Housing Statistics 2022 & 2023: Key Trends Summary

Annual statistics up to 31 March 2023 on total new housing supply in Scotland across all sectors, along with information on various elements of local authority housing such as stock, lettings, house sales, evictions, housing lists, and housing for older people and people with disabilities.


During 2022-23, 23,650 permanent lettings were made. The number of permanent lettings decreased (4% or 970 lets).

Of all the local authority lettings made in 2022-23, 48% were to homeless households, 27% were to those on a housing waiting list, 22% were transfers to existing tenants, and 3% classified as other.

Chart 10 displays how the number of new local authority rentals has evolved over time and by source of tenant. There was a decline from 2001-02 to 2008-09, followed by stable levels from 2014-15 until the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020-21. It is important to recognise that the change in number of rentals will also relate to changes in the overall local authority stock numbers as well as availability. Notably, the chart reveals an increasing share of permanent rentals going to homeless households, while the proportion going to those on a housing waiting list has decreased.

Chart 10: In 2001-02, 17% of permanent rentals were to homeless households (9,138), this has risen to 48% (or 11,410 households) in 2022-23.

a stacked bar chart showing source of tenant for new local authority tenants, 2001-02 to 2022-23

There are geographical variations in the proportion of new permanent lettings by source of tenant, as illustrated in Chart 11. For example, lets to homeless households made up 71% of all permanent lettings in Edinburgh compared to 21% in Shetland.

Chart 11: The proportion of permanent local authority lettings by sources of tenant in 2022-23 varied in each local authority.

a stacked bar chart showing proportions of source tenants for local authority lettings, by local authorityFurther detailed figures are available in the local authority lettings Excel web tables.

For this publication, Highland council provided data on lets made to homeless households from 2018-19 onwards. This data does not affect the total number of lets but reallocated lets from the housing list category due to a data processing error. Therefore, there have been changes to numbers reported in previous publications that are now corrected in the associated tables and data published online.

The Scottish Government also publishes a range of information on Homelessness Statistics, including the number of lets for homeless households, collected through the HL1 return.

Contact

housingstatistics@gov.scot

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