4.1 Household estimates from Council Tax systems
Each local authority’s finance department keeps a record of all dwellings and any discounts or exemptions they are entitled to, for Council Tax billing purposes. If a dwelling is vacant, or is a second home, it is entitled to a Council Tax discount or exemption. This makes it possible to estimate the number of dwellings which are occupied or vacant – an occupied dwelling is approximately equivalent to a household.
Council Tax systems also hold some additional information on other discounts or exemptions which provide some useful information on household type. Dwellings with just one adult, or one adult living with children or with adults who are ‘disregarded’ for Council Tax purposes, are entitled to a 25 per cent Council Tax discount. Certain types of dwellings are occupied but exempt from paying Council Tax, such as all-student households and dwellings which are owned by the Secretary of State for Defence for providing armed forces accommodation. Summary statistics on these household types are also included in this publication.
Dwellings and households (Tables 1 and 2)
Summary information on the number of dwellings entitled to different discounts or exemptions is provided by each local authority to the Scottish Government’s Statistical Support for Local Government Branch, using the form ‘Ctaxbase’ (http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Statistics/Browse/Local-Government-Finance/DataSupplierArea). The information on the number of dwellings contained in Table 2 is based on these figures.
In order to produce the household estimates shown in Table 1, the figures in Table 2 are first adjusted from September back to June, as the mid-year population estimates and household projections are both based on June. A number of factors can lead to differences in the number of households recorded in Council Tax systems, and in the 2001 Census. This can include the treatment of vacant dwellings, shared dwellings, holiday lets, caravans, and some communal establishments. In order to improve consistency and comparability, the household estimates for each local authority area are adjusted by the difference between the number of households recorded in the 2001 Census and the 2001 Council Tax figures. The same adjustment is applied to each year's figures, so this will affect the overall number of households, but the trends over time will not be affected.
A more detailed description of the method and sources used can be found in the publication ‘Household estimates for Scotland by local authority 1991-2004’, available from the GROS website at http://www.nrscotland.gov.uk/statistics-and-data/statistics/statistics-by-theme/housholds/household-estimates.
Vacant dwellings and second homes (Tables 6, 7 and 8)
In the past, it was not possible to separately identify vacant dwellings and second homes, so these figures were combined in previous household estimates publications. It is now possible to separate these figures, so they have been shown separately for the first time, in Table 8.
Clackmannanshire and Renfrewshire cannot separately identify vacant dwellings and second homes, as these groups both receive the same level of Council Tax discount. Three per cent of dwellings in these areas come under this category. In the 2001 Census, less than 0.2 per cent of dwellings in these areas were classed as second homes, so the total figures have been included under 'vacant dwellings'.
A small number of households receive a Council Tax discount because they are entirely occupied by adults who are ‘disregarded’ for Council Tax purposes, such as people who are severely mentally impaired. They make up less than 0.1 per cent of all dwellings. In previous household estimates publications, these figures were included with the figures on vacant dwellings and second homes, as they received the same level of discount. However, every local authority is now able to provide separate figures on these households, so the figures on vacant dwellings have now been adjusted to exclude these households. The previous years’ figures have also been adjusted, by the same amount.
Neighbourhood statistics
The Ctaxbase report, which has been used by GROS to produce household estimates for several years, only provides figures at local authority level. In order to produce statistics about occupied and vacant dwellings for smaller geographic areas, GROS collected equivalent data at data zone level. This publication contains the first analysis of this data. Information at data zone level is available from the Scottish Neighbourhood Statistics website at www.sns.gov.uk.
In a number of cases, the totals from each data zone do not exactly match the local authority figures from ‘Ctaxbase’. For example, some dwellings on the Council Tax system do not have postcode information. The postcode is used to identify the data zone, so a dwelling without a postcode will not be included in the data zone figures. Where there are differences, local authorities have confirmed that the Ctaxbase figures will be more accurate, so the data zone figures are constrained to the Ctaxbase totals for each local authority area.
There has been some difficulty in extracting full data zone information from the software systems used by Clackmannanshire, East Renfrewshire and Fife, so it has not been possible to publish full data for these areas yet. Figures are, however, available for the local authority as a whole, and these figures have been included in the tables shown in this publication.
Definitions
Category |
Description |
|---|---|
All dwellings |
Total number of dwellings on the Council Tax valuation list (excluding free-standing private lock-ups and garages). |
Unoccupied exemptions |
Dwellings exempt from Council Tax, which are unoccupied. |
Occupied exemptions |
Dwellings exempt from Council Tax, which are occupied. This includes:
|
Long term empty properties |
Dwellings subject to a Council Tax discount of between 10 per cent and 50 per cent due to being long term empty properties. |
Second homes |
Dwellings subject to a Council Tax discount of between 10 per cent and 50 per cent due to being second homes (including self-catering holiday accommodation available to let for a total of less than 140 days per year). |
Single adult discounts |
Dwellings subject to a Council Tax discount of 25 per cent. This may include, for example, dwellings with a single adult, dwellings with one adult living with one or more children, or with one or more adults who are 'disregarded' for Council Tax purposes. |
When interpreting the figures, it is important to note that not all vacant dwellings may be included here, if they do not receive a Council Tax discount or exemption – for example, very short-term vacancies which can arise when people move house. In addition, second homes which are let out for a total of more than 140 days per year are not liable to pay Council Tax – they are instead liable to pay non-domestic rates. This means that such dwellings are not included here, in either the figures on second homes (Tables 6, 7 and 8), or the total number of dwellings (Tables 2 and 8).
