 I welcome everyone to the 14th meeting of the local government and communities committee in 2019 and remind everyone present to turn off their mobile phones. Agenda item 1 is consideration of whether to take agenda items 3, 4 and 5 in private. Are we all agreed? Thank you. Agenda item 2 is committee will hold its first evidence session for its inquiry into empty homes in Scotland. I would like to welcome Shahina Dyn, national manager of Scottish Empty Homes partnership, and Derek Lohge, chief executive of rural housing Scotland. Given the time available, we will move straight on to questions and I will start by asking what are the main reasons why homes become and remain empty? We have evidence from annual surveys that we send out to empty property officers every year since 2010. There are many reasons why properties become empty, it can be quite complex, often it is somebody's passed away and owners gone into residential care, perhaps a property has been repossessed or people no longer have the funds to refurbish the property. It is life situations rather than often people just desiring to leave their home empty is what we would say. Those issues apply in rural and urban locations. Rural reasons are to do with change of working practices on the state, so there is less staff and historical cottages that have been let previously or tied cottages. We can get issues to do with agricultural tenancies, where a lot of empty cottages will be part of the farm tenancy, so it will be covered by that farm tenancy. Depending on how long the farm tenancy is, it will really depend on whether the tenant wants to spend any money doing up the houses. They may well not think that there is any possibility of a return, so they will just leave them empty. It is part of the reason why there are proportionally more empty homes in rural areas. It can be. There are issues with some areas to do with historical depopulation, issues that a lot of communities are looking to rectify through their own activities and using empty properties as part of the solution to bringing back or creating opportunities for young people in particular in those communities. Do you have any comment to make on that? I suppose the other reason is market failure, so there could be a decline in economic trends in specific areas as well, and that can often impact on properties lying empty, where owners do not see a solution to bringing the property back into use. Is there a particular tenure of housing that is most highly affected by this? We would say that it is a broad brush. It sweeps across all the different types of buildings in terms of what we deal with. We only deal with private sector empty homes, so we do not really touch on the social sector. I think that there are very few empty properties in the social area that are council housing in rural Scotland. My last question is about what impact do you see empty homes having on local communities? I have a massive impact on communities depending on where that empty property is. There are properties that could be living next door to an empty property and the overgrown garden, anti-social behaviour, sometimes fire, and that sort of thing can have a real impact on a community. In terms of that place, people could be wondering about seeing a run-down house and it is not pleasant for that sense of place, but even just other impacts, for example economic impacts, if you have somebody living in that property they are more likely to be paying council tax, they are more likely to be spending in the shops and in the communities, and whether there are big multinational stores, that store would likely employ somebody else in the shops, so it does have an impact on a community. Sustaining populations in terms of the rural stuff that Derek will talk about, sometimes if you just bring back two empty properties that can sustain a school or a post office. On that point, what role would you see that your partnership having in trying to ensure that even when empty homes are there between the time homes become empty and become reused and make sure that some of the things that you described do not happen? The role of the partnership is to share best practice and encourage at a local authority level to bring properties back into use and we see the best way of doing that is to have a dedicated empty homes officer because the empty homes officer can go in and engage with the owner, ask them what they think the issues are, what sort of options are available to that owner to try and bring that property back into use and as a partnership if we can try and share the best practice so we can say well you know for example in a specific area a matchmaker scheme where developers are linked up with potential empty home owners that can work or for example in another area where you are engaging that owner and giving them information on VAT discounts that often works so it's just about sharing the knowledge and the best practice and that's what the empty homes partnership is there for also to look at the barriers that our officers come to us and say actually this is a barrier that we're all facing so for example they will say to us that probate cases can take a while and we're looking to investigate you know what are the touch points for probate cases and how long are they expected to last and is there something that as a policy solution that we can look at? Just a previous point about the impact on communities is you know in many rural communities empty homes are up to kind of in the north isles of Orkney so only 17% of houses are empty plus you've got the houses that are empty because they're not occupied full time so you've got a permanent population which is maybe a half of the houses in the area so that impacts on both in terms of the sustainability of services and schools and shops but also impacts on how people feel about their community you know the idea of dark villages is kind of strong within certain communities in the winter and the whole place is just dark because there's nobody living there and empty homes contribute to that quite considerably in some places Okay, thanks very much Graeme, you wanted to come in on that and then you can ask your questions Yeah, thanks convener, just on the empty homes in rural areas is there an issue with privately rented properties at some of the older ones and the difficulty of bringing them up to scratch the cost of that being too much and therefore properties are left empty I mean there's definitely an issue to do that but there are through the empty homes officers that Sheehan has talked about there's a number of schemes which have been developed so that you know in Argyll for example you can deal putting up to £20,000 to help an owner bring that property back into use for letting if they contract that let to the local housing association for 10 years so there's ways in which grant can be tied into leasing so there's a kind