Equality and Human Rights in Scotland’s Social Housing Allocation Policies

By Sarah McGoogan - Posted on 23 January 2026

Strathclyde LLM Human Rights Law student Sarah McGoogan highlights findings and recommendations from this Strathclyde Law School Social Justice Professional Project (module coordinator Professor Katie Boyle, dissertation supervisor Dr Douglas Jack), co-designed with Legal Services Agency.

Are social landlords complying with the publication duty under section 20A of the Housing (Scotland) Act 1987 and section 20 housing list priorities?  Are published housing allocations policies engaging with equality and/or human rights? How can practice improve under Scotland’s emerging human rights-framework?

Social housing can be a lifeline in establishing what, to many, can seem like aspirational ideas of human dignity and equality. This is particularly the case during a homelessness crisis and national housing emergency. While existing and potential social tenants vie for a suitable place to live, they rely on social landlords’ Housing Allocations Policies (HAPs) to understand how they will be placed on the housing list. HAPs, which are governed by Section 20A of the Housing (Scotland) Act 1987, should thereby manage expectations and allocations in a transparent, compliant and fair way.

Over the summer of 2025, I was tasked by Legal Services Agency to audit social landlords’ HAPs, to determine whether they are complying with the publication duty under s.20A of the 1987 Act and s.20 housing list priorities. Moreover, I was asked to investigate the extent to which published HAPs were engaging with equality and human rights laws. Such observations would help to inform whether any improvements could be made to existing policy and practice in Scotland in light of Scotland’s proposed new human rights-framework.

Legal framework for allocations

Section 20A of the 1987 Act requires social landlords to consult relevant persons such as applicants on the housing list, their tenants, registered tenant organisations, and any other persons landlords see fit, before making or altering their rules governing the priority of allocation of houses. They must also publish a report on the consultation. On meeting these requirements, social landlords have wide discretion for HAP-approaches based on local priorities, however allocation-decisions must be based on published policies only.

Section 20 mandates that social landlords must consider specific factors to determine an applicant’s priority on a housing list and must also ignore certain others. Since May 2019 social landlords have been required to give ‘Reasonable Preference’ to certain persons when selecting applicants on the housing list. Such persons include:

• homeless/threatened with homelessness and have unmet housing needs;
• those living under unsatisfactory housing conditions and who have unmet housing needs; and
• social landlord-tenants where the social landlord considers the property to be under-occupied.

While human rights are not contained within the fabric of the 1987 Act, the Scottish Government practice guide for social housing allocations states that the Scottish Government and Local Authorities have an ‘obligation to protect and promote’[1] the Right to Adequate Housing (RTAH).

Social landlord equality duties

In 2019 the scope of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 was expanded to include Registered Social Landlords as public authorities. All social landlords (Registered Social Landlords and Local Authorities) now have a duty to make information available to the public, including how they allocate their housing stock, and are accountable to the Scottish Public Services Ombudsman (the independent body for unresolved discrimination-complaints against social landlords) under the Equality Act 2010.

Social landlords must fulfil their duties as a public body and promote equality. Should these duties not be met, tenants/customers have a complaint mechanism through the Scottish Public Service Ombudsman, which would include redress for a social tenant/customer where a social landlord was allocating homes outwith the provisions in their published HAP.

Social housing allocations and a human rights-based approach

HAPs have the potential to be cornerstone documents for transparency and accountability as a foundation in the development of a Human Rights Based Approach (HRBA) to housing in Scotland.

There are a number of international human rights that relate to housing, the most relevant of which is the RTAH meaning having security of tenure without worrying about eviction and having a home that is culturally appropriate, while having access to services, such as schools, and employment.  The key to ensuring the RTAH is the implementation of suitable government policy and programmes, including national housing strategies.

The Scottish Government has an international obligation to uphold the RTAH, through the UK’s ratification of International Convention on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR). However, the right currently has no domestic force as it has not been incorporated into domestic law.  The Scottish Government has committed to a Human Rights Bill, which would incorporate this and other international human rights treaties into Scots law, although is not likely to be introduced until after the 2026 Scottish Parliament election.

Another relevant right is Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), which protects the right to respect for private and family life, home and correspondence. The European Court of Human Rights has made it clear that the right to respect for ‘home’ does not entail a substantive right to housing. However, states must not disproportionately interfere with an individual’s home and states have general positive obligations to ensure that the rules concerning the provision of housing are fair. Article 8 has greater domestic force in Scotland – Scottish Public Authorities are required by s.6 of the Human Rights Act 1998 to act consistently with ECHR rights, whilst s.29(2)(d) of the Scotland Act 1998 says that Acts of the Scottish Parliament must also be consistent with the ECHR. As a result, individuals are able to bring legal action against public authorities if they consider that their Article 8 rights have not been upheld. For social landlords, this means ensuring that their published HAPs do not interfere with the right by using discriminative policy and practice.

Done right, s.20 of the 1987 Act paves the way for HAPs to vindicate the RTAH, by informing the public of the law on allocations and their rights, involving them in reviews and focussing on a bottom-up approach via social landlords’ HAP, establishing an effective culture of human rights in policy and practice from the ground up. What my research sought to understand therefore, was to what extent a human rights-framework is already in place within current HAPs.

