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Estimates of Households and Dwellings in Scotland, 2008
3. Results
3.1 Number of households and dwellings
Table 1 shows the number of households in each local authority area in Scotland from 1991 to 2008, and Table 2 shows the number of dwellings.
A ’dwelling’ refers to the accommodation itself, for example a house or a flat. A ‘household’ refers to the people living together in that dwelling. The number of households will be smaller than the number of dwellings, as some dwellings are vacant, or second homes. Some further adjustments are made to the figures on households – Section 4 gives more information, and definitions.
These tables show the following trends:
- In mid-2008, there were 2.3 million households in Scotland – around 290,000 more than in 1991.
- The number of households in Scotland has been increasing by between 11,000 and 23,000 each year since 1991. Over the last year, there has been an increase of 17,500 households (0.8 per cent).
- The rate of growth has slowed in the past year and, between 2007 and 2008, the increase in the number of households was lower than in any other year for the last five years.
- The number of households has been increasing in every council area, except Inverclyde (where it remained the same between 2003 and 2008 and fell slightly in 2007-08). The areas with the greatest increases over the last five years have been in Highland (8.5 per cent) and Aberdeenshire (8.3 per cent).
- The total number of dwellings shows a very similar trend to the total number of households.
3.2 Characteristics of dwellings
Tables 3 to 6 show the number of dwellings by Council Tax band, type of dwelling (flat, terraced, semi-detached or detached), number of rooms per dwelling, and density of housing.
These figures are summarised by urban/rural classification in Table 3 (according to the Scottish Government 6-fold urban/rural classification), by level of deprivation in Table 4 (according to the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation), and by local authority area in Table 5. Strategic Development Planning Authorities (SDPAs) are newly-formed planning authorities which cover the four largest city regions around Aberdeen, Dundee, Edinburgh and Glasgow. Summary information is available for each SDPA area and for Scotland’s two National Parks in Table 6. A description of the SDPA areas and National Parks, and the areas they cover, is given in Sections 4.6 and 4.7. Background information on the population by age group is included in Tables 3, 4 and 6.
These tables highlight the following trends:
Council Tax band
- The proportion of dwellings in the lower Council Tax bands (bands A-C) varies across the country. Accessible rural areas tend to have the smallest proportion of dwellings in the lower Council Tax bands.
- In general, the proportion of dwellings which are in the lower Council Tax bands increases with the level of deprivation of the area. In the most deprived areas, almost all dwellings (94 per cent) are in the lower Council Tax bands, compared to just 13 per cent in the least deprived areas.
- Of the four SDPA areas, Glasgow and the Clyde Valley SDPA area has the highest proportion of dwellings in lower Council Tax bands (66 per cent). This compares with 54 per cent in the Aberdeen City and Shire SDPA area (which comprises of Aberdeen City and most of Aberdeenshire) and the Scottish average of 62 per cent.
- In the Cairngorms National Park, 46 per cent of dwellings are in Council Tax bands A-C, whilst for Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park, the figure is 36 per cent. This is substantially lower than the average figure for Scotland as a whole, which is 62 per cent.
- When interpreting the figures on Council Tax bands, it is important to note that the Council Tax band reflects the Assessor’s opinion of open market value, subject to a number of statutory assumptions. Assessors base their opinion of value on the actual selling prices of similar properties which sold around the valuation date of 1 April 1991. More information about this can be found on the Scottish Assessors’ website at www.saa.gov.uk.
Type of property
- Figures 1 and 2 show that there are higher proportions of flats in urban areas, and in more deprived areas. In contrast, there are higher proportions of detached houses in rural areas, and in less deprived areas. Background information on the Scottish Government Urban Rural Classification and the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation is given in Sections 4.4 and 4.5.
- Map 1 shows the percentage of dwellings in each local authority area which are flats. Urban areas, and areas closer to the ‘Central Belt’ of Scotland, tend to have higher proportions of flats.
- The three island authorities have the highest percentages of detached dwellings (over 58 per cent of all dwellings in these areas, compared to 21 per cent for Scotland as a whole).
- There are higher proportions of detached properties in the Cairngorms National Park (51 per cent of all dwellings) and Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park (46 per cent of all dwellings), compared to 21 per cent for Scotland as a whole.
- The median number of rooms per dwelling is lower in more deprived areas.
Figure 1: Dwelling types, by urban-rural classification, 2008
Figure 2: Dwelling types, by Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation (SIMD) decile, 2008
Density of housing
- The density of housing increases from an average of 0.03 dwellings per hectare in remote rural areas to an average of over 10 dwellings per hectare in large urban areas.
