six - How Scots live: housing and housing policy

Summary

Introduction

The housing system in the UK has undergone a number of significant changes over the last decade. More importantly, it is facing a series of new challenges in the future arising from demographic changes and the changing role of local authorities as they move away from their traditional landlord role. The aims of this chapter are:

• • to describe the nature of the housing system in Scotland;

• • to give an overview of the changing pattern and distribution of tenure;

• • to look at the quality of Scottish housing and the nature of housing and housing-related costs such as fuel;

• • to look at the residential mobility of Scots and the extent to which the existing pattern of tenure impacts on mobility.

There are a number of datasets in existence that serve to give us a picture of both the physical and social elements of housing in Scotland (Scottish House Condition Survey; Scottish Household Survey). These are repeated surveys, which allow us to look at aggregate changes over time in relation to housing choice, tenure structure, housing conditions, neighbourhoods, affordability, housing investment, housing-related expenditure and a whole host of other factors that are of interest to academics and policy makers. However, when it comes to trying to understand the motivation for such changes, the choices facing households and the way in which households make housing and related decisions we are forced to make a number of assumptions that are, for the most part, theoretical and lacking in empirical content. If, for example, we try to model housing choice, involving as it does a number of sub-choices (tenure, neighbourhood, house type, size, and so on), we must make some very strong assumptions about the order in which the choices are made (Meen and Andrew, 1999; Gibb et al, 2000). However, if we are able to track individuals (and their associated households) over time, as we can with the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS), then we can begin to put some empirical flesh on the bones of such models. Similarly, if we can track the attitude of individuals to their housing circumstances and then look at any changes they make and the reasons for their changes, then we can begin to build up an understanding of the process that takes place.