Scotland needs more homes for social rent. There are currently 137,100 households on council waiting lists1 and many others waiting for homes with Registered Social Landlords (RSLs). The average local authority in Scotland currently has just 101 homes for social rent available to help people on waiting lists. Those are the findings from a recent poll of 25 senior managers and decision-makers within Scottish local authorities with responsibility for the council’s housing strategy or the delivery of new affordable homes.

The public are equally alarmed. When we asked 1,000 Scottish adults if they thought there is currently a shortage of homes for social rent in Scotland, 75 per cent said they thought that there was. Almost four in every five (79 per cent) of over 45s thought the same. The use of modern methods of construction (known in the construction industry as “MMC”), provided by third party outsourcers, can help to solve these problems. This approach can enable quality affordable housing to be developed rapidly, with up to four times as many homes by an onsite labour force as that needed for a traditional building. Even without a shift in responsibility proposed here, bodies looking to accelerate their own building programmes (from co-operatives and Arm’s-Length Management Organisations [ALMOs], to local authorities and RSLs) should consider modern methods of construction which enables the rapid evaluation of potential plots.