Investment prompts house building surge
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The number of affordable homes built in Scotland reached record levels this year, according to the Scottish Government.
Figures show there was a 71 per cent increase in affordable homes funded by the government’s affordable housing investment programme between July and September this year compared to the same period of 2008, from 1,158 to 1,976 homes.
But there were 33 per cent fewer homes built in the private sector.
Housing and communities minister Alex Neil said: ‘It is disappointing that the level of private new build completions has continued to fall sharply in comparison with previous years.
‘However, there was a steep rise in the number of new affordable homes built, which vindicates this government’s decision to bring forward some of next year’s budget as accelerated expenditure.’
The affordable housing fund provided 402 new council houses in Scotland in the four quarters ending in September 2009 - four times higher than in the same period a year ago, the government said.
The statistics show a rise in the number of homelessness applications with priority need. In 2007/08, 79.7 per cent of the 56,609 applications had priority need, up 3 per cent on 2006/07 figures.
Officials also note: ‘The number of households in temporary accommodation has increased in each year from March 2002.
‘This increase has been driven both by the increase in applications and by the new duties placed on councils since September 2002.’
On 31 March 2008, there were 9,518 households in temporary accommodation of whom 3,986 – 42 per cent - were households with children. On the same date in 2007 there were around 8,500 in temporary accommodation in Scotland.
The Scottish Parliament passed the Homeless Act (Scotland) in March 2003, which set out to end homelessness in the country by 2012.
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Readers' comments (7)
kass | 02/12/2009 10:41 am
71% increase in built affordable homes is a remarkable achievement...
and where is the rest of UK?... Once again Scotland leads the way...
Once Scotland becomes an independent Republic, we in England should have a referendum to become another Scottish region, so we too would get some increases in affordable housing.
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Oli | 02/12/2009 1:52 pm
I'll vote for that. No university fees either.
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ScotishSceptic | 02/12/2009 2:16 pm
National Statistics have revealed that in every year since devolution in 1999 there has been a shortfall between total revenues and total expenditure in Scotland, rising from £4bn to more than £11bn.
In 2004-05, even including all oil revenues, the shortfall still amounts to £6bn, 4.8 per cent of Scottish gross domestic product.
£2.25bn – almost the entire science, universities and industry budget for Scotland.
The SNP wants to gamble Scotland’s future on the price of a barrel of oil. These are revenues that are notoriously volatile, in decline and predicted to be largely gone by 2030. The Nationalists know this, yet they advocate an oil fund, claiming it could amount to £90bn in 10 years’ time. In truth there would be no oil fund. In an independent Scotland, all the oil revenues would be required to plug the gap that would be left by abolishing the union dividend. Moreover, this ignores the need to fund the additional costs of SNP plans for abolishing council tax, reducing business and corporate taxes, higher education debt write-offs and additional universal pension entitlements. Beyond this are the costs of establishing a new state.
Wishful thinking is no substitute for the facts.
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Mark | 03/12/2009 11:45 am
Heroic unionist spin from ScotishSceptic. What a shame the facts stated are almost completely wrong in their entirety.
The SNP position is that in an independent Scotland, ALL of the tax revenue raised in Scotland - from oil or any other source - would be spent in Scotland. At the present time that tax base, if you will, is far higher than the £30bn odd (and falling) Block grant to the Scottish Geovernment from Westmonster.
And of course an independent country would have borrowing powers. As any other country has. National debt (which almost all countries have) is necessary because, at a basic level, the tax base does not cover the spend requirements (otherwise there would be no borrowing requirement). Why would Scotland be any different ?
As for the Union dividend - £200 billion plus pumped in to banks that were allowed to fail as a result of hands off monitoring by Westmonster. We'll be paying it back for years. Not much of a dividend there frankly.
ScotishSceptic's argument is in any case fallacious (can't even spell "Scottish" correctly). The argument is without oil Scotland would crumble. Applying the logic it follows therefore that any country with a population base less than 5.2 million cannot survive without oil.