of like a quid pro quo in terms of you know the longer, the more grant it takes the longer you have to put it into this kind of leasing scheme and leasing schemes have been around for a long time I mean way back in the late 80s rural leasing schemes were kind of the bread and butter of in fact shelter pioneered rural leasing schemes way back then and they were very successful in actually delivering small numbers of houses or affordable houses in rural areas Are these grants coming from the council? Yeah You can see that in recent Galloway are doing something similar as well with their town centre living fund and they offer grants as well to bring properties back into use where they see that there's a strategic housing need and it works but it is an investment from the council that's required I mean it was previously, the Scottish Government did put things there was a scheme called lead tenancies where housing associations got involved in this kind of work as well and that was funded through what was housing association grant at that time so but as far as I know that's not possible any more and obviously there was also rural anti properties grant for a time now you see it occasionally within the reports that there's still one or two but it's not promoted and it's not necessarily available Wraith being ordered to get closer to you Mike's I think so no this is interesting so you mentioned two councils that are using this are any others? Perthincan Ross have got a grant scheme as well a loan and grant scheme that they do I'm trying to think about all the rural locations but yeah I would say Perthincan Ross or Gailin Bute and Dumfriesda Galloway would definitely be best practice from the Scottish Empty Homes Partnership point of view Gailin Bute, can we let Anna Berlin first, she wanted to ask a supplement Oh thank you, thank you for coming in just picking up on a perhaps more technical point that Shaheena referred to a moment ago about circumstances where the houses, the properties empty following death and the estate being wound up it would be interesting in due course when there's a conversation about the need to obtain much greater data about the reasons what homes are empty and the circumstances and so forth and I think that's a line of questioning that will come from colleagues but at the moment I think Shaheena said that you were currently looking at this issue but of course from a technical perspective where there is a heritable property, where there is a home you need in Scotland to obtain confirmation in order to convey title to that home but in order to get confirmation you tend to as a solicitor winding up the state seek to identify all assets so that all assets are included as required in the application for confirmation so that actually can be the time consuming bit that the house could be the easy bit in that you can see that there is a title you can include that but you wouldn't normally seek to apply for confirmation just for the heritable assets you would apply for confirmation for all assets and that can take some time so I just wonder in terms of your discussion Shaheena what potential solutions there may be to that that you're looking at To be honest with you we're really at early stages with this because one of the things that we're looking to do like you say is increase our knowledge on empty homes we've got to a point where the partnership is quite mature and now we're looking at actually what are the policy solutions we previously didn't have a policy officer in the Scottish Empty Homes Partnership which we recruited to last September and these are some of the lines of work that he does have I don't know what the solution is, if I'm really honest I could see that there would be difficulties in seeking to for the objectives that you're seeking to progress that work that needs to take place and it can be quite time consuming identifying assets and then getting details of the assets such that you can actually then include them but obviously it's an important area to look at but that goes back to my original point which is it would be interesting to see in due course when further data is gathered to what extent the scenario that we're talking about represents any significant element of the empty homes and if rather it is other sets of circumstances that are more significant as far as empty homes are concerned I think the starting point for us was to map out the entire process so we can see where is it getting stuck and where do officers think it's getting stuck because sometimes there's a disparity between that we can see that clearly with repossessions because that's another area where officers are telling us well mortgage lenders are not getting rid of properties quick enough and mortgage lenders have an obligation to achieve the best price and push that forward so when we spoke to the council of mortgage lenders they were saying well this is our position and officers are saying well no this is not what's happening on the ground so what we're starting to do is again it's a similar process for probate cases as terms of mapping it out so we can actually say where is it getting stuck because the officer thinks it's repossessed but actually hasn't gone through that entire process the calling up notice may have been served that the decree hasn't been granted or where is it getting stuck and I think that's what we'd like to do similarly with probate cases so that we can try and apply timescales so that officers can even just be empowered to know that this is the sort of timescale that this process takes and therefore we can move on to something else or actually is there a situation where we need to encourage these timescales to be quicker Okay, thank you Thank you Can I ask you both about the use of compulsory purchase powers and the difficulties that councils encounter with that and whether it's being used widespread? One of the things that we recently hosted was a compulsory purchase workshop and that was on the back of empty homes officers telling us that they didn't know exactly what their role was in the compulsory purchase because they have quite a significant role for compulsory purchase of empty properties in the way that I see it but officers were not confident in that so we ran a workshop in collaboration with the Scottish Government last month and we talked through the process in terms of what an officer should be looking out for and how they should start preparing cases and evidence gathering so that there's a blight on a community and I think that's the significant part of it the property has to have a blight on the community and public interest has to trump the private human rights So from what you're saying it sounds like not many councils have been confident enough to use those powers? No, councils are not caught Some councils are but others aren't and ones where they aren't often will tell you that there's a