Housing, Planning and Local Services
Our Housing, Planning and Local Services domain oversees statistics on topics including housing, household estimates and projections, homelessness, housing requirements and commercial, industrial, retail and residential planning. It also covers information on local services such as fire and rescue services.
During 2020/21, we are using our regulatory tools to drive improvements for specific outputs; push for ambitious developments to close data gaps, including in the context of COVID-19; bring sources together to enhance statistical insights; and share examples of best practice between statistics producers.
Our planned regulatory work is focusing on housing conditions; land use; planning; and key statistics such as household estimates and projections.
We will also champion the need for improved insight about local level housing and planning issues, and continue to promote the voluntary application of the Code to producers outside of the official statistics community.
Contact our regulators for this domain Oliver Fox-Tatum and Gemma Keane, for more information.
Current issues in this domain
Statistics on homelessness and rough sleeping have developed in different ways in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Each country in the UK has its own approach to homelessness policy, with different criteria for state support and different approaches for measuring homelessness and rough sleeping.
We have recently seen improvements and innovation in the way that statistics producers measure and report on homelessness and rough sleeping. This has led to a better understanding of the extent and characteristics of the homeless and rough sleeping populations. However, there is still more to work needed to provide further clarity and insight in this space.
Government statistics producers across all four UK countries have committed to a joint work plan to enhance the available UK homelessness and rough sleeping statistics. Statisticians have also committed to further engagement with users to ensure that any new statistics produced meet their needs.
We encourage producers to work towards developing a richer, better integrated and more robust statistical picture of homelessness and rough sleeping in the UK which more fully conveys the dynamics and complexity of UK homelessness and rough sleeping. In doing this, it is important that statistics and data better represent the lived experiences of homeless people, as well as the wider public’s experience of the scale and nature of UK homelessness and rough sleeping.
Planned Work
| Project | Geography | Project Type | Timescale |
|---|---|---|---|
| Estimates of Households and Dwellings in Scotland and Household Projections for Scotland (NRS) | Scotland | Compliance Check | October 2020 - March 2021 |
| Northern Ireland Household Projections (Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency) | Northern Ireland | Compliance Check | October 2020 - March 2021 |
| Welsh Household Estimates and Welsh Household Projections (Welsh Government) | Wales | Compliance Check | October 2020 - March 2021 |
| Fire Incidents statistics and detailed analysis (Home Office) | England | Compliance Check | October 2020 - March 2021 |
| Fire and Rescue Performance, Fire Statistics, Deliberate Fires and Grassland Fires (Welsh Government) | Wales | Compliance Check | October 2020 - March 2021 |
Published Correspondence – Housing, Planning and Local Services domain
Published Publications – Housing, Planning and Local Services domain
Correspondence
Mark Pont to Amanda Hall: Statistics on Local Authority Registered Providers of social housing stock and rents in England
23 February 2021
Mark Pont, Office for Statistics Regulation to Amanda Hall, Regulator of Social Housing
Mark Pont to Sandra Tudor: Land Use Change statistics and Land Use in England
18 December 2020
Mark Pont, Office for Statistics Regulation to Sandra Tudor, Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government
Ed Humpherson to Siobhan Carey: Assessment of Northern Ireland Planning Statistics
15 December 2020
Ed Humpherson, Office for Statistics Regulation to Siobhan Carey, Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency
Mark Pont to Sandra Tudor: Compliance Check of the English Housing Survey
11 December 2020
Mark Pont, Office for Statistics Regulation to Sandra Tudor, Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government
Mark Pont to Roger Halliday: Scottish House Condition Survey Statistics
16 October 2020
Mark Pont, Office for Statistics Regulation to Roger Halliday, Scottish Government
Publications
Assessment Report: Northern Ireland Planning Statistics
7 May 2020
Published in: Assessment Report
Two-year update: Public Value of Statistics on Housing and Planning in the UK
27 February 2020
Published in: Systemic/Monitoring Reviews
Statistics from the Welsh Housing Conditions Survey
24 October 2018
Published in: Assessment Report
News & Events
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