Mobile Homes: child rights and wellbeing impact assessment screening

Which groups of children and young people are currently or will be affected by the relevant proposal?

The person who pays the pitch fees as part of a contract under the Mobile Homes Act 1983 will benefit so there is potential for children and young people living with them to benefit in turn. However, the available evidence suggests that residents of mobile home sites are likely to be older and that there are likely to be relatively few children and young people living on licenced mobile home sites.

Research by Consumer Focus in 2013 identified 92 park home sites in Scotland, housing an estimated 3,314 mobile homes.^[5] Research for the Scottish Government in 2019^[6] identified a total of 54 Gypsy/Traveller sites across Scotland, comprising 29 public and 25 private sites with 397 and 216 pitches respectively.

Research by the University of York for the Scottish Government in 2007^[7] reviewed census data, undertook a survey with Local Authorities and completed case studies in three Local Authority areas to identify characteristics of mobile home residents. This included those living in one off mobile homes in the grounds of houses or unlicenced sites, who would not be affected by this measure, as well as those on licenced sites. For the case study areas, it was found that a greater number of residents were single person households and pensioners than would be expected for the population as a whole. There were fewer parents or a lone parents by comparison with the rest of the population. Although the data is now very old, this suggests that licenced sites are not a preferred housing choice or families with children.

The report for Scottish Government states that “families with children were much less likely to live in mobile homes across the case study areas, compared with the profile of the general population in these authorities.”

This fits with other evidence that licenced mobile home sites are often a popular option for those downsizing in retirement. Some sites are actively marketed as retirement communities, including a minimum age limit for residents. The 2007 Scottish Government research found that residents of caravans and mobile homes in Scotland were more likely to be older than the general population, with 26% of residents in mobile homes being aged 60+ compared with 21% of the general population. This was borne out in consultation responses which identified older people and disabled people as benefitting from the change in index.

Public sector Gypsy/Traveller sites are also bound by the controls on pitch fee increases in the Mobile Homes Act 1983.

According to the detailed analysis of the 2011 census (which is acknowledged to be out of date now) Gypsy/Traveller households were more likely to contain dependent children (36 per cent) than the population as a whole (26 per cent), and they were three times more likely to contain ‘three or more’ dependent children^[8]. So while, in general, mobile homes appear less likely to be a housing option for families with children, Gypsy/Traveller families may be the exception.

The consultation did not find that there were additional or different considerations for Gypsy/Traveller sites. In practice, the benefit of this change may not be felt by Gypsy/Travellers on public sites as ALACHO's consultation response reports that Councils already generally use CPI as a measure in calculating rent increases. However, the change means that this group would be protected should Councils' practice change in future.

We found that the effect of the adjustment to section 5 of the 1983 Act, to remove references to gypsy and traveller sites that are no longer needed in consequence of previous changes to the law in relation to these sites had a neutral effect because it is a technical change which does not impact on the rights of residents and, in turn, any children or young people living on a Gypsy Traveller site.