Research and data in the Scottish Borders: Place

Why is it important to have statistics about housing?

Local Authorities set their outcomes and objectives within the context of the Scottish Government National Performance framework, which is themed around our children, our communities, our economy, reducing poverty and increasing environmental sustainability. Housing is a cross-cutting theme in all these objectives. A good range and choice of housing for all family sizes, life stages and budgets is essential to making the region a vibrant, safe, affordable, nurturing and equal-opportunities place to live.

Scottish Borders plays its part in the National Performance Framework by working towards making our region the best place in Scotland for every Scottish Borders citizen to live, regardless of their protected characteristics. For this, we need robust information to measure how we are performing as a society and within our communities.

Scottish Borders policy framework 

Our 2022-23 Plan is key to our policy framework on how we plan to deliver services in the next few years.  It consists of six outcome priorities, which are informed by an evidence base, including the strategic assessment. Housing is part of our infrastructure, which is referenced in Outcome Priority 3: Strong, inclusive economy , transport and infrtastructure". You can see now we are doing in delivering this outcome in our quarterly and annual performance reports. 

Data on housing are built in to all our Corporate Priorities as a cross-cutting theme, indicating that it is central to everything we do. Data on households are also collected as demographic information, to monitor how our society is changing over time.

Our Housing services are managed by the Executive Directorate, particularly within the Housing Strategy service area.  Our Housing services and areas of interest include:

• housing strategies and plans
• social housing and Housing Associations
• private renting
• homelessness
• supported and sheltered housing
• energy saving advice
• help to buy a house
• disabled adaptions
• housing-related welfare benefits
• empty homes
• private water supplies

Topic areas

There is a large amount of evidence from official statistics to inform our Housing development, across a wide range of topic areas.

Households and dwellings: characteristics and demography

• the latest statistics on mid-year household estimates (the number of households by council area) are available from the Scottish Official Statistics Open Data Platform
• the latest statistics on the number of dwellings by Council Tax band, occupancy status, dwelling type, number of rooms, and median number of rooms are available from the Scottish Official Statistics Open Data Platform
• the latest statistics from the Scottish Survey Core Questions (SSCQ) on household tenure are available from the Scottish Official Statistics Open Data Platform
• the latest statistics on average household size are available from the Scottish Official Statistics Open Data Platform
• the latest statistics on housing density, in terms of number of dwellings per hectare, are available from the Scottish Official Statistics Open Data Platform
• the latest statistics on household projections (25-year future household numbers) by household type and age of HRP (Head of Household), and projected average household sizes, with various assumptions about future migration levels, are available from the Scottish Official Statistics Open Data Platform 
• the latest statistics on the number of House in Multiple Occupation (HMO) licences in force are available from the Scottish Official Statistics Open Data Platform
• statistics on the numbers and percentages of single adult dwellings are available at council and intermediate datazone levels on the Health and Wellbeing profiles on the interactive ScotPHO Online Profiles Tool
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Homelessness

• the latest statistics on homelessness applications to the Local Authority and their outcome are available from the Scottish Official Statistics Open Data Platform
• information notes on homeless deaths are available to download
• the latest statistics on households in temporary accommodation are available from the Scottish Official Statistics Open Data Platform

Housing market

• the latest statistics on house sales, house prices and residential property sales and prices are available from the Scottish Official Statistics Open Data Platform
• the latest quarterly statistics on new-build housing starts and completions by  housing sector are available from the Scottish Official Statistics Open Data Platform

Housing conditions

• the latest statistics on the Scottish Housing Quality Standard are available from the LGBF interactive Explore tool 
• the latest statistics from the Scottish House Condition Survey (SCHS) on the proportion of households living with disrepair by type of disrepair, age of dwelling, dwelling type, household type, tenure type and number of bedrooms are available from the Scottish Official Statistics Open Data Platform
• The SIMD 2020 Housing Deprivation indicators, measuring overcrowding and no central heating from the 2011 Census, are available for all Scottish Borders and Scottish Datazones on the Scottish Statistics Open Data platform
• the latest statistics from the Scottish House Condition Survey on Fuel Poverty are available from the Scottish Official Statistics Open Data Platform

Official statistics are available on these topics, at Scottish Borders level and sometimes at neighbourhood level. If you work, volunteer or study in the Scottish Borders community and would like help accessing and using these statistics, contact the Research and Information team using the contact details below.