Publication - FOI/EIR release

Mid-market rent housing developments funding: FOI release

Published: 16 October 2024
Directorate: Local Government and Housing Directorate
Topic: Housing, Public sector
FOI reference: FOI/202400430790
Date received: 7 September 2024
Date responded: 4 October 2024

Information request and response under the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002

Information requested

1. A list of all mid-market rent housing developments, either new build or refurbishment, supported by Scottish Government funding, since the tenure type was introduced, including the following details:

name of development
address of development
name of developer/RSL
type of housing (e.g. flats, houses, etc)
number of units
total grant funding from Scottish Government
date of completion
local authority

Response

Please find attached a breakdown of all mid-market rent housing developments either new build or refurbished, since the tenure type was introduced, between April 2002 and end June 2024, in both excel and PDF format.

Over 13,000 homes for mid-market rent have been delivered since the tenure’s inception with 12,391 of those delivered specifically as new build or refurbished homes. Mid-market rent homes have been delivered through a number of different programmes such as grant funded Housing Association and Council mid-market rent, and through private applicants in programmes such as the Rural and Islands Housing Fund, Rural Empty Property Grants and Rural Homes for Rent. Loan funding has also helped to deliver mid-market rent homes through programmes such as: the Empty Homes Loan Fund, Local Affordable Rent (LAR) Housing Trust, National Housing Trust (NHT) and Thriving Investments (formerly Places for People Capital, Mid-Market Rent Initiative).

This is a formal notice under section 17(1) of FOISA that the Scottish Government does not have some of the information you have requested.

While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance the Scottish Government does not have some of the information you have requested. The reasons why we do not have the information are explained below. We are unable to provide the levels of grant funding for certain projects for the following reasons.

In one instance a project was not originally approved as mid-market rent, however, later developed to include this type of tenure. Due to this we are unable to say exactly how much grant was provided for those mid-market rent homes, however, we have included the grant approved in the original tender application.

Some homes delivered by The Highlands Small Communities Housing Trust were initially delivered using loan funding as short-term mid market rent homes, with the option of purchase. In later years most of these homes were privately sold. A total of £7.14 million in loan funding was used to support the delivery of these homes, however, we are unable to say exactly how much was used to support each individual home.

Homes delivered through the Empty Homes Loan Fund were not recorded centrally at that time through the Affordable Housing Supply Programme, due to this we are unable to provide the level of funding for these projects.

Due to the nature of both Thriving Investments (formerly Places for People Capital) and Local Affordable Rent Housing Trust, we are unable to provide the exact amount of funding each individual project received. Thriving Investments (formerly PfP Capital) used £47.5 million of Scottish Government loan funding to leverage in private investment to create a total fund of £222.5 million to deliver around 1,200 mid-market rent homes. Local Affordable Rent Housing Trust used £55 million of Scottish Government loan funding combined with £65 million of private investment to deliver mid-market rent homes.

The National Housing Trust was designed as a guarantee-based model for housing delivery which supported developers and wider economic activity during the financial downturn of 2008. The Scottish Government provided a guarantee to participating local authorities that it would cover the loan capital and interest payments from the Public Works Loan Board, if the Limited Liability Partnership (LLP) set up to run the housing development was unable to repay the loan. The Scottish Government carry acontingent liability against a call on the guarantee, to date the guarantee has not been called upon. Due to this no funding was provided for the initial delivery of these homes.

As a short assured tenancy, NHT homes were only available to rent as mid-market rent homes for up to a maximum of 10 years. A bespoke exit strategy for each of the developments was developed before year 10 to plan for the homes exiting NHT while repaying the local authority loan and discharging the Scottish Government guarantee. The vast majority of the homes have now exited NHT and have been retained within the affordable housing sector. Attached is a breakdown of National Housing Trust homes which exited the programme. The breakdown provides an update on the status of these homes and details where grant was used to secure them for retention as long-term affordable homes.

As it is not a mandatory requirement for grant applicants to provide full addresses and postcodes for projects, we have provided all of the information we have available to us at this time.

In this instance we are also unable to provide some of the information you have requested because an exemption under section 38(1)(b) (personal information) of FOISA applies to that information. The reasons why that exemption applies are explained below.

We have redacted the postcodes and addresses of projects where only one home was delivered to ensure third party confidentiality. We have also redacted information where it would be possible to identify individual applicants or homes to ensure third party confidentiality.

These exemptions are not subject to the public interest test, so we are not required to consider if the public interest in disclosing the information outweighs the public interest in applying the exemption.

About FOI

The Scottish Government is committed to publishing all information released in response to Freedom of Information requests. View all FOI responses at http://www.gov.scot/foi-responses.