Local Authority Housing Income And Expenditure

29th September 2010

Scotland's Chief Statistician today released statistics on local authority housing income and expenditure

The statistics provide information about housing debt, supervision and management costs, repairs and maintenance costs, direct spending on capital works and rental income.

The main points from the release are:

Average council rent being paid into the Housing Revenue Account in 2010-11 is £54.63 per week, an increase of £1.79 per week (3 per cent) since 2009-10. This ranges from £41.91 per week in Moray to £68.88 in Edinburgh
Between 1997-98 and 2009-10, local authority rents have increased by an average of 1.2 per cent per year in real terms - i.e. above the Retail Prices Index
Average expenditure on management and maintenance is expected to be £1,868 per house in 2010-11, an increase of £49 (2.7 per cent) per house or since 2009-10. Within this total
supervision and management costs are expected to be £762 per house in 2010-11, an increase of £47 (6.6 per cent) per house since 2009-10
Repairs and maintenance costs are expected to be £1,106 per house in 2010-11, an increase of £2 (0.2 per cent) per house since 2009-10
Councils estimate that they will lose around £16.2 million due to voids (rents lost due to un-let houses) in 2010-11. This represents around 1.8 per cent of standard rent income, a slight drop compared to 1.9 per cent in each of the two previous years.

Rent arrears at 31 March 2010 represented 3.9 per cent of standard rental income, a decrease of 0.5 percentage points since 31 March 2009.

Total council housing debt in Scotland is expected to increase by 12 per cent in the year to March 2011 to reach £2,474 million.

Shetland will continue to have the highest amount of debt on a per property basis - £24,099 per house at 31 March 2011. Orkney is expected to increase its debt to £6,700 per house, leaving Falkirk with the lowest debt, at £2,691 per house.

Local authorities' housing capital expenditure is projected to total £606 million in 2010-11, an increase of £109 million (22 per cent) since 2009-10.

Councils project that £68.4 million of capital receipts will be raised in 2010-11. This is an increase of £2.4m (3.7 per cent) since 2009-10 but considerably lower than the £135.7 million raised in 2008-09 and £227.2 million raised in 2007-08.

Official statistics are produced by professionally independent statistical staff.

Full details at
http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2010/09/27112110/0