The latest news from the Welsh Government Knowledge and Analytical Services team.
Welsh Government Housing Research
The following research projects are underway:
- An evidence review of literature on overcrowding for Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic communities is underway. It aims to assess evidence on how overcrowding may impact households.
- Research to develop an evidence base on Second Homes will be published soon. It aims to understand the available evidence on interventions or approaches relating to Second Homes.
- An Evaluation of the Private Rented Sector (PRS) Leasing Scheme Pathfinders will be published soon. The aim of the evaluation is to understand how the scheme is operating in the Pathfinder local authorities, including the views of landlords and tenants.
All housing research reports can be found at: gov.wales/research
Housing Conditions Evidence Programme
Plans for the next Welsh Housing Conditions Survey are on hold as a result of the pandemic. As such the team are focusing on using admin data in HSAR to assess the quality and energy efficiency of the housing stock. We will be producing some statistical articles, blogs, infographics etc. based on analysis of this data in the near future.
We are working with the fuel poverty policy team to provide analytical support to monitor the plan for tackling fuel poverty 2021 to 2035 and commission work to update the 2017-18 fuel poverty estimates based on estimated changes in income, fuel prices and energy efficiency since the 2017-18 survey.
We continue to work with the Welsh Housing Quality Standard (WHQS) team to provide analytical support on their work to develop the post-2020 WHQS. Similarly we are working with the Innovative Models and Housing Decarbonisation team on the development and delivery of a programme of action to decarbonise all Welsh homes by 2050.
A non-disclosive set of WHCS data is now available on the UK Data Archive, with more detailed data available direct from the WHCS team. We plan to deposit the WHCS data on SAIL to allow researchers access to anonymised data under special licence.
The existing Housing Stock Analytical Resource (HSAR) data has been migrated to the Welsh Government’s UK Secure eResearch Platform (UKSeRP) which is now live and being be used by wider stats teams. This means that we are able to grant access to Welsh Government datasets for researchers.
We have submitted a business case to ONS regarding sharing relevant data under the Digital Economy Act, such as Council Tax information. We continue to exploring accessing other data sources under the Digital Economy Act such as BEIS energy consumption data.
If anyone has any suggestions for pieces of analysis we could look at, or is interested in getting access to data for their own projects, please do get in touch.
Housing Statistics
As the demand increased for statistics and data to measure the impact of the pandemic, we had to change our data gathering and release practices, focusing efforts on priority analysis and statistics. Our statement explains this further and, in line with guidance from the Office for Statistics Regulation, decisions were made to cancel or postpone some publications.
Where possible, we are now resuming publication of regular statistical outputs. In particular:
- Social landlord housing sales: April 2020 to March 2021 is scheduled for release on 14 October 2021
- Social housing stocks and rents: April 2020 to March 2021 is scheduled for release on 26 October 2021.
Recent publications
All releases are available from www.wales.gov.uk/statistics
We have continued to publish monthly management information on rough sleeping and provision of accommodation for the homeless. This management information has not undergone the same level of quality assurance as official statistics.
Please note that the rough sleeping estimates detailed in this output are produced differently to the annual rough sleeper count. Therefore, we do not recommend direct comparisons between these estimates and the rough sleeper count
On 5 August, we published quarterly Help to Buy statistics for April 2021 to June 2021.
We welcome feedback on the content and presentation of any of these statistics and management information to stats.housing@gov.wales.
Next Housing Information Group (HIG) meeting
The 23 September 2021 meeting of the Housing Information Group was cancelled. The next meeting is due to take place on 19 January 2022. Further information will be available in due course.