resource issue as well because there's conflicting priorities for legal services and I think part of our workshop was to say well if we, if the empty homes officer can do as much of the work as possible to try and get it to a point where there's limited requirement for the legal services then that should maybe assist with trying to bring that compulsory purchase order to a forefront if you know what I mean because often it is time and then it goes to the legal team and they'll go back and say well actually you haven't done this step or that step or the next step and they're behind on it and that's where I think we were trying to empower our officers to do that there's also the issue of cost and keeping that money away until somebody comes in to make a claim and councils will tell you that that's a significant barrier I don't really have anything to add to that really I know that you know my time is working in this field you know it's just been councils didn't use CPO for housing use it for everything else but housing seems to be too hard I wonder if Shaheen or if you've got any more evidence on that that you could share with us and who's using these pals and who's not I think there was a recent CPO of housing in Dundee that I just recently saw in Rose Angle and I only remember that because I grew up in Rose Angle but yeah, Falkirk have used it Sterling have used it for empty homes Argyll and Bute recently used it for empty homes and they were showcasing the case study at our recent workshop so it is being used and we are promoting the use of it as one of the options but actually we are promoting officers doing the legwork for it in most cases so that they have the evidence they are already Is there a difficulty with tracing owners of properties? Definitely, I think that's one thing that comes up significantly Empty homes officers will tell us we can't find an owner, in fact we've got a case on the Empty Homes Advice Service where we're finding it difficult to trace an owner it was a property in Edinburgh it's been lying empty for about over 10 years I think it was previously a fish shop with accommodation above it and we can't seem to trace who owns that property like it seems to come to a halt at some point so that's definitely an issue What was the barrier to finding out this information? I think that the title did say it was at a point where the person who said they owned the property has got a bit of paper saying that they've got the title but they're not convinced that they actually own that property I'm not the expert in the advice or officer field so I can't go too much into it but I can definitely come back and give a little bit more information on that specific case That would be good because you can't possibly use a CPO if you don't know who owns it Yeah, absolutely I think what they're doing is we're looking at private genealogists to try and trace an owner of that property but it's just difficult and that's quite I don't think it's significant volumes of cases but I think from memory it would be about 13% of cases now could be wrong it's just from memory because we're just getting our annual survey back this year and I'm reporting back on what's going on so it's not significant but those ones cause significant issues because you can't then bring them back into use or if you can't engage with an owner 13% that's still quite a number Of course it is Yes, absolutely What about the idea of having compulsory sale orders Have we you know, have you got any thoughts on how effective they might be either of you So we've pushed for a compulsory sale order as a recommendation from the partnership and we've been assured that it'll be done through this programme for government I think it'll be better because it'll force it to market it'll stop having to have a back-to-back agreement with either a developer or a housing association to take over the property and it'll eliminate that risk for the local authority that's what local authorities are telling us at the moment We're members of the Scottish Empty Holes partnership and supported that proposal on compulsory sale orders and I think they're a useful tool to be added to the kind of armory of carrots and sticks that are available alongside things like obviously community right to buy vacant and derelict land or land detrimental to the community Do you think there's a potential human rights issue if you own an empty house for whatever reason just want to keep it that way I think that's where you've got to evidence the blight on that particular community I don't think it would be appropriate in all cases where a property is lying empty to go for a compulsory sale order but if your property is causing an impact on that local community whether it's an economic impact or if it's causing your property to flood or those types of things and if you've tried everything you've tried to engage with that owner then I think it is an appropriate measure but I do stress that all advice and information has to be taken first Concentrations of empty property or people could be leaving several empty properties in a community and that can restrict some rural communities where drainage capacity is an issue they're all taking up capacity in the system so they're preventing further development in some respects One more question from me it's just a general one really it's about the range of powers councils have and whether you think they're effective enough and what else councils don't have a great range of powers I suppose they have amenity notices and works enforcement notices but from what councils tell us you then have to have resource to then enforce that enforcement and they don't often have that that can take time I would just say often from us that an empty homes officer in every local authority in Scotland would be a starting point where we can then start working with the owners often in some local authorities they have two empty homes officers now and I think that's where we should be going because if we've got somebody that can give particular advice and information to an owner then properties are more likely to be brought back into use I totally agree with that I think that kind of enabling function that the empty homes officers in terms of creating solutions using the tools that exist I would put in a bit of a word for some leasing schemes whether that's voluntary or compulsory to and use them as a phrase less nuclear in my evidence but it's a perhaps communities and councils and others don't necessarily want to take on properties but we'd like to see it used and so perhaps there can be a leasing arrangement perhaps is a less strenuous less maybe a stringent enforcement that needs to happen anything that you mentioned earlier yeah thanks convener Andy, you've got a couple of areas you wanted to ask questions as well thanks for your written evidence which has been very useful background for this inquiry