Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what assessment her Department has made of the potential impact of methodological changes to the classification of certain types of accommodation between the 2011 and 2021 censuses by the Office for National Statistics on local authorities' Housing Delivery Test results.

The established methodology for official statistics on housing supply utilises the latest data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) census to improve the quality and reliability of these statistics. The census dwelling count is subject to intensive validation processes and address matching and provides the baseline for the net additional dwellings statistics.

A comparison of total dwelling stock counts between the 2021 and 2011 censuses led to adjustments to some of the net additional dwellings figures, which are used as the basis for the Housing Delivery Test (HDT).

This only affected the 2020/21 delivery year in the latest HDT 2023 statistics.

Following discussions with the ONS and with some relevant local authorities, we believe that in limited and specific cases these census adjusted figures are not appropriate to use for the purposes of the HDT. We are therefore in contact with relevant local authorities and have issued recalculations where needed.