Scottish Government

Lettings

• Mirroring the falling stock levels, the number of local authority lettings has decreased since the early 2000s. During 2011-12 there were 27,263 permanent lettings made, an increase of 6% compared to the previous year where the figure was revised to 25,668.
• The proportion of lets allocated to homeless applicants is a key indicator in measuring local authorities' capacity to respond to changes in homelessness legislation in relation to removing the distinction between priority and non-priority need in 2012. In 2011-12, 42% of all local authority lettings were to homeless households, compared to 46% for 2010-11. This represents a substantial increase compared to the situation at the start of the 2000s (17% in 2001-02).

Lettings of local authority dwellings tables contain:

• local authority time series tables of vacancies arising and permanent lettings made during each year from 2001-02
• national summary of lettings by source of tenant and type of dwelling
• lets and vacancies by local authority area
• lets to homeless households by local authority area
• lets by type of tenancy (collected for the first time in 2011-12).

Evictions

• Eviction actions against local authority tenants resulted in 1,057 evictions or abandoned dwellings in 2011-12 (608 evictions, 449 abandoned dwellings). This is largely unchanged from the previous year.
• In relation to stock levels, local authority tenancy terminations (i.e. evictions plus abandoned dwellings) as a result of eviction actions remained fairly stable over recent years, but in 2010-11 fell to 0.4% of local authority letting stock and remained at that level for 2011-12.
• Please note that 2010-11 evictions figures were revised as of 2nd February 2012. This is noted on each of the tables affected.

Evictions of local authority tenants - national and local authority time series of evictions, and detailed tables of eviction actions against local authority tenants, from 2001-02 to current

Housing Lists

Housing lists - change in local authority housing lists for financial years 2000-01 to current

• The annual Housing Lists return was introduced in March 2001. It records changes to the number of households waiting for a local authority dwelling on local authority housing lists and common housing registers during the year to 31 March. Other information concerning local authority operation of common housing registers is also recorded.

• In most cases the figures are from the register for the councils' own housing and do not include any applicants on registered social landlord lists, except for Aberdeen City between 2001 & 2007, Perth & Kinross from 2001, Edinburgh from 2004, Renfrewshire for 2006, Shetland from 2006, Fife and Orkney from 2007.
• Some applicants will be on more than one authority's list, and the Scotland total therefore includes an unquantifiable amount of double counting.
• Some local authorities operate a combined waiting and transfer list, and so cannot provide a breakdown.
• Official statistics obtained from an Omnibus Survey carried out in February 2011 estimate the number of households which contain someone who is currently on a social housing list to be around 128,000. This is an update to the figure of 144,000 obtained in August 2010, however the difference in these figures was not found to be statistically significant. These statistics provide an estimate which eliminates the double counting included in the administrative data collected annually from councils and housing associations. The excel tables can be accessed through the following link: Housing Lists: Survey Statistics 2011

Vacant Stock

• Public sector dwellings can be vacant for a variety of reasons, such as being part of a planned disposal or modernisation/repair programme, or in low demand areas.
• While the overall amount of stock is decreasing, the proportion of vacant stock as at 31 March for both normal letting and all stock remaining shows a small but fairly consistent decrease in recent years, from 2% to about 1% for normal letting stock.
• The most recent snapshot figures for 31 March 2012 show 7,847 vacant dwellings, of this about 36% was normal letting stock.

Public sector vacant stock - local authority vacant stock by length of vacancy and reason for vacancy