Scottish House Condition Survey: Local Authority Analysis 2017-2019

Disrepair

The SHCS quantifies disrepair for a wide range of building elements ranging from aspects of roofs and walls to chimney stacks, internal rooms and common parts of shared buildings like access balconies and entry doors. This is reported in two categories: critical elements^[3] and non-critical elements^[4]. Elements in both of these categories can then be assessed according to the severity of disrepair, as follows:

• Urgent – this relates only to external and common elements^[5] (a mixture of critical and non-critical) where immediate repair is required to prevent further deterioration to the building fabric or health and safety risk to occupants. Not all disrepair to critical elements is necessarily considered urgent by the surveyor. Internal room floor structures and floor finishes as well as internal walls and the presence of dry / wet rot are the only critical elements for which urgency is not applicable.
• Extensive – where the damage covers at least a fifth (20%) or more of the building element area. This can apply to any element whether critical or otherwise.

Disrepair which is not to a critical element, is not urgent or extensive, is referred to as basic. This is the minimum category of disrepair in the survey.

Here we begin by focussing on any disrepair to critical elements, no matter how small. We then provide some analysis of disrepair to critical elements by severity since, in line with the Annual Key Findings Report, for the first time this release of the Local Authority tables includes analysis of urgent disrepair to critical elements and extensive disrepair to critical elements. Full descriptions of the different categories can be found in Section 7.8.7 in the SHCS 2019 Key Findings Report. The published tables allow users to explore the other disrepair categories in more detail.

Dundee City (77%) had the highest rates of disrepair to critical elements, whilst North Ayrshire had the lowest at 29%. Eight other local authorities had higher than average rates (53%) of disrepair to critical elements and eleven had lower than average rates (Figure 10).

Considering, severity of disrepair, Aberdeen City (37%) had the highest rates of urgent disrepair to critical elements, whilst West Dunbartonshire (10%) had the lowest. Six other local authorities had higher than average rates (20%) of urgent disrepair to critical elements and six others had lower than average rates (Figure 11).

Although some disrepair to critical elements is fairly common it tends to be at a relatively low level in each property, affecting on average no more than 2.5% of the relevant area in 2019; more details on disrepair can be found in Section 6 of the SHCS 2019 Key Findings Report. Extensive disrepair to critical elements was low with a national average rate of 1%, Orkney Islands (5%) is the only local authority with a rate significantly higher than the national average.

Note: In this chart, the proportion of dwelling with disrepair to critical elements for Scotland as a whole is a three-year average. This is different to the proportion published in the main SHCS Key Findings report, which is an annual figure.

Note: In this chart, the proportion of dwelling with disrepair to critical elements for Scotland as a whole is a three-year average. This is different to the proportion published in the main SHCS Key Findings report, which is an annual figure.