Chamber and committees

Scottish Government is aware of the Burgenland pilot project which has been underway since 2019. We understand that 250 relatives providing care for family members have participated in the pilot in a population of 20,000 people in receipt of care allowance. We are also aware that the model will be evaluated over the coming months.

The Social Care (Self-directed Support) (Scotland) Act 2013 outlines that individuals who choose to employ a Personal Assistant may employ family members where this is deemed appropriate, under certain circumstances. Joint COSLA and Scottish Government Covid-19 Self-directed Support guidance currently advises that consideration to employ family members on a temporary basis should be given, particularly if family members lose income as a result of taking on a caring role during the pandemic period.

The guidance is available on the Scottish Government website and is currently being updated: https://www.gov.scot/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-guidance-on-self-directed-support/

We note the publication of Shelter Scotland’s Understanding the True Cost of Evictions in Scotland report and will study the details as part of our wider consideration of evidence around this area. We have reservations about the report’s treatment of rent arrears costs as part of the analysis and will engage with Shelter Scotland to gain an understanding of the work that has been carried out.

The Scottish Government is committed to ensuring that eviction for rent arrears is a last resort. A social landlord must have exhausted all attempts to resolve rent arrears with the tenant before taking action to evict. The Scottish Government and Social Landlords reaffirmed our joint commitment to supporting people to keep their homes and avoid eviction where tenants are struggling through no fault of their own to manage their rent in our Shared Statement: Social landlords working together with tenants to avoid evictions: https://www.gov.scot/publications/joint-working-on-evictions-social-housing-shared-statement/ published on 25 June 2021.

The Scottish Government collects information on households who apply to Local Authorities for homelessness assessment. This includes information on reasons for homelessness, including evictions, but does not include information on the time between evicted households having their tenancy terminated and formally presenting to the local authority. There are currently no plans to assess the feasibility of collecting this data.

Not all evicted households experience homelessness and approach their local authority for help, and not all who do will necessarily be assessed as homeless.

Landlords and lenders are legally required to inform the relevant local authority when they take action that puts a household at risk of homelessness due to eviction by completing a Section 11 Notice. On receiving notification, the local authority should take the most pro-active approach possible to prevent homelessness occurring appropriate to the particular case.

All current Scottish Government Homelessness data collections, their guidance and the resulting publications can be found here .

Part 1: Committed costs of the advertising to date total £435,162.73. Part 2: The campaign is planned to run from 19 August-26 September 2021 with a further burst of activity from 25 October-14 November 2021. Part 3 :The campaign target audience is all adults in Scotland and the campaign is forecast to reach 95.2% of those.

The following tables give the volume and value of applications for each local
authority area in each of the last 5 years. This breaks down into applications,
subsequent offers, expired loans with accepted offers and loans not accepted
before expiry date.

Table 1: Volume and value of HES loan applications by local authority area in
2021-22 to end July

As at 3 August, against a total of 1009 applications there have been 458 unsuccessful applications, representing 45% of total applications.

Within the unsuccessful applications there were 153 social rented sector tenants and 305 private rented sector tenants.

We do not hold a breakdown of unsuccessful applications by local authority although this information is gathered at initial application level and is as follows:

No, there is no right to convert a loan to a grant. The Tenant Hardship Loan Fund is an interest free loan paid to remove the risk of eviction. Debtors have demonstrated their ability to make loan repayments during the application process.

The tenant grant funding cannot be paid in advance of need and is based on a needs assessment by the local authority taking into account all the circumstances of an individual.

No. The Tenant Hardship Loan Fund is administered separately on behalf of the Scottish Government. Where an applicant is unsuccessful they are provided with information on where they can get further advice and on alternative support available. The loan and the grant are not interchangeable. 

The tenant grant funding cannot be paid in advance of need and is based on a needs assessment by the local authority taking into account all the circumstances of an individual.

Our regulatory proposals will give local authorities powers to strike a balance between the needs and concerns of their local communities, with the wider economic and tourism benefits of short-term lets. In certain areas, achieving this balance may require a reduction in numbers of whole homes offered for short-term lets and local authorities have been given powers through the planning control area regulations to help manage activity in their area. The consultation draft Licensing Order also includes powers to manage overprovision, and licensing requirements should mean that some unsuitable operators and accommodation will also leave the market. We do not have an estimate of how many short-term lets will return to the long-term housing market as this depends on how local authorities use the powers they are being given.

