Jocelyne Fleming

Much of Scotland’s housing debate understandably focuses on what we should ask of our homes: we want to improve the homes we already have, and we expect more from the homes we build. Warmer. Healthier. Lower carbon. More resilient.

These ambitions matter. But in the middle of an ongoing housing emergency, I think we’re spending so much time asking what we want from our homes, while paying too little attention to what they will mean for the number of homes available, particularly for those who need them most.

Basically, I don’t think we’re doing the uncomfortable, but necessary, work of considering the trade-offs of Scotland’s collective housing policy decisions. It’s not that any of these ambitions are wrong, but they don’t exist in isolation. So, their possible consequences deserve just as much attention as their potential benefits.

Decisions about planning, retrofit, building standards, heritage, biodiversity, infrastructure, and net zero all affect our housing system. Most are designed to achieve worthwhile outcomes: better, warmer, safer homes.

But if they also make it harder to build homes, retain existing homes, or bring empty homes back into use, we need to be asking what having fewer homes will mean, especially for those experiencing homelessness and housing insecurity.

Having spent much of my career researching homelessness, I find it difficult not to see policy decisions through this lens.

The cost of fewer available homes is severe. It’s another family spending months, or years, in temporary accommodation. It’s another young person unable to leave their parents’ home. It’s another employer struggling to recruit because workers can’t find somewhere affordable to live. It’s another patient unable to leave hospital because suitable housing isn’t available. 

These are policy outcomes too. Important ones, which we often seem to be overlooking.

My argument is not against better homes. We should expect homes that are healthier, more energy efficient, and fit for the future. So, the question isn’t whether those ambitions are worthwhile. It’s whether we’re giving enough thought to what happens when one worthwhile objective makes another national priority (ending the housing emergency) harder to achieve.

The construction sector sees these trade-offs in real time every day. Our industry is often where policy ambition meets practical delivery, balancing cost, viability, regulation, skills and timescales. We’re well placed to understand something that public policy sometimes struggles to acknowledge: good policymaking is rarely about choosing between good and bad options, it’s about weighing competing public goods.

So, I think we need to shift our policymaking conversation.

Far too often, policies are judged by whether they achieve the objective they were designed to deliver. We spend far less time asking what policy decisions will mean for the housing system. If a policy improves one outcome but unintentionally leaves Scotland with fewer homes overall, that consequence deserves just as much attention as the benefits achieved.

It’s one of the reasons we called for outcomes-based evaluation in our recent paper ‘How will we know if More Homes Scotland is working?’ Not because individual policy objectives don’t matter, but because someone needs to be accountable for understanding how policy decisions interact, recognising the trade-offs they create, and ensuring they’re delivering the housing outcomes Scotland actually needs.

Ultimately, success isn’t simply about whether every individual policy achieves its own objective. It’s about whether, taken together, our decisions leave more people living in safe, healthy homes.

Because in a housing emergency, every home counts. 

Dr Jocelyne Fleming is among the speakers on the Scottish Housing Summit stage within the Scottish Construction Summit in Glasgow on October 22nd. Register to attend for FREE here.