Scotland’s improving poverty rate – worth one cheer?
After a century and more when Scotland has been one of the ‘poor relations’ within the UK, it now has a poverty rate which is lower than the national average.
Budget 2014: will Osborne cool or fuel the housing market?
This year’s budget is a critical milestone on the road to the European elections, the Scottish Referendum and primarily next year’s general election. So what should George Osborne do?
EVENT: Policy Reunion – Homelessness
The Policy Scotland homelessness policy reunion event is an opportunity to hear from those most closely involved in the development of the homelessness policy, the ‘inside story’ of how the policy evolved and its passage into legislation.
Land Value Taxation
Report on land value taxation debate at the Scottish rural housing conference.
The Housing Market Renewal Programme in Northern England: Lessons from the past, challenges for the future.
By Brendan Nevin, Director of North Housing Consulting On Friday 24th January 2014 Brendan was the guest speaker at a seminar as part of the Urban Studies Seminar Series. Abstract During the thirty years 1970-2000 many inner urban areas in older ex industrial towns and cities in the North and Midlands of England experienced significant…
Learning Cities 2020
Why learning is central to city futures: Bringing worldwide perspectives to local possibilities A policy briefing from PASCAL International Observatory by John Tibbitt, Honorary Senior Research Fellow at the University of Glasgow Cities in the world economy Over half of the world’s population now live in cities, and cities account for by the largest share of…
Questions for Scottish housing after a ‘yes’ vote
Professor Ken Gibb, Professor in Housing Economics, on the Scottish Government independence White Paper.
Bedroom tax may save less than estimated as tenants move to the private sector
Research into the first five months of the implementation of the Social Rented Sector Size Criterion underoccupation penalty, popularly known as the ‘Bedroom Tax’, suggested ministers may have significantly overestimated the savings it is likely to generate. The analysis – which ran real data collected by four housing associations since April through a model used in…
Taxing speculation in the housing market
By Ken Gibb, Director, Policy Scotland In parallel to the much discussed idea of capping house price inflation (or at least the Bank of England setting it as a policy goal and then trying to lean on the banks), there has been much concern raised about foreign investment, viewed as largely speculative, in the London…
United Nations Mission on Housing September 5 2013
Report of meeting with UN housing rapporteur, Professor Raquel Rolnik (University of Sao Paolo,) is carrying out a ‘mission’ to review housing in the UK.