let's look at the council tax levy and you talked quite a bit about the use of this levy and what it was intended for, of course it's up to local government to decide for itself how to use this levy but I'm just wondering if you can elaborate a little bit more on how it is actually being used and the potential impacts of it definitely we've looked at particular cases in a local authority where there is no empty homes officer and how they have implemented the charge quite recently and we've had cases coming through to our empty homes advice service and they have a blanket approach to cases that are empty for over 12 months they will immediately get the 200% charge if you have a blanket approach you can often stop properties being brought back into use because that is an additional cost factor so there is good practice where councils will say actually we'll apply discretion we'll use the carrot and stick approach where we will say you're evidenceing to us that you're bringing this property back into use we'll give you a little bit of discretion on that we might reduce the charge down to 90% while you're doing that and once it's brought back into use the council will then get the 100% council tax and we see that as a good way of using the charge but the blanket approach to us is not what is intended and the message that I give to local authorities is that actually when you're using it with discretion you're encouraging properties to be brought back into use often when you're using this blanket approach often properties can run into arrears as well so although they can put an inhibition on the property to gain that if the property was to sell at that moment it's not in the council's interest either so to be clear councils have the discretion to for example give relief on one property and then the one immediately next door they can do something completely different yeah absolutely it's up to the council how they vary that there is the guidance and approach is not something you support but is there any evidence that the blanket approach is having less of an effect than a discretionary approach well we had a case that came through to the empty homes advice service where a guy was refurbishing a property and he was refurbishing the property to move into and had quite a stringent budget to refurbish that property and with the additional 200% council tax charge he was saying that was impacting on some of the refurbishments that he was able to make on to that property and might impact on when he would be able to move into that house we supported an appeal we helped the gentleman to draft an appeal to the local authority which was successful and that property was brought back into use on time and on budget for that particular person I don't support it at all times I do think sometimes that you know if you choose to leave your property empty and you don't really want to do anything with it then the 200% levy should be there but that's anecdotal evidence is there any systematic evidence not not specifically we've looked at cases we're looking at cases at the moment we've done a policy document on how councils are applying it so what councils are doing what and I can send that on if that's of interest yeah and you can have a look to see cos it is setting out every council's policy on as a starting point on the levy okay I just want to ask a few questions about data as well I mean you both raised this in your evidence I mean I note that the number of empty homes has been kind of steadily rising over the last 10 years not hugely but steadily rising and it also in your evidence Mr Logie that you observe that Statistics Scotland provide data on empty homes by census data zone but it would be useful to have this as a GIS resource that's a geographic information resource and it would be useful to have ownership of properties and the reasons they're empty so my question is how we have data on each census data zone but we don't actually have a a map or data that one could download to identify exactly where everything is is that correct? as far as I'm aware it might be beyond my skills in terms of interrogating us to Six Scotland's website you might be able to do it but I couldn't do it I think that Shaheen is doing some work on that. One of the things that we're commissioning over summer is looking at a GIS mapping of empty properties across Scotland at a national level not at a granular level but at a data zone level we have drafted up some questions and we're doing it through independent researchers so that will give us an idea of where the properties are and then look at what are the solutions to bringing those properties back into use are there any trends things that we don't know already that will influence where we want to go with empty properties that will hopefully be ready for the public in November at our annual conference this year Will that provide the kind of data that allows you then to analyse the various reasons you cite as to why homes are empty in a systematic way in order to be able to compare for example, different policies on council tax or different policies that empty homes officers are adopting for similar kinds of cases across the country We hope so, we hope that it will give us a much better insight but it is dependent on what we get back and the information that we get back I certainly know that some councils do GIS mapping of their empty properties off the top of my head Angus Council uses GIS mapping North Asia Council uses GIS mapping but I know that other councils don't and it will depend on the information that we get back as to what we can look at but we are hoping to tie it in with different data sets as well so we can look to see what the insight comes back It's similar to something that England did with their empty homes agency carried out a similar sort of survey but we know that we've got a different context here so we're just looking to change the questions that we ask Okay, and just finally returning back to question on ownership you're talking about the problems in tracing owners but to be clear you don't have a problem in finding the title it's the fact that the name on that title might be 30 years ago and you don't know where the person is you don't even know if they're alive it's those kind of issues Okay, thanks Okay, thank you, Alexander We've talked this morning about the success that you've seen from the Government putting in some schemes and also you've talked about some of the councils who have done well when they have prioritised and put some investment into that whether that is a scheme they're doing themselves or they have that dedicated officer to try and support and I certainly saw that from my time when we introduced that that was a pilot scheme that proved really very successful and especially for the city centre where we had a number of properties that you've identified today that may have a shop and