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Scottish House Condition Survey: Key Findings 2007

27/11/2008

Scotland's Chief Statistician today published the Scottish House Condition Survey: Key Findings 2007. It reports on energy efficiency, fuel poverty, the Scottish Housing Quality Standard and other key descriptors of the occupied housing stock in Scotland.

The main findings are:

• 569,000 households (24.6 per cent of all households) were estimated to be in fuel poverty in 2007, having to spend at least 10 per cent of their income on fuel in order to maintain a standard heating regime. This is up from 543,000 (23.5 per cent of households) in 2005/6
• 50 per cent of dwellings were rated "good" in terms of energy efficiency on the National Home Energy Rating (NHER) scale. This demonstrates a continuation of the upwards trend from, 31 per cent in 2002 to 40 per cent in 2003/4, 44 per cent in 2004/5 and 47 per cent in 2005/6. Just four per cent were rated "poor".
• The median NHER score has increased from six to seven and the mean from 6.10 to 6.2 since 2005/6.
• Approximately 74 per cent of dwellings failed the Scottish Housing Quality Standard (SHQS) in 2007. The majority of dwellings that failed did so on the energy efficiency criterion. Around one-fifth of dwellings failed on more than one of the five criteria which is roughly the same proportion as in 2002 and 2003/4.
• 79 per cent of dwellings in Scotland have some form of disrepair ranging from the very minor to major disrepair. Of these; 49 per cent have some urgent disrepair, 72 per cent have some form of disrepair to critical elements and 37 per cent suffer from some form of extensive disrepair. Older dwellings are most likely to suffer from disrepair.