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4 Housing Quality

52. The Scottish Housing Quality Standard ( SHQS) was announced by the Minister for Communities in February 2004 ²¹. All social landlords must ensure that all of their dwellings pass the SHQS by 2015. The SHQS consists of 5 criteria, the dwelling must be:

• Above the statutory Tolerable Standard; ²²
• Free from serious disrepair;
• Energy efficient;
• With modern facilities and services;
• Healthy, safe and secure.

Communities Scotland has further information on the SHQS²³.

53. Estimates of failure rates from the 2002 SHCS were produced following the announcement. Fieldwork for the 2003/4 survey began in October 2003, before the final clarification of the SHQS in July 2004 ²⁴. Thus the 2003/4 survey (and the 2002 survey) did not gather all the information required to fully assess dwellings against the SHQS. The surveys did not cover the number of sockets in the kitchen, safety of gas and oil systems, kitchen layout, kitchen safety, kitchen storage and disrepair to attached garages. This was rectified in the 2004/5 and 2005/6 surveys in which all of these areas were included. Given the profile of failures across the SHQS criteria, we believe the addition of this information would not materially affect the estimates of overall failure already published.

Table 21: Scottish Housing Quality Standard 2005/6 (000s and %)

54. Approximately 67% of dwellings in Scotland failed the SHQS in 2005/6. This estimate is lower than the rates of failure in 2002 (77%), 2003/4 (71%) and 2004/5 (69%) ²⁶ ( Figure 9). The changes between 2003/4 and 2004/5 and between 2004/5 and 2005/6 are not statistically significant whereas the changes between 2003/4 and 2005/6 and between 2002 and the latter survey years are.

55. The majority of dwellings that failed the SHQS failed on the energy efficiency criteria. Full efficient central heating ²⁶ is a strict requirement of these criteria (those with 'inefficient' central heating, even if it is full, will fail this criteria). Also crucial is the presence of thermal insulation measures (such as loft, hot water tank and wall insulation, where applicable) in the dwelling. The number of failures on the modern facilities and services criteria has increased slightly since 2002 because of the additional information collected in the 2004/5 and 2005/6 surveys.

Figure 9: Dwellings by failure to meet Scottish Housing Quality Standard by tenure 2002 - 2005/6 (%)

56. The proportions of dwellings with more than one criteria failure are roughly the same for all three survey years, with around 1 in 5 dwellings failing on more than one of the criteria Table 22.

Table 22: Number of SHQS failures 2002 to 2005/6 (000s and %)

57. Table 23 shows the number of dwellings passing or failing the SHQS by private or social sector tenure.

Table 23: SHQS by tenure 2002 - 2005/6 (000s)

58. Table 24 shows that the private sector has higher failure rates than the social sector in each of the survey years after 2002, and the gap between the two sectors is widening. The Scottish Government has stated that the entire stock of every social landlord must meet the SHQS criteria by 2015. Private owners and private landlords are currently under no obligation to bring their properties up to a standard which meets the SHQS. There has been a statistically significant increase in the proportion of social sector dwellings passing the SHQS from 2003/4 to 2005/6; it is now at 40%.

Table 24: SHQS by tenure 2002 - 2005/6 (%)

59. Table 25 shows that urban and rural areas have roughly the same likelihood of failing the SHQS.

Table 25: SHQS urban/rural breakdown (000s and %)

4.1 Dampness and Condensation

60. Table 26 and Table 27 indicate that just under 1 in 10 dwellings have condensation in at least one room, whilst very few dwellings in Scotland suffer from either rising or penetrating damp (less than 1 in 25). These figures are largely unchanged from those reported in 2002, 2003/4 and 2004/5. 'Any condensation' and 'Any rising or penetrating damp' cover anything from a small damp patch or area of condensation on a single wall in one room to prevalence throughout a dwelling.

Table 26: Presence of condensation in dwelling (000s and %)

Table 27: Presence of rising or penetrating damp in dwelling (000s and %)

4.2 Disrepair

61. Data on the state of disrepair of each dwelling is gathered in the physical inspection part of the SHCS. A range of elements - both internal and external -are assessed for the presence of disrepair, the urgency of disrepair (for external and common elements only), the extent of disrepair and in some cases the residual life of the element. These assessments allow an overall picture of the state of dwelling disrepair to be built up. We can therefore estimate the extent of disrepair of various types in Scotland's occupied housing stock. Definitions of the different types of disrepair are given in paragraph 93.