something above it and that was two properties that we were trying to utilise so I think that there's a role for these incentives but can I ask you what do you see that financial incentive being and how important is it for the councils to have that and use that power to ensure that they can collaborate with their communities that they represent and also how the Scottish Government would fit into that process I would think that many of the officers that come back to us tell us that a huge issue for bringing properties back into use is struggling to finance repairs and I think that there's a role for funding to be made available but I recognise that we're in it in a time where there are limited funds at a local level but I do think that that's what would probably speed up properties being brought back into use however I still think that the software measures work as well I think that there's also for other organisations and I think that's something that we've promoted at our last conference where we were looking at a step change agenda we see that there's organisations such as the YMCA and Glenrothes who have an empty homes programme and they are looking at properties that are empty for significant periods of time and that if a developer was to go in and buy those properties and bring them back into use there would be no financial incentive in it for them but they have managed to attract funding from different sources and bring the property back into use and the reason that those properties were so useful for them is they have supported accommodation for young people that are at risk of homelessness and they were looking for follow on accommodation in the communities that were already settled and the empty properties seemed an ideal match for them and they were able to put in minimal sums to get properties because the rest of it attracted funding there's schemes such as I think that we quoted in our submission paper The Lach who use volunteers to bring properties back into use and so they're using two things so they're bringing properties back into use for affordable housing but they're also meeting skills so people allowing empty properties to be used to up skill certain target groups so I think that's something that we're looking at at the moment we're looking to try and set up a project with as a strategic partnership to try and create an operational business model that we can say actually look this is how it works to ensure that best practice as you've identified if there's a niche in the market anyway there's a need and it's just by trying to marry the two together and then the funding will come so in that role what if I told you that the Scottish Government housing investment programme what impact should it have on this whole programme and how should it be supporting and trying to ensure that what you've identified is taking place the Scottish Government have allowed us a small fund that we're able to now allocate to as part of a strategic partnership and it's something that we're looking to pilot in terms of what their role is I wouldn't I don't have an answer for you there right now through the rural and island housing fund in terms of supporting community projects on which you're looking at bringing back properties and use at Tarr Bracks for example we were working with what if which is the local community trust there and there's a number of empty properties in the village and it kind of I think it maybe sums up a lot of the issues that people have had regarding empty properties because the worst ones were either they couldn't get the tracy owner or the person wouldn't sell so they ended up having to buy one which was actually just on the market and do that up with rural and island housing fund money but it was the ones which were really bliting the community that they wanted to get their hands on and it's the eyesores that appear and we have them in many communities and as you've identified it may be because there's no longer anyone there or there's a connection that's been lost or there's documentation that's no longer there to try and make that happen but the hardest ones to crack to ensure that you try and get that because once you get that then it has a knock-on effect because it's particularly galling in places where there's real lack of affordable housing for local people the first project that I ever did was in the community of Lagan on Strass Bay and there were five empty properties that came on the market and we helped the community to buy those properties and do them up and that community was starting from lack of housing and lack of people being able to be employed locally because they couldn't find a house so it's marrying these two things together that is crucial and we can either do that through communities taking on properties to buying them and then doing them up themselves and then renting them out or conceivably communities leasing properties from owners who haven't got the where with all the money or whatever to do up the properties but the community do so we need a tool and the Rural and Islands Housing Fund could be that tool to enable that but they have certain rules around perpetuity which I'd like to review and I think that you've identified that issue and there's a huge opportunity there and by broadening some of that scope and by seeing and giving some leeway to organisations that you've identified that shows and that's a massive commitment because it's not just the house it's the knock-on effect of employment of sustainability of a school of a post office whatever that can all flow from making sure that these number of properties have been renovated and are back on the market and people can use them and even when you look at the town centres where you have shops at the bottom being used but numbers of flats above them not that's another idea that you should be trying to convert and support because by doing that it generates some life back into that community so I think that you identify a very important role that the Government should be taking on board because by doing that it will enhance and support what you're trying to do and what councillors are trying to do just to solve the problem thank you convener thank you very much Alec you've highlighted quite a number of different cases where you would say it's good practice is there some kind of good practice guide that's out there and can I ask, do you believe that it's a mix in a match in terms of how serious local authorities take the empty homes issue we have knowledge exchange forums like best practice meetings that we have quarterly in Scotland we have one in the north and officers come together we have quite high attendance at these best practice meetings we have about 22 people coming to our central best practice in about 15 to the northern best practice and that's where we tend to share best practice we also have an online forum on the knowledge hub