National Records of Scotland
type: Organization
contact point: ContactPoint
  contact type: customer service

Dwellings by Council Tax Band (Historical Geographic Boundaries)
type: Dataset
accuracy: Data on Council Tax band is obtained from the Assessors' Portal. The Council Tax band reflects the Assessor's opinion of open market value, subject to a number of statutory assumptions. Assessors base their opinion of value on the actual selling prices of similar properties which sold around the valuation date of 1 April 1991. It is possible that not all information held on the Assessors' Portal is up-to-date. Assessors are only able to reflect physical changes and alterations to dwellings once they have been sold and a reconsideration of the banding has taken place. Furthermore, it may take time for changes as a result of new building or demolition to be recorded. When using Data Zone level information on dwellings and households, changes over time can occur not only as a result of new building activity and demolition, but also because of changes related to the postcodes of dwellings. Postcode changes can occur due to improvements made to administrative systems or NRS data cleaning, re-locating postcodes which were previously allocated to an incorrect Data Zone. Differences can also occur due to postcodes being allocated to a different Data Zone because the distribution of their population has changed. These differences are likely to be minimal and have only a small effect on change over time except when looking at small numbers of Data Zones.
comment: Number of dwellings by Council Tax band. Higher geographies are aggregated from 2001 Data Zones.
completeness: It is the policy of NRS to make its website and products accessible according to published guidelines. More information is available in the [Accessibility section](https://www.nrscotland.gov.uk/accessibility) of the NRS website.
confidentiality: This dataset does not contain any directly identifiable personal information.
consistency: The statistics are also provided in Excel and CSV formats on the NRS website. They are designed to be consistent, and incorporate comparable historical data where appropriate.
geographical coverage: S03
geographical coverage: S12
geographical coverage: S01
geographical coverage: S16
geographical coverage: S92
geographical coverage: S13
geographical coverage: S02
geographical coverage: S08
license id: uk-ogl
quality management: Postcode level information is extracted from the Assessors' Portal. Postcodes are used to assign data to Data Zones. The data is cleaned to ensure that all records are located in a Data Zone within the council area assigned by the Assessor. Records using out of date postcodes are also investigated to check that they are still placed in the correct Data Zone. Differences in total number of dwellings in a Data Zone outwith a threshold are investigated to determine if there is a reasonable explanation for the increase or reduction. Frequencies for variables (e.g. type of dwelling) are compared with earlier years' data to identify any potential issues. The results of postcode cleaning and quality assurance work are fed back to the Assessors each year.
reference period: PeriodOfTime
  end date: 2014-01-01T00:00:00
  start date: 2003-01-01T00:00:00
timeliness: Data for each year were downloaded from the Assessors' Portal in late December of that year or early January of the following year, e.g. 2013 data was downloaded on 7 January 2014. The summary statistics were published in the following summer.
uniqueness: Not assessed
update frequency: annual
validity: The statistics are mainly used for informing councils' decisions about housing need and service provision.
will be updated: false
contact point: ContactPoint
date modified: 2026-08-20T15:38:20.048167
date published: 2026-08-20T15:33:01.172365
description: This dataset contains information on the number ('count') of dwellings in each Data Zone and the numbers that are in each Council Tax band. Numbers of dwellings at higher geographies are aggregated from 2001 Data Zones. [Dwellings by Council Tax Band for 2011 Data Zones](http://statistics.gov.scot/data/dwellings-by-council-tax-band-summary-current-geographic-boundaries) are available. Data zones are the small area geography used by Scottish Government to allow statistics to be available across a number of policy areas. The Data Zone geography covers the whole of Scotland. Data zones were initially set up to nest within council area boundaries and to have a population of between 500 and 1,000 household residents. As much as possible, Data Zones were set up to contain households with similar social characteristics and to take into consideration physical boundaries. More information on Data Zone geography can be found on the [Scottish Government website](https://www.gov.scot/collections/small-area-statistics/). Data on Council Tax band is obtained from the Assessors' Portal in December each year, or the following January. The Assessors are, amongst other things, responsible for valuing each dwelling in Scotland for the purposes of assigning it to a Council Tax Band. The estimated total number of dwellings in this dataset differs from those in the ['Household Estimates'](https://statistics.gov.scot/resource?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fstatistics.gov.scot%2Fdata%2Fhousehold-estimates) dataset as the latter are extracted from a different source (Council Tax systems), at a different time of year (September). *Total Dwellings* This is the total number of dwellings on the Council Tax valuation list (excluding free-standing private lock-ups and garages). A 'dwelling' refers to the accommodation itself, for example a house or a flat, and includes second homes that are not let out commercially. Caravans count as dwellings if they are someone's main home. *Council Tax Band* Each dwelling i…
included in data catalog: CKAN
keywords: Housing
license: https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3/

dwellings-by-council-tax-band-historical-geographic-boundaries.csv
type: DataDownload
comment: Number of dwellings by Council Tax band. Higher geographies are aggregated from 2001 Data Zones.
dictionary: Column
  column: DateCode
  type: text
dictionary: Column
  column: Value
  type: text
dictionary: Column
  column: GeographyName
  type: text
dictionary: Column
  column: GeographyCode
  type: text
dictionary: Column
  column: GeographyType
  type: text
dictionary: Column
  column: Units
  type: text
dictionary: Column
  column: Council Tax Band
  type: text
dictionary: Column
  column: Measurement
  type: text
description: Data file for Dwellings by Council Tax Band (Historical Geographic Boundaries)
encoding format: CSV