Callum Chomczuk, national director of CIH Scotland, gives an update on plans to develop a workforce strategy for the housing sector. Two weeks ago we celebrated Scottish Housing Day and more specifically housing as a career.
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See all articlesScotland’s Just Transition Commission has new leadership following the appointment of Satwat Rehman and Prof. Dave Reay as co-chairs. They will succeed Prof. Jim Skea, who led the Commission since its inception in 2019 but stepped down this month following his election to chair the Intergovern
Robyn Rae, the customer complaints officer from Hillcrest Homes, has taken over as the chair of the Scottish Complaint Handlers Network. The network is made up of housing association staff who are responsible for complaint performance for their organisation. The network meets each quarter and is an
Forth Housing Association extended a warm welcome to its members at its 35th AGM in Stirling this month.
Avant Homes has continued to lay the foundations of future growth by moving from its Stirling office and establishing two new offices located in Edinburgh and Glasgow. The new Avant East Scotland business is based at Edinburgh Park, South Gyle, with its new sister region, Avant West Scotland, to be
Caledonia Housing Association has unveiled a number of management board changes following its Annual General Meeting this week. Current chair, Alan Nairn, has stepped down from the board after three years as chair having originally been appointed to the Caledonia board as a non-executive director in
Opinion
See all articlesCallum Chomczuk, national director of CIH Scotland, gives an update on plans to develop a workforce strategy for the housing sector. Two weeks ago we celebrated Scottish Housing Day and more specifically housing as a career.
With the transitional period for existing businesses to apply for a short-term lets licence coming to an end this week, Shoosmiths real estate lawyer Kirsten Belk assesses the new regime and its wider impact. Last year, Scotland’s local authorities were given new powers by
A council planning officer who has been reading articles published by our sister publication Scottish Construtction Now on Scotland’s Broken Planning System has blown the whistle on the technological barriers facing local authority planning departments.
Ahead of a panel discussion event next week, Rachel Munro, examines why for housebuilders, planners and local authorities, heat networks promise to increasingly be a hot topic in the months and years to come. It need not be overstated that Scotland doesn’t have the best weather and despit
Time for another of Craig Sanderson's self-proclaimed "frequent rants" about the use of the word ‘affordable’ to describe housing project proposals. Despite efforts by the City of Edinburgh Council and housing associations, the lack of supply of new homes for social rent (i.e. truly &lsq
Housing Champions
See all articlesJimmy Black cycled to Stornoway to meet Calum (Barney) MacKay, chair of TPAS Scotland and long-standing tenant activist. Barney is a trade unionist, and that explains a lot. Trades unions teach their active members how to do many useful things, including basic skills, like how to run a meeting or th
Jimmy Black meets the energetic Evie Copland, multi-award-winner and housing evangelist. “The biggest problem is … how do I change the world with this?” Evie Copland is finishing her Master's in Housing Studies, and she has been a distinguished student. In 2021 she won the Malcolm

Jimmy Black meets Bill Banks, retiring CEO of the multi award-winning Kingdom Group. Bill Banks looks relaxed, calm and entirely at home in his relatively modest office at Kingdom Housing Association. He’s a man at the height of his powers with a very solid track record of achievement. But Bil

Fanchea Kelly has been at the centre of events in Scottish housing since the 1980s, and will soon leave Blackwood after a stellar career. Jimmy Black asked her to share some memories with Scottish Housing News. Over 9,000 miles from Scotland, Fanchea Kelly was sitting in an Australian radio studio i

In the second instalment of his Housing Champion interviews, Jimmy Black speaks to housing veteran Tony Cain. You would think Tony Cain would understand how housing works. He’s been head of housing in a council, an inspection manager with Communities Scotland and a policy officer working in go

Scottish Housing News Podcast
See all articlesThe 2014 Unsuitable Accommodation Order was introduced to effectively end stays in unsuitable accommodation for any homeless person for more than 7 days. However, with these laws being consistently broken by local authorities for a number of reasons, in the latest episode of the Scottish Housing New
As housing and care providers continue to grapple with Scotland’s ageing population, some are embracing tech more than ever before. Earlier this year, Bield Housing and Care officially launched a digital hub in Linlithgow. Securing £75k in funding from the TAPPI project, it set about sho
The story behind Hanover Scotland’s award-winning development in Drymen has many threads. Not just Hanover’s first certified Passivhaus development, it is located at the very site of its first ever development in Scotland as a separate entity.
With its latest campaign, the SFHA is aiming to put Housing at the Heart of Scotland and keep it there. It looks to tell stories of the importance of social housing in Scotland and ensure social landlords are given the required support to continue this vital work. In this episode, Kieran Findlay and
The current framework for regulating social landlords in Scotland was introduced in 2019. Since then, tragic incidents here in the UK and worldwide events have changed how RSLs are expected to operate, possibly forever. So in this episode, we’re asking whether the way RSLs are regulated should
Black's Blog
See all articlesJimmy Black points out some hard truths on homelessness.
If we put digital technology to work, we can perhaps look after our houses and our tenants much better. Jimmy Black reflects on a conversation with Bield about their pioneering work in technology-enabled care. Social housing is waking up to the world of tech. With sensors, we can monitor the humidit

Do passive houses really need to cost more than "normal" ones? And can they still get damp? Jimmy Black explores some themes after a conversation with Angela Currie and Janice McDonald of Hanover Scotland. Decisions, decisions. Take a popular housing scheme in a settled community in one of the lovel

Jimmy Black wishes Scotland had Housing at its Heart, as per the SFHA’s current campaign.

