1.1 Uses
Estimates of the number of households and statistics about dwellings and households are mainly used for informing local authority decisions about housing need and the provision of services (including housing, planning waste collection and community care). The statistics feed into local authorities' development plans, including assessments of housing need and demand both at present and for the future. Some local authorities use the statistics as the baseline for producing their own projections of the future number of households.
The statistics are also employed in land use allocation and planning and in land use and transport models. Small area statistics on dwellings and households are used by Scottish Water to assess demand for water and sewerage services. They have also been used in risk analysis by Fire and Rescue services; to provide information on housing in rural areas (including second homes and empty dwellings) and to inform projections of the future size of school rolls. In addition they are often used to produce profiles of small areas to increase local knowledge.
Household estimates are used as the denominator for other statistics, such as the percentage of households receiving benefits. They are also used in various forms of research.
National Records of Scotland (NRS) use household estimates in the production every two years of projections of the future number of households, which are available in 'Household Projections for Scotland'. Household estimates and projections (for Scotland and the UK) are used directly and indirectly in the production of certain statistics contained within the Scottish Government's annual Government Expenditure and Revenues Scotland (GERS) publication and the quarterly Scottish National Accounts Project (SNAP) releases.
The other UK countries produce estimates of households and dwellings (sometimes referred to as stock estimates) for their own areas. Information on the methods used in each country, including some points to consider when making comparisons, can be found on the NRS website in 'Household and Dwelling Estimates Across the UK'.
NRS household estimates use data taken from Council Tax billing systems. The Council Tax figures give information on the number of 'occupied dwellings'. An occupied dwelling is roughly equivalent to a household. However there will be differences between the number of occupied dwellings and the number of households recorded in the Census. One reason for the differences is that some occupied dwellings may be shared by more than one household; each household would be counted by the Census but only the dwelling itself would be counted in Council Tax data. Another reason is that certain communal establishments (e.g. student halls of residence, barracks or prisons) will be included in the count of occupied dwellings from Council Tax systems but would not be classified as households in the Census.
To account for these differences occupied dwellings figures are anchored to the 2001 Census: the difference between the 2001 Census household count and the number of occupied dwellings in 2001 is subtracted from each year's figure. As we move further away from the 2001 Census, this adjustment may not account for all of the discrepancies between the number of households and the number of occupied dwellings.
Household and dwelling estimates are drawn from administrative data sources relating to Council Tax. There are limitations in using administrative sources to produce statistics. Small differences can arise in the definitions used for various categories of households/dwellings in the administrative systems used. It is also possible that not all information held on administrative systems is up-to-date. For example, local authorities may not be notified immediately of a change in the circumstances of a household which affects eligibility for a Council Tax discount or exemption. Furthermore, it may take time for changes as a result of new building or demolition to be recorded.
Changes over time in categories of Council Tax discounts and exemptions can occur because a local authority has carried out a review and identified cases where a dwelling has been incorrectly categorised. There can also be variations in the ways that some local authorities classify vacant properties and second homes between different years. This can have a small effect on the percentages of dwellings which are vacant or second homes each year in a local authority.
When using neighbourhood (i.e. data zone) level information on dwellings and households, users should be aware that changes over time can occur at this level not only as a result of new building activity and demolition but also because of changes related to the postcodes of dwellings. Postcode changes can occur due to improvements made to administrative systems or NRS data cleaning, re-locating postcodes which were previously allocated to an incorrect neighbourhood. Differences can also occur when postcodes are allocated to a different neighbourhood because the distribution of their population has changed. These differences are likely to be minimal and have only a small effect on change over time, except when looking at small numbers of data zones.
The neighbourhood level collection of Council Tax information is a relatively new data collection. It has seen improvement in data quality and coverage since it began in 2007. This should be noted when making comparisons over time.