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The review of the operation of the Rural and Islands Housing Fund has been completed and in response to the questions asked (a) The Scottish Government engaged with Local Authorities, Registered Social Landlords, funding scheme participants, a rural housing sounding board who had helped inform the original guidance of the Rural and Islands Housing Fund and other stakeholders with an interest in rural and island housing. There was overwhelming support that the fund should continue, (b) we are currently preparing a report summarising the findings of the engagement with stakeholders and (c) the report will be published shortly.

We have committed to taking action to realise the right to adequate housing in Scotland. To establish the best way to make the right to adequate housing a reality, we have said that we will undertake a comprehensive audit of our current housing and homelessness legislation.

The aim of the audit is to identify where there are gaps in current domestic legislation and where remedies for violations of housing rights can be strengthened. It will assess how well current legislation protects marginalised groups and meets the needs of people with protected characteristics. The audit findings will help us understand how the introduction of a right to adequate housing in Scotland will impact on people's lives.

This work will begin later in 2021.

Local authorities are responsible for the administration and enforcement of landlord registration, and are the data controllers of the information on the landlord registration IT system for landlords in their area. The Scottish Government receives monthly aggregate information extracted from the system, the number of new and renewal applications both received and pending registration, along with the total number of active registrations, and the number of properties these relate to.

The Scottish Government uses this information to monitor the number of registered landlords operating and properties in Scotland and to appropriately distribute the applications fees to the relevant local authorities. The information is also used more broadly to help with gaining insights and understanding of the Private Rented Sector and its regulation in Scotland, alongside other official statistics on the sector such as results from the Scottish Household Survey. The Scottish Government does not publish this information because the Landlord Registration System is an administrative system used primarily to manage the registration of landlords and rental properties. It has not been designed to produce robust Official Statistics on the sector.

Registers of Scotland, as provider of the Register, publish the total number of applications received within their annual reports. (page 10)

The current published 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: , with detailed local authority level Excel tables covering the period from 1996 to 2020 available at .

The next set of annual statistics as at September 2021 are due to be published as part of the Housing Statistics Quarterly Update in December 2021. An exact publication date will be pre-announced no later than 4 weeks in advance, in line with the Statistics Code of Practice, on the Scottish Government website: Official statistics: .

The Short-Term lets control Areas legislation applies to changes of use from a dwellinghouse to a short-term let property. As such specifically designed and purpose built student accommodation will generally not be affected by the legislation, however the reference to student accommodation was included for the avoidance of doubt and to ensure future compatibility with proposed legislation relating to the licensing of short-term let properties.

As with any other change of use, it would be for the relevant planning authority to consider whether any change of use from student accommodation to short-term lets was a material change of use in planning terms and required planning consent. It would also be for the planning authority to consider enforcement action in any case where a change of use occurred without the appropriate planning consent.

The following tables show a breakdown of the number of children in households reassessed as homeless within one year, between one and two years, between two and three years, between three and four years and between four and five years for the years 2015-16 to 2020-21.

In order for a household with children to be reassessed as homeless all adults on the application must be the same as a previous application and children (any number of) must also have been present on the previous application. It is possible for the number of children to have changed between applications.

Information at individual household level cannot be provided due to data confidentiality.

The presence of working interlinked fire alarms is proven to save lives and is one of the most important investments home owners can make to protect life and property. Regulations setting out this new standard were unanimously approved by the previous Local Government and Communities Committee at their meeting on 18 December 2019.

Home owners are responsible for the costs of on-going work needed to protect and preserve their own property, which includes the costs for the fire alarms to meet the new standard. The cost of the alarms will vary according to what householders choose to install. We estimate that the cost for an average three bedroom house which requires three smoke alarms, one heat alarm and one carbon monoxide detector will be around £220. This is based on using the type of alarms that can be installed by the homeowner, without the need for an electrician.

In our Business and Regulatory Impact Assessment for the Housing (Scotland) Act 1987 (Tolerable Standard) (Extension of Criteria) Order 2019 we estimated that 600,000 owner occupied properties were likely to fall below the proposed standard. Updating this to the latest 2019 Scottish House Condition Survey data: of the approximately 1.55m owner occupied properties in Scotland, 7% (or around 100,000) of homes did not have any smoke alarm at all, and around a quarter (or 400,000) had only one alarm. This indicates that around 500,000 owner-occupied properties are likely to fall below the proposed standard. It is possible that a proportion of the remaining 1,005,000 properties with more than one alarm would also not comply with the standard, although it is not possible to determine this from the available data.

It is not possible to determine exactly how many owner occupied homes have alarms of the prescribed type installed as this information is not currently collected as part of the Scottish House Condition Survey. In the future, when the regulations on the new fire alarm standard have come into effect, it will be possible to collect more precise data because compliance with the tolerable standard is included in the Survey. This will allow us to monitor progress in bringing Scotland’s homes up to the new standard.

The Homelessness Statistics team are in the process of collecting, processing and quality assuring data returns from local authorities for the Housing Options (PREVENT1) Statistics in Scotland: 2020-21 publication. As such, we are not yet in a position to confirm a publication date. The statistics will be released as soon as they are considered ready, under the guidance of the Chief Statistician. At this stage we anticipate this will be between October and November.

Once there is more certainty around a publication date this will be pre-announced no later than 4 weeks in advance, in line with the Statistics Code of Practice, on the Scottish Government website:

The proportion of Home Energy Scotland loan offers that have expired during the Covid-19 pandemic compared to the previous three years is:

The publication of the Housing Statistics for Scotland 2020: Key Trends Summary and associated Excel web tables had been initially planned for September 2020, however was subsequently delayed due to the impacts of COVID-19 on data provision and staff resourcing.

The Housing Statistics team are in the process of collecting, processing and quality assuring data returns from local authorities, covering annual data for both the delayed 2020 Key Trends publication along with more recent annual data covering the 2021 publication period. We are intending to publish a Key Trends Summary and Excel web tables containing both the 2020 and 2021 figures. The statistics will be released as soon as they are considered ready, under the guidance of the Chief Statistician. At this stage we anticipate this will be between October and December 2021.

Once there is more certainty around a publication date this will be pre-announced no later than 4 weeks in advance, in line with the Statistics Code of Practice, on the Scottish Government website: