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Introduction

This report provides information on trends relating to energy use and energy efficiency in local authority homes. It presents tables, graphs and charts equivalent to those in the Domestic Energy Fact File which covers all tenures (1). Three companion reports covering owner occupied (2), private rented (3) and registered social landlord (RSL) homes (4) have also been prepared. The four reports are intended as replacements for the three tenure-based Domestic Energy Fact Files produced in 1994 (5,6,7). Only three reports were produced in 1994 because, at that time, the available data on RSL homes were not sufficient to be able to prepare any meaningful statistics on trends in this tenure, and so these homes were included with private rented homes.

As far as possible, the information in the four new reports is consistent with that in the main Domestic Energy Fact File (1). However, readers may notice some instances where the sum of the numbers in the individual tenures does not quite add to the previously quoted all-tenures figure. Such instances are generally due to the fact that the all-tenures information was often taken directly from printed reports rather than from the electronic files that have been used as far as possible for the individual tenure reports. Although the printed reports and the electronic files are from the same source they sometimes indicate slightly different figures. The electronic files are known to have been updated as necessary and so it is clear that the figures that they contain should generally be preferred to those in the printed reports wherever there appears to be a discrepancy.

Although this report focuses on local authority homes it also draws comparisons with other tenures (primarily with owner occupied homes) to illustrate important points. The aim of the report is to present as complete a picture as possible of the trends in energy use and energy efficiency in local authority homes between 1970 and 1998. However, some data are missing, and consequently several tables only present figures from around the mid-1970s (although the relevant information for the earlier years does usually exist for homes in general (1)).

The tables, graphs and charts in this and its three companion reports are intended to illustrate longterm trends. Fluctuations from year to year should be viewed with caution since they may sometimes only reflect statistical variations between respective survey samples. Such caution is particularly important in the case of the RSL and private rented tenures where the sample sizes are quite small.

The text in this and the companion reports is kept to a minimum because the main Domestic Energy Fact File (1) already provides most of the necessary discussion and explanation. Text is restricted to:

- Additional explanations where needed, and

- Discussion of notable differences between the characteristics of local authority homes and those of homes in other tenures or of homes in general.

Most – but not all – of the tables in the main Domestic Energy Fact File have their equivalent in this report. If a table in that report does not have an equivalent in the following sections it is either because the information is common to all tenures or because, in a given instance, it is not very meaningful to attempt to distinguish between the different tenures. Data limitations also mean that the preparation of certain tables is not feasible at the individual tenure level.