Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government routinely publish data for Scotland on the number of social rented dwellings as a share of the total number of dwellings on an annual basis, and it is available Housing statistics: Stock by tenure tables. The latest data shows that 23% of the total housing stock are social housing (2024), it has been 23% since 2014.

The collation of equivalent data across the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) states can be found here on tab ’Figure PH4.2.1’. The data is available from 2022 or latest year available. The OECD average is 7% in 2022, further data is available for other countries/areas can be found in Table 1 below.

From the information provided by the OECD, there are differences in definitions of social housing, as well as country level differences in collecting data on social housing, and time periods to consider when making comparisons – all of which might make these comparisons not like for like. For example, the Netherlands included some private rented housing below market rent in their data return to the OECD, whereas the Scotland data only includes housing owned by a housing association or a local authority.

Table 1: Number of social rental dwellings as a share of the total number of dwellings, 2022 or latest year available, published by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development