NAEPP Survey 2008-02-18 How do you count second homes? NAEPP Survey 18th Feb 2008

Dear Colleague

Introduction

The main point of this newsletter is to ask you - assuming you are a local authority practitioner, which most members are - to take part in a very simple survey. We want to know the answer to these questions:

Survey Questions

1. What source of information does your authority use for counting second homes when you are preparing your annual Housing Strategy Statistical Appendix (HSSA)?

2. Do you think that the definition of a second homes should be based on the council tax definition of second homes ie any furnished property that is no-one's principal residence (which includes private rented homes between lets or other unoccupied property that happens to have furniture in it)? If not that, what would you suggest?

Could you send your answer to these questions to survey@naepp.org.uk please. Keep them as short as you like.

Background

Most of you will be aware that the figure for the number of empty homes given in the HSSA return is net of second homes. Thus the number of second homes has a direct bearing on the number of empty homes reported (the figures given locally are aggregated to produce the national, headline figure for empty homes).

However, Local Authorities are not required to report the number of second homes used in the calculation nor is there any agreed methodology for counting them.

The Central/Local Information Partnership (CLIP) Housing sub-group met earlier this week and there is a proposal to review all the housing statistical returns (of which HSSA is just one) over the next year.

At a meeting with NAEPP representatives earllier last year, CLG were made aware that there is inconsistency between local authorities about how they count second homes. Thus part of the CLIP workplan is specifically to review this aspect of the returns. We can expect that a standard methodology will be proposed.

Again, members are probably aware that the government has been working to extract the figures for empty homes from council tax data automatically. It is possible that the "council tax" definition of second homes will be used so empty homes data can be extracted automatically from council tax data. A lot of authorities are already using that definition and taking their figures from council tax data. However, prior to the change in council tax discounts in 2003/04 it is unlikely that authorities were using such a broad definition (which includes furnished private rented property between lets).

Priot to the council tax change most authorities were presumably using guesstimates, of varying degrees of robustness, that depended on a more "common sense" definition of second homes. Some authorities still are - and hopefully this NAEPP survey will throw some light on who is doing what.

It is reasonable to assume that more properties are picked up as second homes by the council tax definition than most others as it is such a broad definition. If that is the case, the overall number of second homes would be higher and thus the overall number of empty homes lower. If you switch from a tighter definition to a looser definition you will get a quick "hit" in reductions in the number of empty homes in your local authority. Repeated nationally that would produce a reduction in the national headline figure, although that would not reflect any underlying reality, just a change in definitions. That may already have happened if many authorities have switched to a looser definition.

NAEPP view

NAEPP doesn't currently have a position on this issue. Ease of collecting statistics is a consideration which we have to take seriously. However anything that results in under-estimating the scale of the problem of empty properties or that suggests positive trends that do not in fact exist should be viewed with a lot of caution.

The results of the survey will be fed into the policy-making debate which we hope all members will participate in so please please send us your answers....

o0o

The originall newsletter is attached as an MS Word document.

Prepared by David Gibbens, 15th Feb 2008