Housing statistics 2019: key trends summary

Annual statistics up to 31 March 2018 on total new housing supply in Scotland across all sectors, along with information on various elements of local authority housing such as stock, lettings, house sales, evictions, housing lists, and housing for older people and people with disabilities.

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Local Authority Lettings

During 2018-19 there were 26,455 permanent lettings made, an increase of 789 lets (3%) compared to 25,666 lettings in the previous year.

Of all the local authority lettings made in 2018-19, 41% were to homeless households, compared to 42% in 2017-18. There were a total of 10,952 lettings to homeless households in 2018-19, an increase of 1% on the 10,805 lettings in 2017-18.

The proportion of lets allocated to homeless applicants can be a useful indicator in measuring local authorities’ capacity to sustain the 2012 homelessness commitment whereby all unintentionally homeless households are entitled to settled accommodation.

Mirroring the falling stock levels, the number of local authority lettings decreased each year throughout the 2000s (Chart 14) until 2008-09. The number of lettings increased slightly each year between 2011-12 and 2013-14, then decreased. During 2018-19 there were 26,455 permanent lettings made, an increase of 789 lets or 3% on the 25,666 permanent lettings in 2017-18.

Chart 14: 19,952 permanent local authority lettings were to homeless households compared to 5,634 for transfers for existing tenants and 973 for those on housing waiting lists in 2018-19, a similar pattern to the previous four years

Chart 14: 19,952 permanent local authority lettings were to homeless households compared to 5,634 for transfers for existing tenants and 973 for those on housing waiting lists in 2018-19, a similar pattern to the previous four years

Chart 15 shows that there were some regional variations in the proportion of permanent lettings by source of tenant. For example, lets to homeless households made up 77% of all permanent lettings in Edinbugh, compared to 22% in East Ayrshire. The proportion of lets made to housing waiting list applicants varied between 13% in Edinburgh, to 74% in Orkney.

More information can be found here: http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2002/08/sst/3 

Chart 15: The number of permanent local authority lettings by sources of tenant in 2018-19 varied in each local authority

Chart 15: The number of permanent local authority lettings by sources of tenant in 2018-19 varied in each local authority

Link to tables on local authority lettings: http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Statistics/Browse/Housing-Regeneration/HSfS/StockManagement  

Link to Scottish Government Social Tenants Statistics, which includes information on lettings across both the local authority and housing association sectors:
https://www.gov.scot/publications/social-tenants-scotland-2017/

The Scottish Government publishes a range of information on Homelessness, including the number of lets for homeless households, collected through the HL1 return:  http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Statistics/Browse/Housing-Regeneration/RefTables 

Contact

Email: lyndsey.middleton@gov.scot

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