that anybody can come along and ask to be a member of and can see all the best practice that we do and share there definitely is a mismatch in terms of how much local authorities dedicate to empty homes work and that's something that some local authorities see the benefits of it more than others and that's where my role is to try and encourage all local authorities to actually see the importance of empty homes work it makes sense it doesn't make sense to leave properties lying at empty we've seen some really good examples of empty homes buy-backs where they're buying back local authority ex-local authority properties or even properties that meet their housing need there's a really good one I think in North Asia where it was a town centre property that was causing significant issues to the neighbours next door and they were able to use it to buy it back as affordable housing supply now their business plan for affordable housing supply is £128,000 for a brand new empty property by the time they bought for a brand new build sorry but when they bought this empty property I think it cost them something like in the region of £60,000 so they've added supply at half the price and it's in the town centre it's in the strategic priority area so it makes sense that we share with local authorities we're also putting together what's called a value tool we had one which I think was a bit difficult to read and didn't flow and we're putting together another value tool and we hope to update our website to actually show this value tool and we want to be able to make it so that local authorities can look to see what authority is similar to mine what are they doing that sort of thing so Shelter Scotland talk about the housing crisis in Scotland what kind of contribution can tackling the empty homes that you make towards tackling the crisis definitely I think that it can make a contribution whether it's affordable housing supply in some cases it can work but actually just increasing supply in areas of pressure for example in Edinburgh where we've got significant pressure on the housing market if we're bringing properties back into use for normal supply that obviously has a knock-on effect to affordable housing supply as well so I'm trying to where I'm trying to go with this is that there's 32 local authorities and I accept the flexibility indeed when it comes to using council tax I've argued for flexibility in cases that have represented people but is there sort of a minimal standard that should apply within local authorities so Andy talks about GIS mapping and you say there's two councils North Ayrshire and one other I think there's more councils than that but that's just the two that I knew from the top of my head should we have more minimal standards definitely I think the starting point is to have a dedicated empty homes officer every local authority in Scotland should have one at the moment we have 21 councils or you know or some sort of empty home service and I think that's the minimum standard for me I think yeah linking empty home strategies so looking at what their empty home strategy is we'll often feed into consultations and say actually this is your strategy and this is what we know we understand about your local area and this is what we think should be in your strategy I think that they should be linking it to local development plans and yeah GIS mapping would be ideal to have so that they can look to see where you know they might have another regeneration interest and the empty property empty homes officer should be involved in that what works quite well in some areas as well which we talk about is where they have working groups so different departments are brought round the table so for example in our Gailin but in Ross that sort of increase in Gailin they have a working group where they have building standards they have environmental health they have the empty homes officer because every single different department has a different agenda for that empty property whereas it's the only empty homes officer that wants to bring that property back into use often and so those type of working groups work well as well I think that it's useful it would be useful if you've got views on setting a minimum standard because if we're investigating this I suppose I've heard people talk about empty homes for years and you've highlighted that there is some good practice and there is progress but is that progress fast enough and what is it that we need to be doing in Scotland to make that happen I suppose that the dedicated empty homes officer is the minimum standard from partnership point of view and the different tools that then comes around because the empty homes officer is now in place to implement those Can I just ask one further question to that in Kenny Gibson has there been any cost benefit analysis of local authority employment of empty homes officers? There has been small local levels rather than a wider national level so some local authorities have looked at how much council tax has come in rather than looking at just what impact this is having on a community and again this is where our value tool that we are going to launch pretty soon will show the different value at a local level in terms of increasing football into a local community in terms of sustaining that community the average cost to an empty homeowner to leave their property empty is something between £7,000 and £8,000 in lost rent and council tax payments that sort of thing so the cost benefit analysis has been done at different levels at local authority areas I wonder if that would be useful for us just to see that but would there be any wider cost benefit analysis being done in the way that you were suggesting there? I don't think there's been anything wider that's been done I thought that would the intention be Yeah, absolutely Mr Low, do you think you were wanting to come in on the last point now? No, it's just to say that empty home strategies that Shane is talking about needs to be a crucial part of local authorities housing strategy general housing strategy in a rural context in particular one or two empty properties can deliver affordable housing in places that a housing association wouldn't go because they're looking at two or four or six houses at a minimum in terms of new build development or there's planning constrictions or drainage constrictions on new build development so the empty homes and bringing those back into use for affordable housing is a crucial part of general housing strategy Just to add that That makes perfect sense, Kenny First of all, sorry for being late this morning good morning panel The best practice thing for me is really fundamental You can be in a touched on something I was going to touch on cost benefit To me it seems overwhelming the arguments that are being made for empty homes officers and I'm quite shocked that not every Scottish local authority has