The Scottish government has provided a massive boost to the Scottish Empty Homes Partnership, both extending the funding for a further 3 years and expanding the available resource by a further 1.5 posts.
Scottish Housing Minister Margaret Burgess announced the move on 23rd December. The story published on the Scottish Goverment website describes the initiative in more detail:
The Scottish Empty Homes Partnership (SEHP) will receive a three year extension backed by an additional £616,500 from the Scottish Government.
SEHP, which is run by the housing charity, Shelter Scotland helps councils and their partners pursue work to bring private sector empty homes back into use.
Overall, the number of unoccupied properties (second homes and long term empty) is falling. Currently, 31,457 homes are recorded as being empty for six months or more.
Shelter Scotland will use the extra funding to recruit additional staff to support the Partnership and allow up to an additional 12 councils to participate in the Shared Empty Homes Officer programme.
By the end of year 3, up to 28 councils in Scotland could have had access to an empty homes officer and approximately 1,200 empty homes per year could be returned to use.
In a monthly newsletter, Kristen Hubert, the national co-ordinator for the Partnership, provides further insight into what it will mean:
...we will also be increasing our capacity to support empty homes work across Scotland through the addition of 1.5 new posts to the central team. In addition the announcement includes an agreement in principal to expand the Shared Services Empty Homes Officer Projects to make them available to more councils. Previously badged as pilots this model has proved successful and we have amended it to create a Shared Services Incubator Model which is to be rolled out across Scotland.