(a) & (c) The latest set of annual statistics on the number of Long Term Empty Properties and Second Homes, based on Council Tax Base data as at September 2020, were published in the Housing Statistics Quarterly Update in December 2020, and are available at: https://www.gov.scot/publications/housing-statistics-scotland-quarterly-update/ , with detailed local authority level Excel tables covering the period from 1996 to 2020 available at https://www.gov.scot/publications/housing-statistics-empty-properties-and-second-homes/ . Figures are split into the categories of Long Term Empty Properties and Second Homes, however are not available broken down by housing tenure.

The latest annual figures show that there were 47,333 Long Term Empty properties and 24,466 Second Homes, across all tenures, as at September 2020. In addition, there were 44,143 Unoccupied Exemptions, generally properties which are empty and unfurnished for less than 6 months and exempt from paying council tax.

(b) The Scottish Housing Regulator publish figures on the number of vacant self-contained lettable social housing properties, with most recent data as at end June 2021 available as part of the Covid-19 dashboards at: https://www.housingregulator.gov.scot/landlord-performance/national-reports/covid-19-dashboards , and with previous annual data published as part of annual Charter Data figures for 2014/15 to 2018/19 at: https://www.housingregulator.gov.scot/landlord-performance/statistical-information

The latest Scottish Housing Regulator figures on vacant self-contained lettable social housing stock show that there were 8,886 empty social sector homes (including 5,311 local authority homes and 3,575 housing association homes) as at the end of June 2021. There will always be vacant social housing stock at any point of time as social landlords prepare homes in advance of them being re-allocated. Social landlords, as part of meeting the Scottish Social Housing Charter, strive to provide an efficient and effective management of their housing services. This includes minimising the time houses are empty. Latest published figures from the Scottish Housing Regulator show that the average time to re-let a social housing property in the quarter April to June 2021 was 52 calendar days (an average of 62 days for local authority properties, and 41 days for housing association properties).

The Scottish Government also collects information on vacant stock from local authorities as part of annual statistical returns, which covers all types of local authority vacant stock, including lettable stock, as well as stock used as temporary accommodation for the homeless, stock awaiting demolition or modernisation, and stock in low demand areas. However the figures exclude local authorities which have transferred their stock to Housing Associations (Argyll and Bute, Dumfries and Galloway, Glasgow City, Inverclyde,Na h-Eileanan Siar and the Scottish Borders). Latest annual statistics for 2019, by type of stock and length of vacancy, are published at https://www.gov.scot/publications/housing-statistics-scotland-2019-key-trends-summary/ , with detailed local authority level Excel tables available at: https://www.gov.scot/publications/housing-statistics-local-authority-housing-stock/ .

The latest available Scottish Government annual statistics on local authority vacant housing stock show that there were 7,409 vacant local authority dwellings as at end March 2019. This includes 2,782 normal letting stock dwellings, 476 dwellings used as temporary accommodation for the homeless, 2,208 dwellings awaiting demolition, 1,430 dwellings forming part of a modernisation scheme, and 513 dwellings in low demand areas.

(d) The draft Business and Regulatory Impact Assessment (BRIA) on Short-term lets: licensing scheme and planning control area legislation published for consultation on 25 June 2021, available at: https://consult.gov.scot/housing-and-social-justice/short-term-lets-draft-licensing-order-and-bria/ , sets out the available information on number of short-term lets, which includes self-catering properties. The BRIA estimates that there are approximately 32,000 short-term lets in Scotland, based on research in 2019, but also highlights the challenges in gauging the full size of the short-term lets market, which includes accommodation ranging from single rooms, whole homes and unconventional accommodation.

In June 2021, there were approximately 17,850 premises registered on the Non-Domestic Rates roll as self-catering properties. This figure is from the self-catering units on the Assessor’s valuation roll. The Scottish Government does not routinely publish summaries of the valuation roll as it is a live administrative dataset which is publicly searchable on the Scottish Assessors Association website, available at: https://www.saa.gov.uk/

The Scottish Government does not hold information on the number of council tax registered premises used for self-catering purposes.