The Scottish Government

Lettings

• Mirroring the falling stock levels, the number of local authority lettings has decreased each year since the early 2000s. During 2007-08 there were about 27,000 permanent lettings made, a decrease of nearly 10% compared to 2006-07. Around a third of this decrease can be attributed to stock transfer in Argyll & Bute and Eilean Siar towards the end of 2006, and Inverclyde in December 2007.
• 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. Over the past couple of years, the proportions of local authority lets to homeless applicants have increased, with the latest figures confirming the observed upward trend. In 2007-08, 39% of all local authority lettings were to homeless households, compared to 34% for 2006-07. This represents a substantial increase compared to the situation just over a decade ago (12% in 1996-97). In fact, lets to homeless households currently represent almost half of local authority lettings to new tenants (49% in 2007-08).

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

Evictions

• There were 1,200 evictions of local authority tenants in 2007-08, which represents about 9% of all cases proceeding to court. A further 900 (6%) cases resulted in abandoned dwellings.
• In relation to stock levels, local authority tenancy terminations (i.e. evictions plus abandoned dwellings) as a result of eviction actions has remained fairly stable over recent years, fluctuating between 0.54% and 0.65% of local authority letting stock.

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, and 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.

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 2008 show about 9,300 vacant dwellings, of this about 33% was normal letting stock.

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