Welsh Housing Survey

Approaches to policy-making can be driven from a range of different directions.  We can see that from the Trump administration and the UK response to the issues raised by Reform’s success in the local elections.  In housing, there is a struggle over making policy without data.  It might be made because we feel passionately about an issue – such as homelessness, which we want to eradicate.  It also helps to understand the nature and extent of the issues.  If we take homelessness, we might rely on local authority data, but we also know that data is constructed, subject to local discretion, and based on numbers of people who approach the authority for assistance.  If we want to make policy for private renting, it would be useful to have the full data, and we might be able to rely in part on the HomeSmart dataset, although we know that at least some landlords/rented properties are not on that dataset for various reasons.  In England, local authorities have been hamstrung in producing local housing strategies because of their lack of data about housing in their areas, particularly private renting.  This mattered, for example, when they were seeking to obtain approval for a selective licensing scheme.

In the 2025 UK Housing Review, published by the Chartered Institute of Housing recently, which is a must-read publication for us housing nerds, John Perry and Matthew Scott, in their chapter on dwellings, stock condition and households explain (at p 67):

A key determinant of housing demand is the projected increase in the number of households. England, Wales and Scotland still have official projections based on 2018 population figures …

Need one say more.

Anyway, that’s a long introduction to a welcome announcement in a written statement by Jayne Bryant, the Cabinet Secretary for Housing and Local Government, that there will be a Welsh Housing Survey in 2027-8, which will be more detailed than that compiled in 2017-8.  It seems to be based in part on the English one and “will comprise two parts: a detailed social survey to gather household information required for fuel poverty analysis (such as income), as well as housing experiences and views; and a physical home inspection carried out by a qualified surveyor to gather information on the fabric and condition of the home”.  This is not the kind of announcement that wins hearts and minds of normal people, but housing nerds would tell a different story.