Reflections: Transforming the housing system in Scotland

16th October 2024

Callum Chomczuk reflects* on the recent launch of our work with Professor Duncan Maclennan to Transform Scotland’s Housing System. Callum is the national director of Chartered Institute of Housing in Scotland. 

Photo Credit: Allan Lloyds, Live to Air

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The David Hume Institute has launched a new project with Professor Duncan Maclennan to consider the actions needed to transform the housing system in Scotland. 

Transforming the housing system is a fairly large statement of intent but given the challenges we face today with the declaration of local and national housing emergencies, rising homelessness, falling supply and increasing unaffordability, the ambition set out in Duncan's remit is both proportionate and necessary. Indeed, given that we have been in a housing crisis since at least the 1980s, the challenge facing this review is to thoughtfully look at the whole housing system and consider the question of what a fixed housing system would look like?

Now, it is easy to set out a menu of policy interventions that we believe are required to improve housing outcomes for a certain client group. We do it all the time, and we all have our biases. This could be a housing and infrastructure agency, market led approaches to affordable housing, rent caps, professionalisation, increased grant levels, or meeting the demand for owner occupation amongst many, many more.

However, the repeated failure of our housing policy over the decades has been looking at it as a tenure or sectoral issue rather than a systemic issue. We can’t ignore the fact that we are part of a wider UK housing sector with social security, monetary and fiscal policy all reserved to Westminster, and we can’t ignore the fact that changes to one part of the housing sector, have consequences across it all.

That is why, for example, so many housing representatives in Scotland are concerned about the proposed model for private rented sector rent controls in the Housing (Scotland) Bill being considered by parliament. It is not that rent controls by themselves are undesirable or unworkable, but without recognition of the impact it will have on landlord investment, homelessness presentations and mid-market rent supply and meaningful measures to address them, it will only exacerbate the existing housing emergency. Housing is systemic and interconnected so our policy prescriptions must be so too.

But regardless of the recommendations that Duncan’s report produces, and I know there will be things we instinctively agree and disagree with, the biggest challenge will be how much capacity, curiosity and resource is there in the sector and government for system change and risk taking? Will we engage with the process or just judge the recommendations at the end depending on how many of our priorities have made it into the final draft?

I think back to the publication of the Scottish government’s Housing to 2040 paper and how it set out a positive vision for our housing system, but it was just a vision. Like any vision, it needs a framework for delivery, it needs evidence, it needs new structures, more collaboration, more ownership and more humility. We need to look at the foundations of a better housing system and how we correct market failure.

So, this review is a chance to re-start the discussion on getting to that improved system but also being honest about the things we can’t do, or the things we need to wait to do.

Are we willing to be part of an open discussion? Can we all compromise on the things that we have fought so hard for to create a better housing system. Can we prioritise the outcome and not the input? It will be great to be part of the conversation. I hope we can.

*This blog is kindly reproduced with the permission of Callum Chomczuk, National Director of the Chartered Institute of Housing.

Blog: Scotland’s declining population – a crisis looming?

Blog by Eric Hildrew, Communications Lead, David Hume Institute

28 April 2022

Image credit: Photo by George Clerk from iStock 28.04.2022

As demographers, you might think Esther Roughsedge and Michael Anderson deal firmly with hard facts, however as they were keen to stress at our recent event on Scotland’s changing populations, predicting future population size is a practice laced with uncertainty. In the 1930s, it was estimated that Scotland’s population by the first quarter of the 21st century could be as low as 1.5m (fewer than now live in the central belt alone), though thankfully methods of projection have also improved since then.

So the headline of recently released figures from National Records Scotland – that Scotland’s population will peak at 5.48m in 2028 before declining, making Scotland the only UK nation to forecast a downturn – should be treated with caution. If accurate, a 1.5% decline would put Scotland in the company of Italy, Slovenia, and Finland (all predicting similar reductions) but significantly more stable than either Iceland (predicting 30% growth in population) or Latvia (23% decline).

Graph courtesy of National Records Scotland.

What is more certain is that whether births, deaths, and migration combine to decrease or grow Scotland’s overall population, the age profile of the country is going to change dramatically. In just 23 years’ time, Scotland is expected to have almost a quarter less children and almost a third more over 65s. The proportion of working age people is also expected to decline, particularly in the 30-and-under age-range.  The Scottish Government established a population taskforce in 2019 to investigate barriers to having children in light of the country’s steadily declining birth rate, but current estimates don’t predict a significant change in this trend is on the horizon.

To complicate this picture, we don’t know exactly how these changes will be distributed across our towns, cities and rural areas, but we do know that population decline will affect some areas more than others, with west, south west Scotland and the islands likely to see steeper a drop than central and eastern areas. On a more granular level, specific council areas are likely to see significant decline while others nearby grow, creating markedly different pressures and life experiences for residents. 

Graph courtesy of National Records Scotland.