4.2 Dwelling estimates from the Assessors’ Portal
The Scottish Assessors are responsible for valuing every dwelling in Scotland, for Council Tax purposes. They maintain the web-based Scottish Assessors’ Portal, which contains details of every dwelling in Scotland along with its Council Tax band. More information about the Assessors’ Portal, the role of the Assessors, and the Council Tax Valuation List can be found at www.saa.gov.uk.
GROS uses data from the Assessors’ Portal to publish information on the number of dwellings in each data zone in Scotland, along with information about the Council Tax band, type of property, and number of rooms. This information has been made available on the Scottish Neighbourhood Statistics website at www.sns.gov.uk, for several years. This publication includes summary analysis of these statistics for the first time, including information at local authority level, and for urban/rural areas and areas with different levels of deprivation.
Definitions
Dwellings: In general terms any kind of house or flat will count as a dwelling if it is used as such, including second homes that are not let out commercially. Caravans count as dwellings if they are someone’s main home. Certain properties in multiple occupation, where facilities are shared, may count as one or more dwellings depending on the detailed occupation arrangements (www.saa.gov.uk).
Some of the properties in the Council Tax Valuation list are flagged as garages or storage facilities. These properties were excluded from the original datasets to produce the dwelling counts published on this website.
Dwellings per hectare: This variable has been calculated by dividing the total number of dwellings by the area in hectares, as determined by a GROS in-house measure.
Type of dwelling: This information is based on ‘attachment’ – i.e., the type of property in relation to its degree of attachment to surrounding properties. This information has been aggregated into five categories:
Number of rooms: In the Assessors’ Portal, this is defined as the number of habitable rooms (usually bedrooms and living rooms).
There may be some differences between different Assessors’ areas in the way in which this information is recorded. For example, differences could arise in the treatment of open plan areas, dining rooms, kitchens and kitchenettes.
This information on number of rooms may not always represent the most up to date position as Assessors are only able to reflect physical changes and alterations to dwellings once they have been sold and a reconsideration of the banding has taken place.
Information on the number of rooms is not available from the Assessors’ Portal data for Shetland, and it is not separately available for dwellings with seven or more rooms in Dumfries and Galloway.
4.3 Information on household types from the Scottish Household Survey
The Scottish Household Survey is used to estimate the number of households of each type, in Scotland as a whole (Table 9 and Figure 5). The sample size of this survey is not large enough to provide reliable information on each household type in each local authority area. More information about the Scottish Household Survey is available from www.scotland.gov.uk/shs.
4.4 Urban-rural classification
The Scottish Government produces an urban-rural classification, which is based on settlement size as defined by GROS, and accessibility based on drive time analysis. An urban-rural classification is provided for each data zone in Scotland, and this information has been used to analyse the data shown in this publication. There are six urban and rural classifications, as shown below:
Scottish Government urban-rural classification |
|
|---|---|
1 Large Urban Areas |
Settlements of over 125,000 people. |
2 Other Urban Areas |
Settlements of 10,000 to 125,000 people. |
3 Accessible Small Towns |
Settlements of between 3,000 and 10,000 people and within 30 minutes drive of a settlement of 10,000 or more. |
4 Remote Small Towns |
Settlements of between 3,000 and 10,000 people and with a drive time of over 30 minutes to a settlement of 10,000 or more. |
5 Accessible Rural |
Settlements of less than 3,000 people and within 30 minutes drive of a settlement of 10,000 or more. |
6 Remote Rural |
Settlements of less than 3,000 people and with a drive time of over 30 minutes to a settlement of 10,000 or more. |
Source: Scottish Government Urban Rural classification 2005-06 http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2006/07/31114822/0
4.5 Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation, SIMD
The Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation (SIMD) is produced by the Scottish Government to identify concentrations of deprivation across Scotland in a consistent way. It is based on 37 indicators in seven domains: Current Income, Employment, Health, Education Skills and Training, Geographic Access to Services, Housing and Crime. An SIMD rank is produced for every data zone in Scotland. Based on this, the SIMD decile is produced, from one (most deprived) to ten (least deprived). This information, from the 2006 SIMD, has been used to analyse the data shown in this publication.
More information about the SIMD is available from the Scottish Government website at http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Statistics/SIMD/Overview.