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In the Guardian today:

More than 1.1 million low-income families in rented homes face a “cost of housing” crunch without action from John Healey in next month’s budget, the Resolution Foundation thinktank has warned.

Local housing allowance (LHA) has been frozen in cash terms since autumn 2024.

In a new report, Saving Private Renters, the thinktank found that rising rents since then have led to a widening gap between what families claiming LHA can afford, and the realities of the market.

It said a low-income family renting a typical two-bedroom flat now faces an average shortfall of £158 a week. That rises to more than £300 a week in parts of London. https://www.theguardian.com/business/2026/sep/19/cost-of-housing-crunch-looms-for-low-income-families-warns-resolution-foundation

There’s no mention of Scotland in the above nor in the full Resolution Foundation report.

What might it say, if there was?

The picture is less severe than the England-focused crunch described in the Guardian article, mainly because of extra Scottish mitigation and a larger social housing sector?

Scotland has two important offsets the article does not cover:

The Scottish Government is using Discretionary Housing Payments to plug the freeze specifically for families with children in the private rented sector. An extra £8.7 million package is intended to reach up to 15,000 households (26,000 children) in 2026–27. Scotland already spends heavily on DHPs to mitigate the bedroom tax and benefit cap. https://scottishlandlords.com/news-and-campaigns/news/local-housing-allowance-freeze-support-for-families/

Scotland has a larger social-rented sector and continues to fund more affordable/social homes. That reduces the share of low-income families who have to rely on the private market in the first place.

Scottish Government housing stock figures put social rented homes at 23% of dwellings in Scotland as of 31 March 2024 (roughly 638,000 homes by March 2025). https://www.gov.scot/publications/housing-statistics-2025-key-trends-summary/pages/stock-by-tenure/

England’s equivalent figure for social and affordable rented dwellings is 16.3% of stock as of 31 March 2025. https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/dwelling-stock-estimates-in-england-2025/dwelling-stock-estimates-england-31-march-2025

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