Of course, everyone knows that argument is nonsense. Even ScotishSceptic (sic). It's typical of "unionist" hysteria that is often portrayed as fact in the Scottish and British press. Oh that we had been in the same position as Norway, which has over the last decade or so been able to silt away billions of pounds through sensible investment of it's oil alone - but oil alone does not a country make (or break) and is not a prerequisite.
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ScottishSceptic | 03/12/2009 3:14 pm
Mark - We will have to agree to disagree.
Thanks for the spelling critique, FYI the correct spelling is "Government" and unless there was a pun intended: "Westminster". Although I do like "West-monster"
My argument is Scotland must address its huge negative balance of payments to become viable, not that oil can make or break a country.
I am also curious what would have happened if the credit crunch occurred with an independent Scotland? A large proportion of the £200 billion was "pumped" into RBS, which is registered in Edinburgh. Would an independent Scottish Gov have had the resources to make such an investment, which despite all its negative connotations, was necessary to ensure savings were safe, people kept jobs and the financial system did not collapse? (This is a genuine question, I’m not trying to make a point.)
The fact that Scottish GDP is 20% lower than English GDP surely means there will be spending cuts in an independent Scotland if public services are to be maintained at the present level.
The phrase: "Don't bite the hand that feeds you" springs to mind
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Mark | 03/12/2009 3:50 pm
Sceptic
Westmonster is a deliberate (and accurate) misspelling of Westminster. Due apologies for typing a bit quick and "goevernment," but at least I can spell one of the constituent parts of the UK (for the present) correctly.
I'll turn to RBS in a second, but it is interesting to note that Westmonster forced through the sale of HBOS rather than nationalise it, and effectively lied to Lloyds in doing so. End result - more job cuts in Scotland and England. Another cracking union dividend !
The £200 billion did not exist and is not "real" money if you like. "Quantitative Easing" doesn't mean that you print £200bn, it is merely an accounting exercise in creating debt on a spreadsheet. If Westmonster can simply "create" £200 bn it doesn't have and never had, essentially a mortgage without physically borrowing yt we all have to pay it back, then so can any independent country in the world. Hope this explains this for you now.
The phrase "perhaps you might answer the question put" springs to mind. Really it is simple:
Your position: Scotland without oil is doomed.
Mine: Evidence it please, as otherwise the logic of your argument is no country of the same or similar size to Scotland can survive as an independent entity.
Have you an answer ? No ? No surprises really, as everyone well knows there are plenty of countries the same size as or smaller than Scotland that manage perfectly well without any oil revenue. This is the key point that unionist apologists such as yourself repeatedly make and it is simply unevidenced, unsupported and somewhat desperate spin.
I know the unionist view is that we should continue to subsidise the rest of the UK through oil and so on but really, this picture of a subsidy junkie unable to survive independently without oil is completely ridiculous as the example of any number of countries of this size and smaller around the world clearly shows.
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Saor Alba | 03/12/2009 4:00 pm
Scottish Sceptic
"My argument is Scotland must address its huge negative balance of payments to become viable, not that oil can make or break a country."
Eh ?
The last paragraph of your point, which Mark picked up on, was entirely about oil and how Scotland could not manage without it ?
There would be decisions to take in an independent Scotland about what services to fund and how. As in any other Country. Also, at the present, Scotland manages (just about) to have sufficient funding to maintain public services at a level equal to or in some arguments greater than England and Wales. Given that if independent it would be spending its own tax revenues and would be able to borrow, and that it would have some (however small) oil revenue for a given time that could be invested per the Norwegians, it is absolutely viable as an independent country.
Some of us think (with good reason perhaps) that GDP differences, such as they are, arise from many years of underinvestment in Scotland (there is no motorway link south to Newcastle or even between Edinburgh and Glasgow for goodness sake, that would never be tolerated between, say, London and Birmingham !) and the decimation of industry under the last Tory government.
Wait and see what happens when the Tories get elected to Westminster and they have no electoral mandate in Scotland. It'll be independence in under two years.
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