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37 A reduction in the proportion of households who live in a home that falls below the set standard of decency (England).
Baseline and trends: Baseline year – 1996. In 1996, 44 per cent of households lived in a home that did not meet the set standard of decency. This has since fallen to 33 per cent in 2001, 30 per cent in 2003, 28 per cent in 2004 and 27 per cent in 2005.
Definition: The proportion of households that live in a home which did not meet the set standard of decency. The definition of a decent home is one that meets all of the following criteria:
- it is above the current statutory minimum standard for housing;
- it is in a reasonable state of repair;
- it has reasonably modern facilities and services; and
- it provides a reasonable degree of thermal comfort.
Data source: The English House Condition Survey (EHCS) was undertaken every five years up to and including 2001 from which date fieldwork was organised on a continuous basis. Results from the survey have been published annually since 2003, based on combined two-year datasets. The EHCS 2005 Annual Report was published in June 2007..
Further information
An overview of the English House Condition Survey is available at: www.communities.gov.uk/ehcs
This includes most current and available reports and supporting tables that provide further breaks covering a range of household and dwelling classifications and deprived areas. More information and guidance on decent homes is at: www.communities.gov.uk/index.asp?id=1152190
Research Evidence
“Monitoring the delivery of decent homes by local authorities: A scoping study”
www.communities.gov.uk/pub/607/181MonitoringthedeliveryofDecentHomesbylocalauthoritiesascopingstudyPDF103Kb_id1155607.pdf
Further Breaks
Rural Urban analysis:
Analysis: Rural Urban Definition at Lower Super Output Area level
Base line data: 2001
Current data: 2004
From 2001 to 2005 there has been a steady decrease of households described as non decent, in rural villages, hamlets and isolated dwellings from 36.7% (0.66million households) to 32.9% (0.65m) and in rural town and fringe from 28.8% (0.57m) to 22.1% (0.48m).
More information at: http://www.defra.gov.uk/rural/ruralstats/ofa.htm