Scottish social housing tender prices steady during second quarter

Provisional results for the Scottish Social Housing Tender Price Index (SSHTPI) for 2Q2018 indicate that tender prices for social housing schemes fell slightly on 1Q2018 and are nearly 2% down on the same quarter a year earlier.

The fall in prices reflects a slowdown in output in the Scottish construction sector. While total new work output rose 2% in the latest quarter, it was still down 19% on 2Q2018.

The SSHTPI is prepared by BCIS for the Scottish Government’s More Homes Division. It offers a guide to the movement in prices in social housing schemes in Scotland and is used to update the Housing Tender Return indicative cost calculation.

The SSHTPI is based on comparing the prices for the construction of houses in current schemes with cost models of dwellings of different types (terraced, semi-detached and detached houses, and flats in different block configurations); occupancy (numbers of bedrooms and occupants), and size (floor area). These are adjusted for specification and design differences to provide a project tender price index. The project indices are adjusted for location and size of project.

The quarterly index is calculated by averaging the adjusted project indices in each quarter. It is smoothed to take account of the variation in the sample sizes.