to end homelessness has evolved. In particular, the commitment to introduce new homelessness prevention duties points to the need for more targeted funding fully aligned with the aims of the legislation."

He added: "There are currently no plans to create a new homelessness prevention fund. In line with our commitment to introduce homelessness prevention duties, we agree with the principle that investment should be prioritised for prevention work, to address homelessness before households reach crisis point and to prevent repeat homelessness.

"We make a significant annual investment in discretionary housing payments (over £90 million in 2024-25) to help people who are struggling with housing costs to remain in their homes.

"We also have a multi-year fund of £100 million to deliver actions in our homelessness strategy, the Ending Homelessness Together action plan, which has prevention at its heart."

But Scottish Conservatives deputy chair Paul Gosal, who has been tracking the progress of the fund, said: “The SNP housing minister must explain why the calls from the Scottish Federation of Housing Association have fallen on deaf ears while Scotland faces a housing emergency.

“Homelessness rates have soared on the SNP’s watch and the removal of support like this poses a real risk to vulnerable people.

“Cash-strapped councils which have been hit by SNP cuts year after year mean they simply do not have the resources to tackle this emergency and deliver the housing people need.

“Failing to extend this support only risks exacerbating this emergency and making more people homeless in Scotland and my party will continue holding the SNP government to account for their overwhelming failures in failing to meet Scotland’s housing needs.”

The Herald in its housing emergency series found that a raft of Scots children equivalent to the population of St Andrews were being declared as homeless last year in a national housing scandal.

Our investigation has revealed that every day 50 Scots children are being hit by homelessness while the numbers languishing in halfway house temporary accommodation because they cannot be found settled homes has hit record levels, having more than trebled in twenty years.

Some 18,400 children are included among the 64,000 Scots within families who have been seeking homelessness support from councils last year, despite widespread attempts to curb homelessness.

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The estimates based on requested council and government evidence which lays bare the extent of the nation's homelessness crisis showed nearly 1400 more children in families were seeking homelessness help from councils than there were in the pre-pandemic year of 2019.

Councils have seen a near 4800 rise in the number of Scots who were declaring they did not have a home to go to in just four years despite widespread attempts to curb homelessness.

It all comes six years after the Scottish Government launched an action plan to build affordable homes which was meant to curb homelessness, cut the use of temporary accommodation and rapidly rehouse people.

In May, First Minister John Swinney declared the eradication of child poverty as his "single most important objective". He said child poverty "stands in the way of both social justice and economic growth".

Housing minister Kevin Stewart announced the establishment of the fund on Scottish Housing Day five years ago, saying: “We want to eradicate homelessness for good and we recognise the important role of social landlords in helping us achieve this, especially through the preventative measures this fund can help with.

“This fund is an important step forward in joining up services and making sure that everyone in Scotland has a safe, warm place to call home.”

The Scottish Government set up the £1.5m fund, but there was also to be a further £4m associated with it for initiatives to enhance family incomes by improving access to work.

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Explainers on invitations to apply for the fund were told: "Failing to prevent homelessness is not only costly for the public purse, but hugely damaging and destructive for individuals."

It was meant to support delivery of recommendations made to ministers by the Homelessness and Rough Sleeping Action Group in July, 2020.

One of those recommendations was about testing and targeting homelessness prevention approaches across wider public services, "including for those at risk of eviction due to rent arrears or income shortfalls, those experiencing or at risk of domestic abuse, or women engaged in commercial sexual exploitation".