Rates of core homelessness are substantially lower in Scotland (0.57% of households) than in England (0.94%) and Wales (0.66%).  In March 2021, the numbers in temporary housing stood at over 13,000. This is well above the previous peak of 11,665 a year before. 

The article reports comparative analysis of economic and planning policy documents from Scotland, England and the UK.  This indetifies four key policy areas for ‘inclusive growth’: skills, transport and housing for young people; city-regional governance; childcare; and place-making.

There is so much wrong with our housing system, from needless homelessness to spiralling costs (which have shut a generation out of housing) to over-mortgaged homeowners struggling financially to the sheer environmental inefficiency of much of the housing we build to the failure to build homes how and where communities need rather than where a developer can make most money.

―  We have identified no examples of low-carbon heating being taken up on a large scale without government assistance.

― The primary barrier to the roll-out of low carbon heat is financial. Efficient schemes like renewably powered district heating will have to be government financed.

― Without significant government planning, individual households are likely to decarbonise their heat using heat pumps which, while an improvement over fossil fuels, have significant downsides – not least, their collective impact on the electrical grid.

This Technical Report is an annex to The Common Home Plan, a part of Our Common Home – A Green New Deal for Scotland.

There is an awful lot in the Plan. The following is a very quick summary of some of the key action points from the plan:

The United Kingdom’s housing policies have been ideologically-driven, and have led to the current crisis of strangled investment, under-provision and a general flow of power and money from civic society to the wealthy. UK housing has suffered greatly from its politicians’ fixation with a single form of home and tenure, the mortgage-backed and privately-owned home.

The borrowing cap for the Scottish Parliament should be removed or lifted substantially so public expenditure can be used where needed; but, more importantly the Scottish National Investment Bank should be given full dispensation to act as a bank and thus capitalise from sources such as pension funds and lend to the public as well as private sector.  Public procurement should be entirely reprofiled with the public policy goal of supporting Scottish business and achieving the maximum number of manufacturing jobs.

Resilient Recovery. We must emerge from the Covid pandemic in a way that fixes the problems raised by the crisis, fixes the problems evident before the crisis and makes us resilient; a green new deal; a new democracy; a national care service; Land reform; housing revolution; Controlling our own energy; better banking; and a focus on independence,.to future crisis like the climate emergency.