Description:
This indicator measures the percentage of historic dwellings classified as having disrepair to critical elements.
Source of Data:
The source is the Scottish House Condition Survey (SHCS), which is a National Statistics publication.
It is the largest single housing research project in Scotland, and the only national survey to look at the physical condition of Scotland’s homes as well as the experiences of householders.
The latest SHCS publication can be found at the following link:
https://www.gov.scot/collections/scottish-house-condition-survey/
The indicator will be updated annually in December (note, the 2018 SHCS was published on 21 Jan 2020).
Definitions:
Historic dwellings refers to any dwelling type built prior to 1919. This includes:
- Detached;
- Semi-detached;
- Terraced;
- Tenements;
- Other flats;
The category ‘other flats’ includes houses that have been converted to flats, high rise blocks, and so-called “4-in-a-block” flats. Converted flats are almost exclusively pre-1919 dwellings.
Critical element disrepair refers to disrepair to building elements central to weather-tightness, structural stability and preventing deterioration of the property. These elements are as follows:
- Roof covering;
- Roof structure;
- Chimney stacks;
- Flashings;
- Roof gutters and downpipes;
- External walls – finish;
- External walls – structure;
- Access decks and balustrades (common areas – flats only);
- Foundations;
- Damp-proof course;
- External doors and windows (dwelling only);
- Doors, screens, windows and roof lights (common areas – flats only);
- Internal walls/partitions;
- Floor structure;
- Floor finish;
- Dry rot/wet rot;
Disrepair to critical elements is recorded where there is any disrepair, no matter how small, to the critical elements of the dwelling.
Criteria for Change:
This evaluation is based on: 95% confidence intervals for the data in each year.
The 95% confidence intervals are +/- 4 percentage points for both 2017 and 2018, with sample sizes of 512 and 521 respectively.
An overlapping confidence interval suggests that there has been no statistically significant change.
Otherwise we view the change as significant.