Whether it has undertaken, or plans to undertake, any studies on the impact of the Civic Government (Scotland) Act 1982 (Licensing of House…

When mandatory licensing was introduced in 2000, the Executive agreed that it would review the scheme after its first year of operation. We have therefore commissioned independent researchers from the University of Glasgow and Heriot-Watt University/Edinburgh College of Art to carry out research on housing in multiple occupancy (HMO) licensing in conjunction with wider research on the private rented sector. As far as possible, we expect that the researchers will seek to establish the impact of HMO licensing to date, but the evidence may be rather limited and inconclusive after only one year of licensing, which has applied only to larger HMOs.The research will include in depth interviews with a sample of landlords, interviews with tenants of HMOs and focus groups with tenants of institutional HMO landlords. Although these interviews and focus groups will have a qualitative focus and will not offer any statistical data, they may highlight whether there are concerns from tenants that mandatory licensing has caused an increase to their rents that is not comensurate with improvements in the property condition. That said, it will be very difficult to identify any direct link between licensing and rent increases, as the level of rent paid for a private tenancy is very much a matter for individual agreement between the landlord and tenant and in general will reflect the market rent for that area.We expect the research to be completed in the summer.