26 January 2007

							30 January 2007

                                                 Mick Johnston
                                                 Data and Statistics Infrastructure
                                                 Communities and Local Government
                                                 Zone 1 E/2
                                                 Eland House
                                                 Bressenden Place
                                                 London
                                                 SW1E 5DU

                                                 Website: www.communities.gov.uk




To the Chief Financial Officer

                    Electronic Survey of Empty Homes (ESEH): 2007

1.     In January 2006 I asked you to provide statistics on vacant dwellings and second
       homes from your council tax records. Unfortunately we did not receive a return from
       your authority.

2.     This letter is advance notice that the Department will again be asking all local
       authorities to provide vacant dwellings and second homes data from their Council
       Tax systems showing the position as at 1st April 2007. I would like to stress that
       these data are an extremely important economic indicator for the Department, both
       for monitoring neighbourhood renewal and as a component in modelling the housing
       market. These data should also be very useful for local authorities in developing and
       monitoring their housing strategies. I would urge you to respond positively to the
       2007 survey.

3.     Last year the Department introduced the option of providing raw point data rather
       than aggregated data. This significantly reduces the burden on the local authority and
       as a result 59% of local authorities chose to provide their data in this format. The
       2007 survey will therefore only collect raw point data. There will be two format
       options:-
               i) raw data in XML; the Electronic Survey of Empty Homes (ESEH)
               ii) raw data in CSV,
       The Department's preference is for XML format as this has a number of benefits. It
       provides further efficiencies in data processing, allows us to give you automated feed
       back on the data you provide, allows us to collect time series data which is valuable
       for analysing housing demand and it will also enable us in future to collect the data
       required to produce your CTB and CTB1S returns.

4.     Council Tax management system software suppliers are currently developing
       extracts which will automatically produce the XML formatted data from local
       authorities' management systems and it is hoped that these will be available for your
       data upload in April. You could check when your supplier expects their ESEH extract
       module to be available. If you or your software supplier are not ready by April to
       provide data in XML format please provide it in the CSV format specified.

5.     You will be asked to send your data using Interform. This is an online system
       designed specifically for collection of data from local authorities. It is a tried and
       tested system which is straightforward and has been used for a number of years to
       collect housing statistical returns.

6.     The XML specification for ESEH, Version 2.2, and the alternative CSV specification,
       with sample data, are attached and will be available shortly on the Communities and
       Local Government website at http://www.communities.gov.uk/index.asp?id=1501015.
       The ESEH Field Definitions word document will follow in February.

7.     Finally, to assist the move to XML data uploads, it would be useful to know which
       software system your authority uses for its Council Tax Register. I would be
       extremely grateful therefore if you could provide this information by email to
       VACANT.DWELLINGS@communities.gsi.gov.uk as soon as possible.

8.     I will send you the formal request for the 2007 data in March.

I look forward to receiving a response from your authority to this important survey this year.


Yours sincerely




Mick Johnston
Housing Data and Statistics Infrastructure
Communities and Local Government

Telephone: 0207 944 3302