Housing Options (Prevent1) Statistics in Scotland: 2024-25

Prevention activity

There were a total of 88,090 prevention activities carried out in 2024-25, a 7% decrease compared to last year. 

Largest decrease in prevention activity was for rent, repairs, referrals and negotiations with landlords, down 31%

Chart 5: Activity types carried out, 2022-23 to 2024-25

The only increase was for general housing/tenancy rights advice (from 40,919 to 41,573, 2%) in the last year.

Most prevention activity is undertaken by the local authority housing department

Chart 6: Organisation carrying out prevention activity, 2024-25 [LA refers to local authority]

There has been an increase in the number and proportion of activities undertaken by local authority revenues and benefits department over the last couple of years (565 in 2022-23 increasing to 7,580 in 2023-24, before decreasing to 4,035 in 2024-25). This corresponds to  5% of all activities in the latest year compared to 8% in the previous year. The vast majority of this type of activity is within Dumfries & Galloway, who restructured services with a focus on prevention in the last two years.

Type of prevention activity

Local authorities may undertake several activities related to Housing Options approaches. These are grouped in to three types, based on ‘workload’, where type I is considered the least resource intensive and type III is the most resource intensive.

• Type I – Active Information, Sign-posting and Explanation
• Type II – Casework
• Type III – Advocacy, Representation and Mediation at Tribunal or Court Action Level

Of all approaches in 2024-25, 49% involved providing active information, sign-posting or explanation only and 51% involved casework (note: these may also have included type I activities).

Very few local authorities report advocacy work, with East Lothian and Angus being highest with 5% and 3%, respectively.