Number of dwellings by Council Tax band. Higher geographies are aggregated from 2011 Data Zones.
| Dimension | Value |
|---|---|
| Council Tax Band | |
| Measure Type | |
| Reference Period | |
|
Reference Area
(showing types of area available in these data) |
|
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Entire dataset
This is a very large dataset. Lock some dimensions using the links above, or use the data cart to build a custom download. Please contact us if you require a full download. |
This dataset contains information on the number (‘count’) of dwellings in each Data Zone and the numbers that are in each Council Tax band class. Numbers of dwellings at higher geographies are aggregated from 2011 Data Zones.
Dwellings by Council Tax Band based on 2001 Data Zones are also available, but are no longer updated.
Data zones are the small area geography used by Scottish Government to allow statistics to be available across a number of policy areas. The Data Zone geography covers the whole of Scotland. Data zones were initially set up to nest within council area boundaries and to have a population of between 500 and 1,000 household residents. As much as possible, Data Zones were set up to contain households with similar social characteristics and to take into consideration physical boundaries. More information on Data Zone geography can be found on the Scottish Government website.
Following the 2011 Census the Scottish Government completed a consultation on the redrawing of Data Zone boundary and the finalised new Data Zones (2011 Data Zones) were published at the end of 2014.
Data on Council Tax band is obtained from the Assessors’ Portal in December each year, or the following January. The Assessors are, amongst other things, responsible for valuing each dwelling in Scotland for the purposes of assigning it to a Council Tax Band.
This data is also available by single Council Tax band as a downloadable file and on the NRS website. These breakdowns are available for Scotland and its council areas, as well as for 2011 data zones and other geographies.
The estimated total number of dwellings in this dataset differs from those in the ‘Household Estimates’ dataset as the latter are extracted from a different source (Council Tax systems), at a different time of year (September).
Total Dwellings
This is the total number of dwellings on the Council Tax valuation list (excluding free-standing private lock-ups and garages). A 'dwelling' refers to the accommodation itself, for example a house or a flat, and includes second homes that are not let out commercially. Caravans count as dwellings if they are someone’s main home.
Council Tax Band
Each dwelling is placed in one of eight Council Tax bands (A to H), with dwellings in band H being the most expensive. 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. Dwellings in the single Council Tax Bands are then aggregated in the following classes:
Summary statistics for National Parks, urban-rural classifications and Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation deciles are published annually in 'Estimates of Households and Dwellings in Scotland', which is available on the National Records of Scotland (NRS) website.
This dataset does not contain any directly identifiable personal information.
Postcode level information is extracted from the Assessors' Portal. Postcodes are used to assign data to Data Zones. The data is cleaned to ensure that all records are located in a Data Zone within the council area assigned by the Assessor. Records using out of date postcodes are also investigated to check that they are still placed in the correct Data Zone. Differences in total number of dwellings in a Data Zone outwith a threshold are investigated to determine if there is a reasonable explanation for the increase or reduction. Frequencies for variables (e.g. type of dwelling) are compared with earlier years' data to identify any potential issues. The results of postcode cleaning and quality assurance work are fed back to the Assessors each year.
Data on Council Tax band is obtained from the Assessors’ Portal. 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. It is possible that not all information held on the Assessors’ Portal is up-to-date. 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. Furthermore, it may take time for changes as a result of new building or demolition to be recorded.
When using Data Zone level information on dwellings and households, changes over time can occur 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 Data Zone. Differences can also occur due to postcodes being allocated to a different Data Zone 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 statistics are also provided in Excel, and CSV formats on the NRS website. They are designed to be consistent, and incorporate comparable historical data where appropriate.
It is the policy of NRS to make its website and products accessible according to published guidelines. More information is available in the Accessibility section of the NRS website.
The statistics are mainly used for informing councils’ decisions about housing need and service provision.
Data for each year is downloaded from the Assessors’ Portal in late December of that year or early January of the following year, e.g. 2021 data was downloaded on 7 January 2022. The summary statistics are published in the following summer.
Revisions and corrections to previously published estimates are dealt with in accordance with the Scottish Government Statistician Group corporate policy statement on revisions and corrections - a copy of which is available on the Scottish Government website.
In February 2019, we updated our methodology for allocating Data Zones to higher geographies to align with Government Statistical Service Geography Policy. This resulted in revisions to some aggregated figures at Electoral Ward and Scottish Parliament Constituency level.
This is a linked data resource: it has a permanent unique uri at which both humans and machines can find it on the Internet, and which can be used an identifier in queries on our SPARQL endpoint.
A linked data-orientated view of dimensions and values
| Dimension | Locked Value |
|---|---|
|
Council Tax Band
http://statistics.gov.scot/def/dimension/councilTaxBand
|
(not locked to a value) |
|
Reference Area
http://purl.org/linked-data/sdmx/2009/dimension#refArea
|
(not locked to a value) |
|
Reference Period
http://purl.org/linked-data/sdmx/2009/dimension#refPeriod
|
(not locked to a value) |
|
Measure Type
http://purl.org/linked-data/cube#measureType
|
(not locked to a value) |
Linked Data is stored in graphs. We keep dataset contents (the data) separately from the metadata, to make it easier for you to find exactly what you need.
The data in this dataset are stored in the graph: http://statistics.gov.scot/graph/dwellings-by-council-tax-band-summary-current-geographic-boundaries
The data structure definition for this data cube dataset is stored in the same graph as the data: http://statistics.gov.scot/graph/dwellings-by-council-tax-band-summary-current-geographic-boundaries
All other metadata about this dataset are stored in the graph: http://statistics.gov.scot/graph/dwellings-by-council-tax-band-summary-current-geographic-boundaries/metadata
A breakdown by type of the 628,490 resources in this dataset's data graph.
| Resource type | Number of resources |
|---|---|
| Collection | 2 |
| Component specification | 6 |
| Data set | 1 |
| Data structure definition | 1 |
| Observation | 628,480 |
In addition to this bookmarkable html page, this dataset metadata is also available for our robot customers in the following machine-readable formats. Please refer to the API documentation for more details.
| dataset metadata | JSON RDF/XML Turtle N-Triples Atom |