- In general, the density of housing increases as the level of deprivation increases. The most deprived areas have the highest density of housing, with an average of 15 dwellings per hectare. An exception is the least deprived areas which have a relatively high density of five dwellings per hectare. This is probably because they are often located in urban areas, and may partly be due to larger properties being subdivided into flats.
- Glasgow and Clyde Valley SDPA area has a higher average density of housing than the other SDPA areas, with an average of 2.5 dwellings per hectare compared to between 0.3 and 0.8 dwellings per hectare for the other three areas.
- The Cairngorms National Park and Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park both have low average housing densities (0.02 and 0.04 dwellings per hectare respectively).
3.3 Characteristics of households
Tables 7 to 10 show the percentage of dwellings which are occupied, vacant or second homes. They include the percentage of dwellings entitled to a Council Tax discount because they are occupied by one adult (living alone or with children, or with other adults who are ‘disregarded’ for Council Tax purposes). They also show the percentage of dwellings which are occupied but exempt from paying Council Tax, such as households entirely occupied by students, or armed forces accommodation.
These figures are summarised by urban/rural classification in Table 7, by level of deprivation in Table 8 and by local authority area in Table 9. Summary information is available for each Strategic Development Planning Authority (SDPA) area and for Scotland’s two National Parks in Table 10.
These tables highlight the following trends:
Vacant dwellings and second homes
- Across Scotland as a whole, 2.8 per cent of dwellings are vacant and 1.4 per cent are second homes, though there is wide variation across the country.
- Remote rural areas have the lowest percentage of dwellings which are occupied (88 per cent, compared to 95-97 per cent in other areas).This is because remote rural areas have relatively high percentages of vacant dwellings (four per cent of all dwellings in these areas) and second homes (seven per cent). In other areas, an average of between two and three per cent of dwellings are vacant, and one or two per cent are second homes. These trends are shown in Figure 3.
- Figure 4 shows that the most deprived areas have the highest percentage of dwellings which are vacant (six per cent). In all other areas, an average of between two and three per cent of dwellings are vacant. The proportion of second homes is lowest in the most deprived areas, and the proportion increases as the level of deprivation goes down, before falling again in the least deprived areas. This may be because the greatest concentrations of second homes are found in remote rural areas, which may not necessarily be the most or the least deprived.
- Map 2 shows the percentage of dwellings in each local authority area which are vacant. In general, it is the more rural areas and the island authorities which have the highest proportions of vacant dwellings. Dundee City and Inverclyde also have relatively high proportions of dwellings which are vacant
- The TAYplan SDPA area (comprising Dundee City, Perth and Kinross, Angus and north Fife) has the highest percentage of vacant dwellings (4.2 per cent). In the other SDPA areas, the proportion of vacant dwellings is around the national average of 2.8 per cent.
- The Cairngorms National Park has a relatively low percentage of dwellings which are occupied (84 per cent), while the figure for Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park is slightly higher (90 per cent). The two National Parks have relatively high proportions of dwellings which are second homes – 13 per cent are second homes in the Cairngorms National Park and 7.4 per cent in Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park. The equivalent figure for Scotland as a whole is 1.4 per cent.
Figure 3: Vacant dwellings and second homes, by urban-rural classification, 2008
Figure 4: Vacant dwellings and second homes, by Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation (SIMD) decile, 2008
Household type
- 38 per cent of dwellings in Scotland are entitled to a 'single adult' Council Tax discount. This category includes one adult living alone or with children, or with other people who are ‘disregarded’ for Council Tax purposes.
- The proportion of dwellings entitled to a 'single adult' discount is higher in urban areas - 42 per cent in large urban areas compared to 29 per cent of all dwellings in remote rural areas, as Figure 5 shows. This proportion also increases steadily as the level of deprivation increases, from 28 per cent of all dwellings in the least deprived areas to 52 per cent in the most deprived areas. This is shown in Figure 6.
- In both the National Park areas, the proportion of dwellings which have a ‘single adult’ discount (28 and 30 per cent) is lower than the national average of 38 per cent.
Figure 5: Percentage of dwellings entitled to a ‘single adult’ discount, by urban-rural classification, 2008
Figure 6: Percentage of dwellings entitled to a ‘single adult’ discount, by Scottish Index Multiple Deprivation (SIMD) decile, 2008
- Urban areas tend to have the highest percentage of dwellings which are occupied and exempt from paying Council Tax, such as all-student households and armed forces accommodation. Urban areas are more likely to have universities, and a larger number of all-student households. For instance, the proportion of households with ‘occupied exemptions’ is greater in Aberdeen City (which has two universities) than in adjacent Aberdeenshire (which has none).