them and also that cost benefit is not being done by councils in the round it just seems to be council tax rather than looking at the impact on the general community so I think that's a piece of work that we would welcome or maybe perhaps we should press the Scottish Government on which empty homes best practice group when you've mentioned authorities from Angus, Dundee, Herkenos etc who are doing excellent work and I think that we would all want to see that spreading out You said that there are empty homes officers there's one and some have got two Given the scale of the problem the tens of thousands of empty homes figures vary is one or two officers enough clearly it seems to me that they must be run off their feet really They're absolutely right Average case load yesterday from officers that are coming back to us and they're in the hundreds and you think how can anybody run with an average case load off that sort of amount and actually get the impact that they need to have so definitely more needs to be done but I suppose we're at a starting point we're at a point where we're trying to get all councils to do it and then push forward with that Trying to show councils a win-win and it definitely is a win-win and it just makes sense I know it seems to me so obvious Okay, I want to move on Mr Logie to talk about the Rural and Islands Housing Fund I mean you talk about the £75,000 a unit and you say that that's kind of restrictive there in terms of main fund projects have to be focused on smaller easier to refurb properties which don't have the same ambition of scale to make a real difference at a wider level Can you talk a wee bit more about that changes being made in that area Sorry, that's Sahina's Actually Sorry, that's Sahina's submission but I mean I probably best if I ask her to answer and you can comment on it cos I'm going to move on to your paper in a minute Here's as much Here's only a two-page Sorry, Sahina We've supported some applications to the Rural and Islands Housing Fund and we have seen that some limitations are sometimes because of the level of the fund and because often I think there was a case where the Rural and Islands Housing Fund was supporting a property to be brought back into use but there was about another nine funders and one funder pulled out and then the whole project stopped and that was quite significant in terms of we thought that's the property it's a real eyesore I think it was I don't want to say which one it is just in case I'm getting it wrong but I think it was Was it cold stream? Do you know about that? I don't know about cold stream There was a property that had 10 different funders and one pulled out at the last minute and that caused it to fail whereas if the Rural and Islands Housing Fund had a greater capacity that would have just gone ahead Was there a question? To be honest it didn't go ahead but there is flexibility to spend more than £74,000 per unit that's the benchmark that's the average that they're looking for across the piece in terms of all their grants so there can be £100,000 grants or £50,000 grants the 74 is an average so there is flexibility there because one of the issues I mean, I'll get at Cumbria and Aaron my constituency and of course one of the issues is the cost of building on islands is significantly higher than actually building on the mainland and so it's concerned about that making it less economic because I mean a housing association local authority might say well I can build a hundred on the mainland for 60, 70 on an island In island communities it is higher, it's £84,000 rather than £74,000 I think Aaron is included in the west islands well I mean yes in terms of that grant funding ability I mean so you touch on the west of Ireland your submission you say 5.8% of homes are empty almost double the northeaster average of 3% at the same time 25% of homes are second homes and average house prices are significantly higher and there's a lot of negative equity on the island but we also have a real issue about a shortage of affordable housing in view of that do you think that the compulsory sale orders would have an impact on that I do because I mean I know landowners on Aaron who have demolished lots of empty properties to make way for farm buildings and like and they've got permission to demolish those from northeaster council and those could have been perfectly servable houses now there's probably compelling farm business reasons as to why those houses couldn't be used in the particular location they were but it's a bit galling to see properties demolished when there's so much housing needed in that context I'm understanding that there are other reasons I won't go into it at this moment in time but in MSP and Cunning North more than 12 years now and there's a house in Kilburnney main street that was empty when I was elected and it's still empty, the owners are nail a man and we can't get anything, the council's kind of tattered up a wee bit so it's not quite as much an eyesore as it used to be but there's a real frustration in the community the local authority everyone really who passes by that and sees it about this inability to actually get a hold of this property and have something done with it and the Scottish Government to make sure that this legislation is introduced this side of the next Scottish Parliament election that's something I would certainly support I'm doing the same obviously it's always good to have witnesses saying the same kind of thing and just lastly, if I may convener touched on the council tax lewi Andy talked about that I've had a number of constituents come to me who've been quite upset about this because they feel that Northeaster Council which is flexible following the strictures of this and maximising their income through this frankly and not putting it back into housing specifically people feel as if I bought a house which is empty but it's not got a roof on it and it's taken a long time to actually refurbish et cetera et cetera and immediately these time limits are reached to slap the 200 per cent on and that makes it really difficult to finish them sometimes and whenever I've went to the council with these cases I think I've had four, five, maybe six since 2013 they've just said, no I'm sorry, that's it and there's been absolutely no hint of flexibility in terms of these cases how do you feel that this varies across Scotland is this the norm or some better than others would you feel we are I think that there's still more to be done and I think that the government guidance obviously is only guidance and I wonder if there shouldn't be that degree of flexibility in terms of how if somebody is showing that they're bringing a property back into use and if the spirit of the legislation is to unlock empty homes then perhaps more needs to be done at a council tax level getting that message out to council tax managers that actually this is what