These changes have huge implications for local, national, and UK governments. From the size of Scotland’s tax base and the UK Government block grant, to education, housing and social care provision, matching resources with demand will be an ongoing challenge. Much like climate change and inequality, population change is an underlying structural issue which outlives any  election cycle or immediate crisis. 

Scotland’s slow but steady population growth this century has been fuelled not by babies but by migration, specifically (until Brexit) from the EU though also from the rest of the UK. Other countries have tried incentivising couples to have more children, but there is little evidence to suggest this approach works. Uncertainty about future circumstances such as home ownership and job security is unlikely to be assuaged by modest cash incentives or tax breaks. 

Instead, an effective adaptation strategy will need to reconsider outdated attitudes to ageing and older people, ensuring that they stay economically and physically active for longer as well as being offered better options to combat loneliness, isolation, and declining health. The delivery of effective social care must be seen as an investment, not a cost. 

Scotland has been shaped by outward and, more recently, by inward migration. As the trajectory of our population growth begins to diverge from that of other UK nations, so must our ability to implement a devolved migration policy which fits the needs of our labour market and which encourages movement of labour to those parts of Scotland most affected by population decline in the years to come.

Population change is inevitable, but its consequences are not.

Blog: Population projections and policy - think local, think global!

Blog: Sarah Wotton, David Hume Institute

6th February 2020

Scotland’s population is at its highest level ever and it is projected to grow by 3% in the next 25 years. What does this mean for Scotland?

The audience at our Firestarter event, in partnership with National Records of Scotland (NRS), heard yesterday future projections are estimates informed by past patterns continuing.

Dr Esther Roughsedge, Professor Michael Anderson and Rannvá Danielsen discussed past trends and how they have led to significant regional differences in population which policy makers need to consider.

Scotland has one of the lowest fertility rates in Western Europe. For many years the number of births in Scotland has roughly equalled the number of deaths, though there are now more deaths than births each year. In recent years, migration has been the only source of Scotland’s population growth. 

In November, we heard from Professor Graeme Roy that the working age population is critical to our ability to fund public services.  Migration provides a higher proportion of our working age population than in the rest of the UK (rUK). 

Professor Anderson explained that in fact Scotland currently has a larger ‘working age’ share of the population than it did in 1981.  It is the ageing profile of our population which makes continued working age migration critical to Scotland unless alternative methods can be found to fund public services or the public services provided change.

The discussion focussed on the regional variations within Scotland and comparison to rUK.  For example, over the next 20 years the population in Midlothian is projected to grow by around 25%, whereas the population of Na h-Eileanan Siar is projected to fall by around 11%.  The audience were interested in whether there is depopulation of some areas, for example Edinburgh City Centre, due to short-term lets and how this might affect future service provision such as public transport.

The West Coast and Island groups, which represent one third of all Scottish council areas, are projected to have declining populations until 2041.  However, within this, the Isle of Mull is an outlier.  With a third of the population now born in England or Wales (a high proportion of whom are older migrants), Professor Anderson reflected on the transport connections to Oban having significant influence on relocation, especially in early retirement. This pattern is resulting in Mull’s population evolving rather differently to nearby islands of Tiree and Islay which have had declining populations. 

Scotland is projected to have a 23% increase in people of pensionable age by 2043.  As the population ages, more of us are living alone which means that household numbers are increasing even faster than the rise in population alone.

The East of Scotland and areas surrounding Scotland’s cities are projected to have very rapidly growing populations due to inward migration trends.

About one third of migration to Scotland is from the rest of UK. There are now far more English people migrating to Scotland than vice versa.   

Polish is the most common non-British nationality in Scotland and Edinburgh has the highest proportion of Poles anywhere in the UK due to historical links with the city. However, net migration from other countries can fluctuate rapidly, and recent patterns could change as a result of Brexit.

The Seafood processing and catching sectors in Scotland are heavily reliant on migrant workers, especially for unskilled to semi-skilled work.  These sectors have more EU and non-EEA workers than the UK average and are reliant on this workforce, especially the processing sector. 

On surveying the processing industry, the biggest influence on the need for overseas recruitment was the unwillingness of local people to work in fish factories which were seen to be ‘wet and cold’. 

Policies focussing on attracting and sustaining migrants will be critical for industries like food processing.  

From the discussion it was clear, Scotland’s populations are changing quickly.  Increased awareness of the regional differences within Scotland and comparisons to the rUK will help anyone thinking about future public policy approaches in Scotland.  

The David Hume Institute would like to thank our speakers, NRS and Seafish for their support with this event.   Slides from the speakers are available here.

Image credit: Sharing thumbnail image - photo by Susan Murray.

New Report: Who will do the jobs in Scotland?

Current employment rates in Scotland are at a near-record high. However, Scotland’s population is ageing fast and there is a low birth rate.

By 2041, the pension-age population is projected to increase by 265,000, while the working-age population is only projected to rise by 38,000.

This report discusses the challenges facing Scotland with changes to migration patterns and a shortage of workers. What can we do to meet the labour supply challenges in Scotland. Who will do the jobs?