Why Collaboration Is Now Scotland’s Only Route Out of the Housing Crisis
Jack Hope, Public Affairs Consultant, Perceptive Communicators
As featured in The Scotsman
Scotland calls its current housing situation an emergency, but as Professor Duncan Maclennan argued at a recent event in the Scottish Parliament, that term implies something sudden, unexpected and solvable with a quick remedy. In reality, Scotland’s housing crisis is none of those things. The issues have been building for years, its impacts are deep and long‑lasting, and the solutions require coordinated action across the whole system.
The human cost of this emergency is stark. Children growing up in temporary accommodation experience poorer health, disrupted education and long‑term harm to wellbeing. Without providing new accessible and adaptable homes we will be unable to overcome the challenges of demographic change. Newer housing is better prepared for our changing climate and rising energy costs. And families without secure housing struggle to participate fully in local economies and reach their full potential.
The urgency is undeniable. But delivery has stalled. Just last week, Scottish Government figures showed new home completions down 11% over the last year, marking a third successive annual fall. Housing starts are no better. They are at their lowest point in more than a decade meaning things are not improving any time soon.
The reasons for this are well rehearsed: capacity and resourcing constraints within councils, lack of skills right across the sector, lack of land supply and a growing viability gap.
The More Homes Scotland agency could be a genuine solution. This was the focus of Homes for Scotland’s annual conference this year. The Cabinet Secretary for Housing, Shirley-Anne Somerville MSP, envisions the agency moving Scotland from a fragmented effort to a genuinely coordinated, all‑tenure system that can accelerate delivery and rebuild confidence across the sector.
Many in the sector fear an agency created for an emergency is taking too long to become operational. To address the emergency, it would be more advantageous to be set up with pace, clarity and the right powers to unlock these much needed homes. This includes fixing the planning system, which would be a game changer.
For More Homes Scotland to live up to its name, it must actually deliver the additional homes needed within a reasonable timescale. It needs to draw on expertise beyond the civil service and be able to react to immediate feedback for continuous improvement. To do this it must bring the right players, including housing associations, developers, investors and community organisations, both large and small, around the same table. For our work across the built environment at Perceptive, we know that bringing those voices together early, rather than once decisions have already been made, can be critical to identifying barriers, building trust and creating the conditions for delivery.
Collaboration is mission‑critical. It will not fix the crisis alone, but it creates the conditions in which solutions become possible. Effective collaboration aligns political attention, sector expertise and public understanding. It helps decision makers see the whole system rather than isolated problems and builds coalitions that make delay harder.
At an organisational level, businesses need to be bold enough to put their heads above the parapet. Our experience shows that with the right community and political engagement, housebuilders can unlock developments that will help alleviate housing shortages locally. At a more national level, developers of all housing tenures have a role to play in providing the evidence and feedback that ministers and civil servants need to create change. With this approach, tackling the housing emergency could finally be possible.
Jack Hope is a Public Affairs Consultant with Perceptive Communicators, a specialist communications consultancy supporting clients in the built environment, innovation and leisure which are improving lives and transforming futures every day.
