Scottish House Condition Survey Local Authority Tables 2022-2024
Scottish House Condition Survey Local Authority Tables 2022-2024
Tolerable Standard
The Tolerable Standard is a “condemnatory” standard which means that it is not reasonable to expect people to continue to live in a house that falls below it[1].
The Tolerable Standard is assessed against 14 criteria[2] and where a property fails to meet one or more of the criteria, it is judged to have failed to meet the standard.
Since 2022 there has been a sharp increase in the proportion of below tolerable standard dwellings. This is due to the two new below tolerable standard criteria that were introduced in 2022 (assessing the presence, type and condition of smoke, heat, and carbon monoxide alarms).
In the period 2022-2024, an average of 28% of dwellings in Scotland failed the Tolerable Standard (Figure 14). Highland (21%), Fife (20%), Moray (20%), West Dunbartonshire (20%), Shetland Islands (19%), West Lothian (18%) and Dundee City (17%) had failure rates lower than the Scottish average. Two local authorities had failure rates higher than the Scotland average: East Lothian (39%) and Glasgow City (34%).
On average across 2022-2024, 28% of dwellings failed the Tolerable Standard.
Figure 14: Percent of dwellings failing the Tolerable Standard compared to Scotland average. SHCS 2022-2024. [Note 1]
[1] The Tolerable Standard was amended by the Housing (Scotland) Act 1987 (Tolerable Standard) (Extension of Criteria) Order 2019 and from 2022 includes a new element covering smoke, heat, and carbon monoxide alarms. For more information on the Tolerable Standard see section 2.10 of the Methodological and Technical notes.
[2] See section 2.10 of the Methodology notes for a list for these criteria.