Scottish House Condition Survey: 2022 Key Findings

The Chief Statistician has released figures on fuel poverty, energy efficiency, the condition of housing and other key descriptors of the occupied housing stock in Scotland. This is the first release of information from the Scottish House Condition Survey (SHCS) for 2022 and the first update of SHCS accredited statistics since 2019.

Fuel poverty

Fuel poverty rates in 2022 have increased to 31% (791,000 households) of which 472,000 households (18.5% of all households) were in extreme fuel poverty. This compares to 24.6% (613,000 households) in fuel poverty of which 311,000 (12.4% of all households) were in extreme fuel poverty in 2019.

The median fuel poverty gap has also increased to £1,240, a 65% increase compared to £750 in 2019. Similarly, the median fuel poverty gap (adjusted for 2015 prices) for fuel poor households in 2022 (£1,020) is higher than in 2019 (£700), a 46% increase.

Energy Efficiency

In 2022, 52% of Scottish homes were rated as EPC band C or better under SAP v9.93. This is an increase of around 8 percentage points compared to 45% in 2019.

Under SAP 2009, which allows comparisons over a longer period, over half of dwellings (56%) were rated C or better, up 32 percentage points since 2010. In the same period, the proportion of properties in the lowest EPC bands (E, F or G) has reduced from 27% in 2010 to 9% in 2022.

Disrepair

In 2022, two new below tolerable standard criteria were introduced (assessing the presence, type, and condition smoke, heat, and carbon monoxide alarms) leading to a sharp increase to the proportion of below tolerable standard dwellings from 2% in 2019 to 29% in 2022. However, if these two criteria were not included the proportion of dwellings below tolerable standard would be 2% similar to 2019.

The Scottish Housing Quality Standard (SHQS) failure rate in the social sector was 41%, not allowing for abeyances and exemptions, This has fallen from 60% in 2010. Failures of the Energy Efficient criterion were the biggest drivers of failures overall for the social sector. In 2022, 29% of social sector properties did not meet the Energy Efficient criterion.

Disrepair to critical elements, which are central to weather-tightness, structural stability and preventing deterioration of the property, stood at 49% in 2022. Less than half of these (18% of all dwellings) required urgent disrepair to critical elements and just 3% had extensive disrepair (covering at least a fifth of the element area) to critical elements.

Overall, this is an improvement of 3 percentage points on 2019, when 52% of dwellings had disrepair to critical elements. The 2022 rate has returned to a level similar to 2016 (48%).

Background

• The Scottish House Condition Survey is a sample survey, hence all figures are subject to a degree of uncertainty due to sampling variability.  It is a two-part survey combining both an interview with occupants and a physical inspection of dwellings. The sample size in 2022 was 2,983 dwellings where both an interview and a physical survey were conducted.

• Due to the enforced change in approach for the 2021 SHCS in response to Covid-19 restrictions (for further details see External+ Data Quality 2021 SHCS) the 2022 key findings report is the first edition of the Scottish House Condition Survey to be published as Accredited Official Statistics since 2019.

Fuel Poverty

• Scottish Government has produced scenario modelling to estimate the rates of fuel poverty under the Ofgem price cap. Our most recent estimates are for January 2024 to March 2024 under the price cap of £1,928 for the typical dual fuel household are available in the updated economic context section of The Cost of Living (Tenant Protection) (Scotland) Act 2022: report -1 October to 31 December 2023.

Local authority estimates

• As previously advised, in the 2021 survey the lack of SHCS data for 2020 and the enforced changes for 2021 cause issues with the production of local authority estimates from the SHCS.

• We won’t be able to return to the usual approach for producing local authority estimates from the SHCS until the 2024 wave of the SHCS has completed. We will then be able to produce local authority estimates from the SHCS based on a three-year average for 2022 to 2024. We expect these estimates to be published in early 2026.

Comparability with previous SHCS waves

• The results of the 2022 survey have been published as Accredited Official Statistics and results for 2022 have been assessed to be comparable in the most part to 2019 and earlier years. However, the 2022 results for percentages and number of households in each tenure should be treated with caution, as there is evidence to suggest that social and private rented households may be under-represented and owner-occupied households slightly over-represented in the 2022 achieved sample.

• In general, these differences are unlikely to have a significant impact on the reported results. For those results where an impact is more likely, this is highlighted in the relevant chapter and as notes to the data tables.

SHCS data on the UK data archive

• We will be depositing the microdata from the 2022 SHCS on the UK data archive and we will notify users when this is available.

Accessibility

• We have made changes to the key findings report to make it more accessible, particularly to the supporting tables.

• We would welcome feedback from users on these changes and any other aspects of outputs from the SHCS. We can be contacted by emailing shcs@gov.scot.

Accredited Official statistics are produced by professionally independent statistical staff in accordance with the Code of Practice for Statistics.