Almost a quarter of Scottish households (582,000) in Scotland were estimated to be in fuel poverty at mid 2011, according to new statistics.

Scotland's Chief Statistician has published the Scottish House Condition Survey (SHCS): Key Findings 2011 Report.

The findings includes statistics on the condition of Scottish homes, the number of households living in fuel poverty, the number of dwellings failing the Scottish Housing Quality Standard (SHQS), the energy efficiency of dwellings and other key descriptors of the occupied housing stock in Scotland.

24.6% of all households were estimated to be in fuel poverty at mid-2011, with required energy costs exceeding 10% of their income.

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This did show a fall, however, from the estimated 658,000 or 27.9% of households in 2010.

At mid-2011, around 153,000 households (6.4%) were estimated to be in extreme fuel poverty, with required energy costs exceeding 20% of their income.

This shows a further decline on 2010, where the figure was 185,000 or 7.8%.

Following price increases in autumn 2011, estimated fuel poverty rates increased to 28.9%, affecting around 684,000 households. This was 1 percentage point higher than 2010 levels.

Between mid 2010 and late 2011, fuel prices had risen by about 19%.

The number of properties with no loft insulation decreased to 32,000, representing 2% of all dwellings which can have loft insulation.

The proportion of insulated cavity walls increased from 53% in 2007 to 66% of all cavity walls in 2011.

Around 1,500,000 dwellings (about 65%) were rated 'good' in terms of energy efficiency on the National Home Energy Rating (NHER) scale.

But approximately 58% of dwellings failed the Scottish Housing Quality Standard (SHQS) in 2011. However, this shows a continuing decline in declining failure rates and represents a 10 percentage points decrease since 2007.

(IT)