December 2012
SHCS Key Findings 2011
Scottish House Condition Survey: Key Findings 2011 was published on 13th December 2012. This is the eighth 'Key Findings' report since the SHCS changed to a continuous format in 2003.
See Reports and Documentation for previous reports.
November 2012
SHCS Key Findings 2011
We are announcing a change to the publication date of ‘Scottish House Condition Survey: Key Findings 2011’, which includes Fuel Poverty estimates, from 29th November 2012 to 13th December 2012.
This delay is necessary in order to:
- Complete quality assurance work on the statistics and publication to ensure they meet National Statistics standards.
- Include the most relevant set of Fuel Poverty estimates for 2011, incorporating the significant fuel price increases in the latter part of 2011. This will involve producing Fuel Poverty estimates based on mid-year July fuel prices, in line with previous annual estimates and publications, as well as Fuel Poverty estimates based on the higher October 2011 fuel prices.
See Reports and Documentation for previous reports.
September 2012
Dave Cormack Retiral
Falling just short of the Silver Anniversary, Dave Cormack has retired from the Scottish Government after many years of dedication and unparalleled knowledge and expertise on all things Scottish House Condition Survey. We wish Dave well in his retirement, acknowledging the great contributions he has given to the survey and wider housing issues over the years. Any queries that would previously been directed to Dave should be sent the SHCS mailbox.
August 2012
Thematic Reports
The following reports were published on 13 August 2012 and are available from the Reports and Documentation page.
Fuel Poverty Evidence Review
This report exams issues around the nature and measurement of fuel poverty in Scotland. It draws on data from the Scottish House Condition Survey (SHCS) which has been the official source of descriptive statistics on fuel poverty since 1996, as well as information from the wider evidence base, including the John Hills Fuel Poverty Review 2011‐12 undertaken for England and Wales.
Energy Use in the Home
This report draws on data from the Scottish House Condition Survey (SHCS), the Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC), the National Atmospheric Emissions Inventory (NAEI) and the Energy Savings Trust (EST) to look at how households currently use energy within their homes and the energy efficiency of said homes.
April 2012
Technical Reports
The SHCS Social Questionnaire 2010 and SHCS Physical Form 2012 have recently been published and provide useful contextual information in how the survey questions have continued to change year on year. Should you have enquiries on questions then please contact the SHCS Project Team.
November 2011
SHCS Key Findings 2010
This is the seventh 'Key Findings' report since the SHCS changed to a continuous format in 2003.
SHCS Local Authority Report 2008-2010
This report combines 3 years worth of data (2008-2010) to provide a series of tables which present estimates for key indicators important at local authority level.
Updated Fuel Poverty Estimates
Estimates of Fuel Poverty at local authority level are currently based upon three years survey data, currently 2008, 2009 and 2010. Although the housing stock overall does not change rapidly measures based on fuel prices do and so our figures, which centre on July 2009, are considered to provide an out-of-date estimate of fuel poverty. Therefore we have developed a method to update the figures.
June 2011
Scottish Household Survey 2012-2015 Contract Award
The contract for the Scottish Household Survey (SHS) 2012-2015, which includes the integration of the Scottish House Condition Survey (SHCS), has been awarded to Ipsos MORI.
The main contract covers survey fieldwork from January 2012 to December 2015. The contract also includes the associated preparatory work in 2011, on-going survey and questionnaire development, all fieldwork including "mopping up" of interviews in 2016 (in order to complete the 2015 sample), and the finalisation and delivery of the survey dataset and associated outputs in 2016.
The contract includes an optional 2 year extension to cover additional fieldwork in 2016 and 2017, along with the "mopping up" and finalisation of the outputs in 2018. Granting of the extension will be at the sole discretion of Scottish Ministers.
The methodology will, in very broad terms, follow the template that has been established and developed since 1999 under the existing SHS. The survey will be a large, continuous sample survey designed to provide data that is representative of the household and adult populations of Scotland. The SHS will be fully modularised, and will integrate the current SHCS. In particular, the physical survey of the SHCS will be run as a follow-up component of the main survey but incorporating electronic data capture rather than the pen and paper method currently used. Ipsos MORI will work in partnership with BRE, Alembic Research and MMBL in delivering the physical survey component of the survey.
The survey design will enable headline SHS statistics to be reported annually at both national and local authority levels where appropriate, though this will be balanced by a slight reduction in the precision of SHS estimates. The survey will be based on an annual sample of approximately 11,000 households, using a fully unclustered design, with an average interview length of 60 minutes. The details of the modular structure and questionnaire have yet to be finalised, and will be developed in partnership with Ipsos MORI over the coming months.
This will include undertaking the SHS 2012 Questionnaire Consultation exercise between July and August 2011 to agree the final questions and their wording, with further consutlation exercises in the new year to identify any associated dissemination and reporting requirements.
First results from the SHS 2012 will be available from late summer in 2013. All other outputs from the existing SHS, and the SHCS, will continue to be provided in line with current reporting standards.
Further information will be made available in due course.