Chamber and committees

The latest available information on unoccupied dwellings comes from council tax billing systems as at 6 September 2004. This indicates that there were a total of 109,591 unoccupied dwellings in Scotland. Houses can be empty for various reasons. The figure quoted covers both the social-rented and private sectors and includes second homes, holiday lets and dwellings awaiting improvement or demolition.

The Scottish Executive continues to pursue a range of initiatives to bring empty properties back into use. Local authorities are required to produce local housing strategies to tackle the housing problems in their areas. This can include assessing the need for action on empty homes if it is a priority for their area. The Empty Homes Initiative returned around 1,400 properties between 1997 and 2002. Communities Scotland is responsible for the Rural Empty Properties Grant and Lead Tenancies Empty Property Lease Scheme which also supports the letting or re-occupation of empty houses. Empty houses in the local authority and housing association sectors will be addressed, whether through demolitions or improvements through Scottish Housing Quality Standard delivery plans. We are also encouraging public sector landlords to minimise transitional vacancies through efficient letting processes.

The most recent estimate from the Scottish House Condition Survey, which is the only consistent national source of information on houses below tolerable standard, is that there were 20,000 households living in houses below the standard in 2002. This is 0.9% of all households in Scotland. The 2002 edition of the Survey, chapter 5 of which deals with the tolerable standard, can be found at www.shcs.gov.uk/pdfs/SHCS2002report_revised.pdf.

Under the Housing (Scotland) Act 1987 it is the duty of local authorities to deal with houses in their areas that are below tolerable standard, by ensuring that they are closed, demolished or brought up to the standard. The Housing (Scotland) Bill, which was introduced on 7 March, would require each local authority to set out in its local housing strategy a strategy for ensuring that it complies with this duty.

The Executive provides funding through Private Sector Housing Grant to local authorities to address condition issues in private sector housing. One of the priorities for action for their use of this funding is dealing with houses below tolerable standard. Total provision for Private Sector Housing Grant for 2005-06 is £72 million.

The following table shows the number of local authority dwellings sold to tenants and estimated local authority stock.

Sales of Local Authority Dwellings to Tenants: Scotland 1999-2003

	Sales to Tenants	Estimated Stock as at 31 December	Sales as Percentage of Stock
1999	13,317	584,000	2.28
2000	13,981	558,000	2.51
2001	13,169	535,000	2.46
2002	15,849	515,000	3.08
2003	17,526	493,000	3.55

Source: Scottish Executive Development Department Analytical Services Division Housing Statistics branch.

Notes:

1. For purposes of comparability, 2003 data for Scotland include sales and stock for Dumfries and Galloway, Glasgow and Scottish Borders where complete stock transfers took place in the course of 2003. Figures exclude other housing association stock but include Scottish Homes stock.

2. Stock estimates are rounded to the nearest thousand.

I refer the member to the answer to question S2W-16379 on 17 May 2005. Which contains the Scottish data required to construct such a graph. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/webapp/wa.search.

The following table shows comparable data for England.

Sales of Local Authority Dwellings to Tenants: England 1999-2003

	Sales to Tenants	Estimated Stock as at 31 March	Sales as Percentage of Stock
1999	51,212	3,178,000	1.61
2000	54,856	3,012,000	1.82
2001	50,735	2,812,000	1.80
2002	59,241	2,706,000	2.19
2003	71,910	2,457,000	2.93

Source: Office of the Deputy Prime Minister housing statistics live tables.

Notes:

1. Sales figures exclude sales by new towns.

2. Stock series from 1992 to 2001 for England has been adjusted so that the 2001 total dwelling estimate matches the 2001 Census. Stock estimates are rounded to the nearest thousand.

The chart requested has been lodged in the Parliament’s Reference Centre (Bib. number 36465).

Information on tenure of occupied houses can be found in two published sources, both available on-line: the 2002 Scottish House Condition Survey report. (http://www.shcs.gov.uk/pdfs/SHCS2002report_revised.pdf) and the Scottish Household Survey 2003 report (http://www.scotland.gov.uk/library5/housing/shsar03-00.asp).

The business case for thenew Royal Edinburgh Hospital will explore procurement based on value for money.Both PPP procurement and public sector capital funding will be explored.

NHS Lothian advise that thepotential capital requirement is included within NHS Lothian’s capital plansand the income from the sale of Gogarburn has been utilised over the last threeyears to improve clinical services in Lothian.

NHSLothian is in the process of updating the outline business case (OBC) followingthe recent public consultation regarding the board’s mental health and well beingstrategy.

It isexpected that the OBC will be submitted to the Scottish Executive HealthDepartment in summer 2005.

A set of tables, Full-time Equivalent Teacher Vacancies in Schools, which is in the Parliament’s Reference Centre (Bib. number 32903), shows the number of teacher vacancies in local authority schools at February 2004, the latest information available. A further survey is being undertaken at February 2005 and the results are currently being collected and analysed.

In 2002, the Executive commissionedthe Scottish Council for Research in Education to review the literature of researchon teacher stress over the previous ten years.

The review, entitled Feelingthe Strain identified fourteen Scottish references. A copy has been placed inthe Scottish Parliament Information Centre. Inevitably, there will have been otherstudies into teacher stress carried out elsewhere.

The Executive is currently providingfinancial support to Teacher Support Scotland to develop, with three local authorities, a pilot projectaimed at developing a strategy to improve the well being of teachers in Scotland. Localauthorities, as teachers’ employers, have responsibilities in these areas. Beingaware of the local circumstance in which their teachers work, local authoritiesare best placed to identify and provide the support required.

 

The concept of social capital continues to be the subject of active debate. Leading social scientists such as Putman define it in general terms as relating to “connections among individuals – social networks and the norms of reciprocity and trust that arise from them”. Expressed in this way, claims have been made that social capital is influential in explaining a wide range of factors in society including educational performance, performance in the labour market, and civic participation, all of which relate to social inclusion.

Yet the mechanisms by which social capital may operate to produce these effects is far from clear. Progress is being made in research to put the concept onto a more rigorous footing, for example to identify categories of social capital and to understand the significance of formal and informal networks and local and wider processes of social attachment, for different social groups in the community. Until this is clearer it is not possible to properly assess the role of the state in promoting social capital  as a mechanism for increasing social inclusion.

Researchers in the Scottish Executive are actively engaged with those developing the knowledge base in this important area.