Data on the number of dwellings being built is collected at a site level. Sensitive or confidential information relating to individuals is not collected. Much of the information about housing developments is likely to be already publicly available, for example though Housing Land Audits and planning permission requests.

The precise timing of when starts and completions are recorded in the statistics often depends on the timing of building control inspections. Revisions occur in the quarterly series to allocate starts and completions to the correct quarters based on information received from the administrative systems. For example, a building control inspector may not visit a site following completion until the following quarter – the completions when they are extracted from the administrative systems would be allocated to the correct quarter of completion resulting in a revision to the previously published statistics.

Several quality assurance methods are carried out on the data. For example, the data is compared to previous quarters’ figures and to the same quarter’s figures from the previous year to look for any unusual changes. The figures are also compared to information from other sources, such as Registers for Scotland and NHBC, to assess the consistency in the figures produced.

The latest private-led and all-sector new housebuilding figures contain some estimates for a small number of authorities

Estimates for new private house building in Highland have been used because of outstanding returns since 2006 quarter 3. Starts data for the missing quarters have been calculated by estimating Highland's contribution to national new build housing starts, based on previous years.

Completions estimates have now been revised to incorporate information from an alternative datasource, Highland's Housing Land Audit completions database. Due to discrepancies in data for some previous quarters these figures have been extended back to the start of 2000. The result of this is a total increase in Highland's private new build figures of 0.6% of the Scottish total, affecting the previously published figures between January 2000 and June 2008.

These statistics are not seasonally adjusted, so comparisons with the previous quarter will include some seasonal effects. As a result figures are often compared to those for the same quarter one year earlier.

Comparisons can be made to the rest of the UK. These figures are published by the Department for Communities and Local Government and can be found here. For more information on the comparability between the countries of the UK, see page 5 of the explanatory document.

This dataset contains information on dwellings started and completed in Scotland, updated quarterly. It includes those built by Local Authorities, Registered Social Landlords (housing associations) and private developers: both commercial and individuals.

Data on private and local authority new building is provided by quarterly returns from councils (NB1 and NB2) and data on new housing provided by housing associations is drawn by the Scottish Government from data on the administration of housing support grants.

Started

A dwelling is regarded as started on the date that work begins on the foundations of the block of which the dwelling will form a part, and not on the date when site preparations begin. Due to delays in registering starts, some dwellings will be recorded as having been started in the quarter following the one in which this actually took place. Currently, approvals for housing association dwelling are registered as a proxy for starts, however actual starts data for 2009/10 is now available.

Completed

A dwelling is completed when it is ready for occupation, whether it is in fact occupied or not and, if occupied, whether or not a full completion certificate has been issued. If a dwelling is transferred to another agency after completion it is considered to have been completed by the first agency. When we are made aware of the completion of a dwelling retrospectively, we make every effort to revise our figures to include the house in the quarter in which it was in fact completed.

The new build housing statistics measure construction activity undertaken during the quarter to monitor the new build component of housing supply. The statistics record the new build activity undertaken, rather than the sales of new build houses. As such they are not intended to provide a direct measure of housing market activity. Neither are they a measure of housing tenure. Although the supply of new houses is strongly related to housing market activity there are many other influences on the housing market, such as house prices, the availability of mortgage finance, households’ disposable income, buyer confidence, etc. which will influence households decisions to purchase a house.

Social sector data is available a quarter ahead of the private sector data due to the timings of the receipt of data from local authority contacts.

Quarterly statistical 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 . The all-sectors data is generally published around six months after the end of time period referred to, with social sector data having three months less of a lag due to the different timings of receipt of data as described above. The open data platform will be updated as soon as possible after publication. We aim to have the dataset updated within a week of publishing the quarterly housing statistics data.

Quarterly new build figures are subject to routine revisions as more complete information becomes available. These revisions are made when the next quarter's data is published.

Housing Association figures may be subject to revisions at the end of each financial year, so figures for incomplete financial years should be treated as provisional.

Further information on routine revisions is available on request from housingstatistics@gov.scot .