Social Landlords in Scotland: Shaping up for improvement

Social Landlords in Scotland: Shaping up for improvement.4.26 As figure 6 shows, the amount of income lost due to empty houses (voids)has improved significantly over the last five years. This is in large partbecause tenancy turnover has been falling – in other words, fewer houseshave become empty. Median percentage void losses for RSLs are lower thanfor local authorities, but are not showing as much improvement over time.Indeed, over the last three years of the data shown, 28% of RSLs showed aworsening performance, with a further 13% reporting little or no change.Figure 6: Void losses for RSLs and local authorities: in total and median % rentalincome lost£25,000,0002.5%£20,000,0002.0%Value of voids losses£15,000,000£10,000,000LAs: median% rent lost1.5%1.0%% voids losses£5,000,000RSLs: median% rent lost0.5%£02003/04 2004/05 2005/06 2006/07 2007/08LAs: total rent lostRSLs: total rent lost0.0%Source: APSRs 2003/04 - 2007/08 and Audit Scotland4.27 Despite the falling levels of tenancy turnover in the sector over recent years,RSLs’ average relet times only improved in 2007/08 for the first time afterseveral years of almost no change. Indeed, in the three years before this28% of RSLs reduced their average void turnaround times for all lets, while19% of RSLs got worse. Local authorities’ relet times have shown moreimprovement, but, as figure 7 shows, the median relet time of 51 days wasstill 29 days longer than in the RSL sector in 2007/08. And this comparespoorly with an equivalent English local authority figure of 31 days. Themedian figure for English RSLs with over 1,000 units is 37 days.25