Social Housing Stock and Rent, as at 31 March 2012

This Statistical Release presents summary information on the amount of stock held by local authorities and Welsh registered Social Landlords as at 31 March 2012 as well as information on the average weekly rents for self-contained rented local authority (LA) and Registered Social Landlord (RSL) dwellings set at the 31 March 2012, for the financial year 2012-13.

The latest release updates the statistics on social housing stock previously released on 16 November 2011 and the statistics on social housing rents previously published on 23 November 2011.

The information on social housing stock and social housing rents has been published together in this release for the first time.

The key points from the latest release are:

• There continues to be a slight increase in social housing stock, with 237,217 (r) social landlord dwellings, bedsits and bedspaces (i.e. housing units) in Wales at 31 March 2012. Since March 2011, social housing stock increased by less than 1 per cent and the rate of social housing remained relatively unchanged at around 18 units per 100 households.
• At 31 March 2012, 63 per cent of all social housing stock was owned by RSLs; and RSLs owned all social housing in half of the authorities across Wales.
• Between 2003-04 and 2012-13 rent levels within the social housing sector have increased across all property types, with the overall average for all self-contained housing rising by around 50 per cent for local authorities and 49 per cent for registered social landlords (RSLS).  
• Local authority rent levels for self-contained general needs housing continue to remain below those of the RSLs, with an overall average per week of £71.10 for 2012-13, compared to £73.50 (r) for RSLs. The gap between local authority and RSL rents however has increased slightly over the last year with the difference now 3.4 per cent compared to 2.5 (r) per cent in 2011-12.  

Revision note

The original release was published on 26 July and the data shown on social housing stock was subsequently used to pre-populate the data collection forms used for another data collection exercise which covered the progress made by social landlords towards achieving the Welsh Housing Quality Standard (WHQS) for their stock. During the collection of information on the quality of social housing (WHQS) a number of social landlords reported revisions to their previously validated stock and rents data. Therefore this release has been revised to take account of those changes.

Further information

StatsWales website

Contact

Tel: 029 2082 5055
E-mail: stats.housing@wales.gsi.gov.uk

Next update

July 2013 (provisional - to be confirmed on the 'Due Out Soon' page)