Seòmar agus comataidhean

The delivery of the actions in the Report of the City Centre Recovery Task Force 2021-22 is being carried out under the auspices of the Scottish Cities Alliance, in agreement with our local authority partners. As a member of the Alliance, the Scottish Government will work with the cities to progress the strategic objectives in the report as part of the Alliance’s Operational Programme 2022-2026.

In addition, the Scottish Government has also adopted the National Planning Framework 4 (NPF4) in February 2023, which references the ambitions of the Report and directly influences all planning decisions. NPF4 recognises that our cities and towns are a national asset and their centres bring together a wide range of functions and land uses. Its policies help centres adapt and be vibrant, healthier, creative, accessible and resilient places for people to live, learn, work and enjoy. In March 2023 we also introduced new permitted development rights that provide greater flexibility to change the use of buildings and place furniture outside specified hospitality premises.

Local authorities have statutory responsibility for undertaking assessments of housing need and demand which form a shared evidence base for Local Housing Strategies and Local Development Plans.

The Housing Need and Demand Assessment (HNDA) Tool contains Household projection data prepared by National Records of Scotland (NRS) which captures trends in household formation including where adults are living with their parents. Any trend, upwards or downwards, in the incidence of adult children living with parents, will, along with many other factors that drive change in household numbers, be captured and projected forwards in the projections. The HNDA tool data can be supplemented with robust, local information.

As set out in the answer to S6W-13149 on 10 January 2023, which can be found at Written question and answer: S6W-13149 | Scottish Parliament Website , the available information on average rents across the private rented and social rented sectors is as follows.

The latest Scottish Government Private Sector Rent Statistics, Scotland, 2010 to 2022 , published on 29 November 2022, presents average private rents by property size and Broad Rental Market Areas between 2010 and 2022 (years to end September), based predominantly on advertised rent data. This is the lowest level of granularity available for the Scottish Government Private Rent Statistics, as the data collection method used has not been designed for the purpose of providing local authority level results. In addition, data is not held for the years prior to 2010. The next publication covering the period 2010 to 2023 (years to end September) is planned for November 2023.

Information on average local authority rents is included in the Scottish Government Housing Revenue Account (HRA) Statistics publication, which contains a time series from 1997-98 onwards of average weekly rent by local authority area (Table 8), with the average rent figures presented being based on each Council’s total standard rental income being divided by total HRA stock.

Separate information on average social sector rents is published by the Scottish Housing Regulator, based on average rent figures collected from individual social landlords as part of the Charter Data collection. Results are available in the Scottish Housing Regulator Statistical Information webpages , with social landlord level average rent figures available from 2013-14 onwards, and local authority area level average rent figures published as part of the stock dataset for the most recent two years 2020-21 and 2021-22.

In addition, summary figures on average housing association rents by local authority area across the earlier years 2005-06 to 2012-13 are available in an archived Scottish Government Housing Statistics publication table .

The Scottish Government does not hold the information requested, this is because individual landlords are responsible for the maintenance costs of ensuring their tenant’s homes meet the Scottish Housing Quality Standard.

This is a matter for Local Authorities. This information is not held centrally.

In setting the total level of local government support, Scottish Ministers consider local authorities' on-going responsibilities and any new burdens or transfers of responsibility, including those imposed by Parliament through changes in statute. These issues are discussed on a regular on-going basis between the Scottish Government and COSLA.

The Scottish Government does not hold the information requested. There are currently no requirements for Local Authorities to report to the Scottish Government on the number of damp surveys completed.

The Scottish Government does not hold this information, however, it may be available from local Health Boards.

The Scottish Government does not hold this information, however, it may be available from local Health Boards.

The Scottish Government is committed to working with COSLA to agree a New Deal with Local Government in Scotland that promotes sustainability, empowerment and provides greater fiscal flexibility over local funding with clear accountability for delivery of shared priorities and outcomes.

As part of the New Deal, we are committed to concluding the Local Governance Review in this parliament, ensuring that decisions are taken as close as possible to those they affect the most is at the heart of our approach to public service reform in Scotland.