Jimmy Black and Kieran Findlay spent half an hour with the Regulator chatting about dampness and mould, tenant participation, homelessness, small RSLs, big landlords helping little landlords, the private sector and meeting the net zero challenge.

Our Housing Heritage
See all articlesFor the next edition of Our Housing Heritage, journalist and digital history specialist Chris Holme shares the story of how First World War servicemen came to reside in the rural village of Longniddry. Unlikely as it sounds, the Longniddry Piggery provided Britain’s first purpose-built homes f
In the latest article in the ongoing Our Housing Heritage series, Scottish Housing News discusses the Glasgow Rent Strikes of 1915. In the absence of social housing, families across the UK in 1915 were at the mercy of private landlords who could hike rents and evict tenants at will with little restr
The Springburn office of ng homes is named after Ned Donaldson. But who was Ned Donaldson? Kieran Findlay recalls the contribution of the activist and the post-war battle to stop the privatisation of council housing at Merrylee. It was a cold sleety December day in 1951. Slum landlordism and sublett

Duncan Smith, who works in the social housing sector, has contributed this piece as part of his quest for more information about housing architect George Gibson. Several years ago, just after starting my current job, I undertook some research on the properties we were refurbishing at the time. I fou
Next month marks the centenary of Scotland’s first council housing estate, the Logie Estate in Dundee. Lauren Brown reports.

Fuel Poverty
See all articlesA strategy to drive Scotland’s fair and just transition away from fossil fuels will be published by next summer, the Scottish Government has revealed. Energy minister Gillian Martin announced the timeline as the consultation responses to the draft Energy Strategy and Just Transition Plan, and
Energy suppliers have been banned from forcibly installing prepayment meters for people over 75 with no support in their house and homes with children aged under 2, thanks to new protections put in place by Ofgem. The energy regulator has today confirmed that the Code of Practice for the involuntary
Environmental charity Changeworks has achieved its biggest impact to date in reducing carbon emissions and helping people in need of energy advice, a new report has revealed. In the context of the accelerating climate emergency and energy crisis, Changeworks’ goal to decarbonise Scotland&rsquo
The Scottish Government has made an award of £6.845 million to help make homes in Glasgow more energy-efficient.
A partnership of housing associations is working with environmental charity Changeworks to launch a new service that will give tenants access to energy information, advice and advocacy.
Homelessness
See all articlesMore than 10,000 homeless people in Scotland will be provided with homes by 2026, figures from Wheatley Group have revealed. The housing, care and property-management group made a pledge to tackle homelessness in its 2021-2026 strategy.
Homelessness charity Cyrenians and the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland (RZSS) have announced a formal partnership agreement that celebrates a shared commitment to improving outcomes for young people.
An annual progress report into the Scottish Government’s work to improve support and services for Scotland’s veterans and their families has highlighted homelessness prevention as an area of concern.
Jimmy Black points out some hard truths on homelessness.

Scottish youth homelessness charity Rock Trust has partnered with Glasgow City Council to expand its successful Housing First for Youth (HF4Y) service into the city for the first time. The team began working with young people in Glasgow in summer 2023, and the programme will be officially launched t
PRS
See all articlesDemand for advice around illegal eviction in the private rented sector jumped by 42% in the Scottish CAB network over the course of the year to this summer, according to new data released today by Citizens Advice Scotland.
The First-tier Tribunal for Scotland has ordered two landlords, one in Glasgow and another in Edinburgh, to pay at least double the amount of tenancy deposits withheld from their tenants after finding them in breach of the Tenancy Deposit Schemes (Scotland) Regulations 2011.

Glasgow City Council's licensing committee has removed a woman from the register of private landlords after “extensive signs” of damp mould were discovered on the walls of a flat.
An application by two landlords for permission to appeal a decision of the First-tier Tribunal for Scotland that they had failed to comply with the terms of a Repairing Standard Enforcement Order has been refused by a sheriff of the Upper Tribunal for Scotland.

Average rents in Scotland for new tenancies in the private rented sector have risen by double digits for the third time in a row since the introduction of the Cost of Living (Tenant Protection) (Scotland) Act 2022, according to new figures.
Welfare
See all articlesMore than 38,000 payments have been made to families to help with the costs of early learning and starting school. Families who qualify for Scottish Child Payment are now automatically awarded Best Start Grant Early Learning Payment and School Age Payment when their child becomes eligible, without t
An online tool designed to ensure Scots are receiving all the benefits they are entitled to has identified £43 million in unclaimed money over the past year.
The families of more than 316,000 under-16s were benefitting from Scottish Child Payment by the end of June this year, according to the latest official statistics. New figures published today show the payment of £25 per week, which is unique in the UK, was reaching 316,190 - an increase of mor
People living in North Lanarkshire who face financial hardship are being encouraged to contact the council’s Tackling Poverty Team to make sure they are getting all the benefits they are due. This year an additional £40 million was secured for residents from advice services.
Tenants have received a million-pound boost after Thenue Housing staff helped them unlock access to a huge amount of benefits.