the spirit of that legislation is rather than that blanket approach if there are major structural repairs it just makes sense to actually it isn't enshrined in legislation with major structural repairs that they have to give some leeway but often that leeway is not enough is it six months and that's often not enough for somebody to confirm that it seems to me it's a letter of the law that's used here rather than a spirit of the law I would agree with that and I would say that that seems to be an area of complaints that come through to the empty homes advice service as well okay, thank you thank you just picking on a few points it's been mentioned that 21 local authorities have an empty homes officer so 11 don't, why don't they? well I'm in conversations with four of them and four of them at the moment are either looking to get an empty homes officer or have completed a business case for an empty homes officer so we're in progressive discussions with those authorities so that would leave seven and there's only so many authorities who are the seven that are just not even discussing them? I don't really want to name and name local authorities to be honest perhaps you could write to the committee with the list because I think it would be useful to know who's not getting on the programme so I was going to ask about the cost benefit analysis, it seems to be as the convener rightly raised that's the crucial element to test success or otherwise and what's certainly usefulness in trying to tackle this problem in your submission Shaheena, and this was an issue that I alluded to earlier the issue of data which is really crucial here so I note that page 16 but under the response to question 8 of the consultation from the committee you make the point quite rightly so one figure is the figure of national records of Scotland which has a figure of 79,000 empty properties but this will include new homes yet to be occupied and dwelling houses that are waiting demolition so you feel that that overstates the scale of the problem in Scotland but then you go on to quote in contrast statistics published by the Scottish Government which report that approximately 39,000 properties as long-term empty but you feel that this may understate the scale of the problem in terms of the coverage including the fact that it excludes other properties certain properties exempt from council tax so in that regard I note that the Scottish Empty Hopes Partnership intends to carry out a national empty home survey later this year could you give us a bit more information about that when you intend to do that exactly how you'll go about that because it seems to me that the key element that will allow us all to move forward in this issue is to establish the facts establish how many empty homes and establish the reason why they're empty and therefore one can start to look at solutions for each category so it would be really interesting to hear how you intend to go about the crucial piece of work so at the moment we are in conversations with independent researchers we are looking at the data that we already hold so some of the things that we ask officers annually is previously we used to ask it as one question but one question why a home became empty and lies still is empty whereas now we've broken that question down in terms of why do homes become empty, why do they continue to stay empty and we've asked officers this year to report back on that to try and give us a deeper understanding this questionnaire that we're looking at isn't looking at what authorities will have so we've I'm just going to see if I can find it I think I've brought it with me to establish whether there's a link between the reasons that initially become empty and reasons why they often remain empty build a greater understanding of what initiatives may generally work to assist in bringing empty homes back into use and identify areas with high volumes of empty homes with specific or intensive initiatives may be needed like I said it was modelled on a similar survey but I think we have a Scottish context here and so we're looking at what actually exists already because we have some different data sets and sources so we've looked at questions the timescale for those questions is June we're hoping to get the questionnaire out to chief housing officers in Scotland and we then hope to promote it we're hoping to get the responses back by August to give us time to do some analysis and launch it at our conference in November in terms of how we want that questionnaire to look like we're trying to do it what's called a map shinaire so it's a questionnaire on a map I love that word it's a questionnaire on a map and we're hoping that officers will be more engaged and will enjoy completing it but also it'll give us the information that we need by hopefully we're thinking these are where the empty homes are the sort of intention behind it so not totally at a granular level but at a local level to give a sit inside if there are clusters of empty properties what can be done about those is there a certain solution that needs to be applied for those that type of thing okay so that's interesting that your timescale will take you to November 2019 and that's something we wish to reflect upon in terms of our work as a committee but because data really is key here and I wonder then what intention would you have to have discussions with national records of Scotland and have discussions with the Scottish Government's statisticians about the data they collect so that in the end of the day we can extrapolate one set of data that covers the same stuff because that would be helpful for everybody that's why we chose to go with independent researchers because they can support that for us because obviously everything else that we need to do on a daily basis and that's why we've gone to commission that research and that will be worked with Scottish Government statisticians okay thank you very much that'll do for today's meeting I think you answered quite a lot of very useful questions is COSLA are you working with COSLA to press local authorities to employ empty homes officers I've recently presented at the COSLA Local Government and Communities Board about a month ago and yeah there was some interest from some of the councils that don't have an empty homes officer there and we've since reached out to them okay thank you okay so a couple of things we'd ask then is maybe if we could get a copy of this questionnaire when it's ready or mapsh in there or whatever it's called and obviously as suggested earlier on about who has and who hasn't got the empty homes officers that would be very useful so thank you very much for attending today's session on the empty homes and the committee will spend their mind on the meeting in private this will include a discussion and the evidence we've just heard so thank you very much and I'll move the session into private