Information on council stock is collected at an aggregate level. Sensitive or confidential information relating to individual houses or people is not collected.

Data on vacant local authority stock is sourced directly from the 32 Local Authorities in Scotland. There is no sampling involved in this data collection and complete coverage of Scotland is usually achieved across most data items. In the event of non-response from a Local Authority, an estimate can be made either based on previous returns or on alternative information sources.

Information provided by Local Authorities is extracted from Management Information Systems. We expect this information to be of good quality as it is used in the day-to-day housing management as well as for reporting purposes. We also expect the systems to have some built in quality assurance.

Information owned by Local Authorities is considered to be of good quality, as this information is crucial to the management of housing stock by Local Authorities.

The classification of the housing stock into current status and length of vacancy is believed to be generally good quality. Scottish Government statisticians carry out quality assurance of data provided from each Local Authority prior to publication. In particular figures are compared to those provided in previous years. Where there appears to be a discrepancy this is queried with the local authority and, if necessary, changes are made either to the latest year’s data or to that for earlier years in order to ensure consistency.

Figures are sourced from management information systems therefore there no sampling error or confidence interval that would affect the accuracy of the results, although there may be a small amount of error associated with non-response and subsequent estimation.

Data on vacant stock has been collected in a consistent manner since 1998. This time series is affected by 6 local authorities that transferred all of their stock to housing associations between 2003 and 2007. This means that figures for Glasgow and Scottish Borders are excluded from 2003 onwards, Dumfries & Galloway from 2004, Eilean Siar and Argyll & Bute from 2007 and Inverclyde from 2008.

The Scottish Housing Regulator collect figures on vacant stock for all social landlords, including the 26 local authorities that own housing stock. Although the timing and data sources used by SHR and SG Housing statistics are similar, there may be some differences in definitions which may cause figures to be slightly different in some cases.

The figures are based on a snapshot at the 31st March each year. Figures on local authority vacant homes at 31st March each year should not be confused with vacancies arising during the year, which are also published separately on this platform.

The Stock 2 return collects basic information on local authority vacant stock of dwellings as at 31 March each year, the status of the dwellings and the length of time they have been vacant.

Categories describing the status of vacant dwellings are as follows:

“Temporary accommodation for the homeless” means that the dwelling is only used for this purpose, is available for this use and expected to be in the future.

“Never to be relet” includes properties that are expected to never again be available for social rent for the council, for example because they are to be demolished or sold with vacant possession within 2 years.

“Not available for relet” includes dwellings that are part of a modernisation scheme, undergoing major repairs, or otherwise unavailable to be let at 31st March but will become available for council rate in future.

“Identified as low demand” means that the dwelling has had 3 offers refused, and does not fit into any of the 3 categories mentioned above.

“Other” means any other status that does not fit into any of the categories above.

The figures show the number of local authority owned dwellings that are vacant, at a snapshot time each year (31st March). Dwellings can be vacant for a range of reasons, which are covered in the “current status” category.

Tables are published on the Scottish Government Housing Statistics website as soon as possible once data collection, data processing and preparation of tables and publication material is complete, generally in September each year. The open data platform will be updated as soon as possible after publication.

Local authority vacant stock figures are subject to routine revisions. The figures may contain estimates where an authority is unable to return data. These are revised in the next scheduled publication following receipt of revised data.