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| The Scottish Abstract of Statistics No 26,1998 |
| 4 housing |
| Introduction |
| 4.1 Most of the figures are compiled by the Scottish Office Development Department, mainly from returns received from Local Authorities, Housing Associations and Scottish Homes. |
| Dwelling |
| 4.2 A dwelling is a building or any part of a building which forms a separate and self-contained set of premises designed to be occupied by a household. Temporary dwellings are excluded. |
| Tenures |
| 4.3 The private sector tenure category includes dwellings owned by private landlords, whether persons or companies, and owner occupiers. |
| 4.4 Housing Associations are societies, bodies of trustees, or companies established for the purpose of providing housing accommodation on a non profit-making basis. They also provide housing for special groups such as the aged, disabled or single persons or housing on a mutual and self-build basis. In recent years associations have extended their activities into provision of low cost housing for home ownership. In addition registered associations (ie those registered with Scottish Homes) are heavily engaged in the regeneration of inner city areas both through rehabilitation and new building. Non registered associations are, in the main, now operating on a management basis only. |
| 4.5 The Public Authorities category includes:- |
| i. Local Authority: This term refers to the
local housing authorities which are the district councils and islands councils. ii. New Towns: In Scotland, New Town Development Corporations were
established under the New Towns Act for the purpose of developing New Towns. The New Towns
in each region with their designation and wind-up dates are as follows: iii. Scottish Homes: This is a housing agency which replaced the Scottish Special Housing Association (SSHA) and the Housing Corporation in Scotland on 1 April 1989. Scottish Homes is primarily an enabling and funding body, but also has a landlord function having inherited all of the SSHA stock. iv. Government departments: The figures relate to dwellings provided or authorised for the families of police, prison staff, the armed forces and certain other services. |
| Household Projections |
| 4.6 The household projections shown in table 4A4 have been developed by applying trends in housing formation observed in the 1971 and 1991 censuses of population to the mid-1996 based population projections prepared by the Government Actuary’s Department and the General Register Office for Scotland. The projections should not be treated as forecasts but indicative of what might happen if past trends in household formation were to continue. |
| Public Sector House Sales |
| 4.7 The Tenants’ Rights Etc. (Scotland) Act 1980, now consolidated in Part III of the Housing (Scotland) Act 1987 as amended, came into operation in October 1980. It gave most tenants of public sector houses the right to buy their homes at a discounted price provided that they had been tenants (not necessarily of the same house) for not less than 3 years. This restriction has now been reduced to 2 years. The main exception to this right is where the house had been provided with certain facilities specially designed for the needs of the elderly or disabled, The Act permits local authorities to sell council houses to sitting tenants even where they do not qualify for the right to buy. |
| Grants |
| 4.8 Improvement grants were introduced in 1949 and are now available for the improvement or repair of existing houses or for the provision of dwellings by conversion of existing buildings as shown in table 4A9. They are given generally at the discretion of the local authority and are therefore commonly known as ‘discretionary grants’. The dwelling should be brought up to a prescribed standard and should normally be capable of providing satisfactory housing accommodation for a further thirty years. Certain of these requirements may be relaxed in specific circumstances, however, although the life of the dwelling after improvement should always be at least ten years. Current legislation is contained in the Housing (Scotland) Act 1987. |
| New House Building |
| 4.9 A dwelling is regarded as: |
| i. started on the date work
begins on the foundation of the block of which the dwelling will form a part and not on
the date when site preparation begins; and ii. completed when it is ready for occupation whether in fact occupied or not. If a dwelling is transferred to another agency after completion it is considered to have been completed by the first agency. |
| Dwellings Below The Tolerable Standard |
| 4.10 As defined in section 86 of the Housing (Scotland) Act 1987, a house meets the Tolerable Standard only if it: |
| a. is structurally stable; b. is substantially free from rising or penetrating damp; c. has satisfactory provision for natural and artificial lighting, for ventilation and for heating; d. has an adequate piped supply of wholesome water available within the house; e. has a sink provided with a satisfactory supply of both hot and cold water within the house; f. has a water closet available for the exclusive use of the occupants of the house and suitably located within the house; g. has an effective system of drainage and disposal of foul and surface water; h. has satisfactory facilities for the cooking of food within the house; i. has satisfactory access to all external doors and outbuildings. |
| Homelessness |
| 4.11 Housing legislation defines a person as being homeless if they have no accommodation which they, and any other members of their household who usually live with them, can occupy. This includes households which have no accommodation and households which have accommodation but cannot use it, eg because violence is likely to result or if the household has a mobile home but no site for it. A person is potentially homeless if they are likely to become homeless within 28 days. |
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