Research process

In order to answer the research questions, I carried out a scoping exercise of current published HAPs during the Summer of 2025.

I found that, amongst 169 social landlords in Scotland, there are 141 unique HAPs, 130 of which are individual policies and 11 of which are common HAPs, 38 social landlords being partners in one or more of these.

Most social landlords had their HAPs available on their website, however the accessibility of information and ease of locating them varied. Where a HAP could not be located, a request for the information was made by email, with all social landlord-respondents forthcoming in providing the information requested. All data was chartered and reported on for stakeholder recommendations.

Key findings

1. Are social landlords complying with the 1987 Act?

There is general compliance, however some HAPs are out of date or incomplete. Section 20A was only explicitly referenced in two HAPs while 21 HAPs included a separate ‘Consultation’ section detailing social landlord statutory duties.

HAPs published pre-2019 refer to the outdated priority categories, while two HAPs published between 2021-22 still refer to these defunct categories as opposed to the Reasonable Preference categories. Most HAPs published after 2019 outline the amended provisions, while 19 failed to included them in their allocation rules.

2. Are published HAPs engaging with equality and/or human rights?

Social landlords refer to the Equality Act frequently, however there is limited reference to ‘freedom of information’ or ‘specific duties’ of public bodies in Scotland aimed at ensuring accountability and access to information for Public Service Equality Duty-compliance.

Eleven of 137 HAPS published after 2019 refer to freedom of information. Half of HAPs referred to ‘general duties’ under the Scottish Public Services Ombudsman and three HAPS referenced Scotland having additional regulations in ‘specific duties’. Nine HAPS referenced reporting progress on mainstreaming the general equality duty.

While many HAPs refer to the Human Rights Act and compliance under the legislation and regulatory framework, eight of which referring to Article 8 ECHR, few included the RTAH. Seven HAPs referred to RTAH where they include the subtext of Outcome 1, ‘Equalities’, of the Scottish Government’s Scottish Social Housing Charter, that ‘social landlords perform all aspects of their housing services so that: they support the [RTAH]’.[2] Similarly, there was little mention of the rights contained in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, despite the incorporation of this treaty into Scots law in 2024. As a result of the 2024 law, the Scottish Government and public bodies in Scotland must ‘recogni[s]e the right of every child to a standard of living adequate for the child’s physical, mental, spiritual, moral and social development’, including the RTAH and therefore it is disappointing that this obligation has not filtered through to social landlords in the development of their HAPs.

3. How can practice improve under Scotland’s emerging human rights-framework?

The Scottish Government practice guide for social housing allocations contains a framework of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ESCRs) at the international level in addition to the includsion of RTAH in the Scottish Social Housing Charter. These key documents for social landlords must be reviewed and updated so that they provide comprehensive and clear direction in establishing a HRBA within HAPs.

The opportunity to establish a HRBA is in the requirement for social landlords to review their HAPs every 3-5 years. Currently, twenty-six HAPs were published more than 5 years ago. Eleven HAPs predated the 2019 Scottish Government statutory guidance for social housing allocations and the final provisions (amendments to the 1987 Act) coming into force of the Housing (Scotland) 2014 Act, including the Reasonable Preference categories.

The next 5-year review-cycle of the Scottish Social Housing Charter by Scottish Ministers in 2026 is an opportunity to address the key findings, to introduce a HRBA and for social landlords to develop protocols and processes, supported by the Scottish Housing Regulator, to ensure their HAPs are in line with legislation, together with updated practice and legal framework guidance.

Political and social crisis

The Committee on ESCRs (the independent monitoring body of ICESCR) raised concern recently about Scotland-specific issues throughout its Concluding Observations for the UK, particularly in relation to incorporation, housing, poverty, health, education, gender equality, the rights of marginalised communities,  a Human Rights Bill [3], and the “affordability and accessibility of adequate housing” [4]. The 2026 Scottish Parliament elections will influence whether there is the right political will from the First Minster’s Government to introduce the proposed law on comprehensive ESCRs-law for Scotland.

The UN Special Rapporteur on the RTAH, Balakrishnan Rajagopal, has called the global housing crisis “the social issue of the 21st Century” [5] and warned that “[f]ar-right parties prosper when they can exploit the social gaps that emerge out of underinvestment and inadequate government planning … and when they can blame outsiders”[6]. Introduction of a Human Rights Bill regardless of devolved limitations, will make the progression of these essential rights less vulnerable to populist politics and threat of withdrawal from international organisations, conventions and treaties, and maintain momentum of progression on RTAH outcomes for social housing tenants/customers through a HRBA to social housing allocations.

Sarah McGoogan

[1] Social Housing Allocations in Scotland: A Practice Guide, p 19

[2] The Scottish Social Housing Charter

[3] ‘Scrutiny of International Recommendations: UN [CESCR] Concluding Observations (2025)’, Human Rights Consortium Scotland

[4] ‘Concluding observations on the 7th periodic report of the [UK] and [NI], CESCR’

[5] Fix Europe’s housing crisis or risk fuelling the far-right, UN expert warns | Europe | The Guardian

[6] Europe’s housing crisis ‘risks fuelling rise of far right’, UN expert warns | Scottish Housing News

This post was originally published on the LSA website and is reproduced here with permission.