62. 'Any disrepair' covers ALL disrepair, irrespective of extent or seriousness, and can therefore mean anything from a leaking bathroom tap to a missing roof.

63. Table 28 shows the presence of 'any disrepair' by age of dwelling. More than three quarters (77%) of dwellings in Scotland have some disrepair. Older dwellings are more likely to have some form of disrepair with those built before 1919 being almost twice as likely to suffer disrepair as those built after 1982.

64. Around three quarters of owner-occupied and housing association/housing co-operative dwellings have some form of disrepair, compared to 85% of local authority/other public and private rented dwellings. Dwellings in urban areas are more likely to experience some form of disrepair than those in rural areas.

Table 28: Presence of any disrepair by age of dwelling, tenure and urban/rural indicator (000s and %)

65. For common and external elements the surveyor is asked to assess the urgency of disrepair. An urgent repair is one which, if not carried out, would cause the fabric of the building to deteriorate further and/or place the health and safety of the occupier at risk. Table 29 shows 'any disrepair' by 'urgency of disrepair'.

Table 29: Presence of any disrepair by urgency of disrepair (000s and %)

66. Figure 10 shows the presence of urgent disrepair, disrepair to critical elements and extensive disrepair in dwellings which have some form of disrepair ( i.e. dwellings which have 'any disrepair' as defined above).

67. 'Any disrepair to critical elements' is defined as any disrepair to the critical elements of the dwelling. The critical elements are those whose condition is central to a dwelling being wind and weather proof, structurally stable and safeguarded against further rapid deterioration. Paragraph 93 lists the critical elements.

68. 'Extensive disrepair' is used to identify dwellings where the disrepair present is of relatively greater severity. A detailed definition of extensive disrepair is given in paragraph 93.

69. Urgent disrepair, extensive disrepair and disrepair to critical elements are all subsets of 'any disrepair'.

70. In just under half of dwellings (47%) with some form of disrepair, that disrepair is urgent. Almost three quarters (74%) of dwellings in disrepair have some disrepair to critical elements whilst just under a third (30%) suffer from extensive disrepair.

71. Table 30 shows that the likelihood of experiencing disrepair to critical elements increases with age of dwelling. Just under three-quarters of pre-1919 dwellings have some form of disrepair to critical elements, compared to just under a quarter of those built after 1982. Around two thirds of dwellings rented from a private sector landlord or from a local authority/other public sector organisation have some form of critical repair compared with 55% of owner-occupied dwellings and only 47% of those rented from housing associations/housing co-operatives. Urban dwellings appear to be slightly more likely to experience disrepair to critical elements although the difference is not statistically significant.

Figure 10: Dwellings with any disrepair: (a) urgency of disrepair (b) some disrepair to critical elements and (c) some extensive disrepair (%)

72. For almost 60% of dwellings with some disrepair to critical elements the disrepair is urgent ( Figure 11).

Table 30: Disrepair to critical elements by age of dwelling, tenure and urban/rural indicator (000s and %)

73. Table 31 shows that 23% of dwellings in Scotland have some extensive disrepair. Following the same trend as 'any disrepair' and 'disrepair to critical elements', newer dwellings are less likely to suffer from extensive disrepair. Almost a third of dwellings built before 1919 have some extensive disrepair compared with just 6% of those built after 1982. Housing association/housing co-operatives and owner-occupied dwellings are least likely to have some extensive disrepair.

74. In 58% of dwellings with extensive disrepair, the disrepair is classed as 'urgent' ( Figure 12).

75. Figure 13 shows the proportion of dwellings in each age group which experience 'any disrepair', 'disrepair to critical elements' and 'extensive disrepair'.

Figure 11: Urgent disrepair in dwellings with some form of disrepair to critical elements (%)

Table 31: Extensive disrepair by age of dwelling, tenure and urban/rural indicator (000s and %)

Figure 12: Urgent disrepair in dwellings with some form of extensive disrepair (%)

Figure 13: Any, critical and extensive disrepair by age of dwelling (%)

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