- The percentage of dwellings which are occupied and exempt from paying Council Tax is around four per cent in the Aberdeen City and Shire and TAYplan SDPA areas, which is higher than for the other two SDPA areas. The Aberdeen City and Shire SDPA area comprises Aberdeen City and most of Aberdeenshire, and the TAYplan SDPA area comprises Dundee City, Perth and Kinross, Angus and north Fife.
3.4 Variation within local authority areas
Scottish Neighbourhood Statistics and data zones
There can be a great deal of variation in household characteristics within a local authority area. The Scottish Neighbourhood Statistics (SNS) website (www.sns.gov.uk) contains statistics for each ‘data zone’ in Scotland, which is a standard geography used for a range of statistics. The average data zone contains around 750 people, which is small enough to provide quite detailed local information, and can be aggregated to different areas of interest. The information summarised in this publication is available at data zone level, from the SNS website. This includes the number of dwellings by Council Tax band, type of dwelling, number of rooms per dwelling, density of housing, and the percentage of dwellings which are occupied, vacant, second homes, or are entitled to a ‘single adult’ Council Tax discount, or an ‘occupied exemption’. The SNS website allows users to view tables or maps for individual areas, or to download all the data in order to analyse it further.
Maps 3 and 4 illustrate the types of information that can be produced using the SNS website.
Map 3 shows the percentage of dwellings which are second homes for each data zone in Scotland. The map shows that there are wide variations in the proportions of second homes within many local authority areas, such as Highland, and that there are relatively high numbers of second homes in remote rural areas.
Map 4 shows the percentage of dwellings with ‘occupied exemptions’, in Dundee City. This gives an illustration of one of two main types of dwellings which are occupied but exempt from paying Council Tax – the area in the centre of Dundee contains relatively high numbers of all-student households.
Maps 3 and 4 provide useful illustrations of the data, but it is not possible to include data zone maps for every part of Scotland within this publication (though users can produce their own maps at www.sns.gov.uk). An alternative way of illustrating the variation within a local authority area is through the use of boxplots.
Figures 7, 8, 9 and 10 use boxplots to illustrate the variation within each local authority area. Boxplots show the middle ranked data zone, and they also show the level of variation – the larger the box, the more variation there is within that local authority area. An illustration of a boxplot is shown below.
Example of a boxplot (the percentage of dwellings which are vacant, in each data zone in Moray)
The example given above shows the percentage of dwellings which are vacant in each data zone in Moray (from Figure 7). This shows that in half the data zones in Moray, up to three per cent of dwellings are vacant, but that the proportion varies across the local authority area. In the five per cent of data zones with the lowest figures, around one per cent of dwellings are vacant, while in the five per cent with the highest figures, more than eight per cent of dwellings are vacant.
Figures 7, 8, 9 and 10 are boxplots, showing the percentage of dwellings in each council area which are vacant, are second homes, have ‘single adult’ discounts, or ‘occupied exemptions’. These charts illustrate a number of trends, and confirm some of the trends seen in the previous tables:
- In general, there are more vacant dwellings in the more rural local authority areas, including the island authorities. However, there are a few data zones with particularly high numbers of vacant dwellings (where over 10 per cent of dwellings are vacant) in Glasgow City and Inverclyde.
- There are also generally more second homes in the more rural local authority areas including the island authorities. There are some exceptions to this. For instance, in North Ayrshire, there are high proportions of second homes on the Island of Arran (over eight per cent are second homes in all data zones), compared with low proportions in other parts of the local authority area.
- There tend to be more dwellings with ‘single adult’ discounts in the urban local authority areas, though there is a lot of variation within every local authority area. This category includes one adult living alone or with children, or with other people who are ‘disregarded’ for Council Tax purposes.
- Most local authority areas have relatively few dwellings entitled to ‘occupied exemptions’. The exceptions tend to be areas with large student populations (e.g. City of Edinburgh, Aberdeen City, Dundee City, Glasgow City and Stirling) and areas with armed forces bases (e.g. Moray, City of Edinburgh and Argyll & Bute). These areas tend to be quite concentrated – the median number of ‘occupied exemptions’ in these local authority areas is less than three per cent, but they have a few data zones with far higher figures.
3.5 Changes in household size and type
Table 11 and Figure 11 show information on changes in household size and type, taken from the Scottish Household Survey. These show that the average household size is getting smaller, with more people living alone and in smaller households. Since 2002, the number of households containing just one adult has increased by six per cent, and the number of two adult households increased by 10 per cent.
In contrast, the number of larger households (such as two or more adults with children), has decreased. This change in household size and type has led to a five per cent increase in the number of households in Scotland, more than double the increase in the population.
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