Publication - FOI/EIR release

Housing Development Grants: FOI release

Published: 12 December 2023
Topic: Public sector
FOI reference: 202200308044
Date received: 27 June 2022
Date responded: 26 July 2022

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

Information requested

Details of the amount of grants being provided to Private Sector. Please break down as follows;
By year with each Housing Association Name, including

Total Amount of Grant for Social Housing including number of properties committed
Total Amount of Grant for Mid-Market Rent including number of properties committed
Total amount of Grant for Shared Ownership including number of properties committed.

Also the same information to include where the grant is to be repaid and how much has been repaid in each financial year.

Response

The information below relates to the five financial years 2016-17 to 2020-21. The information in respect of 2021-22 has not been published as yet.

Please see the following links to the Scottish Government website which provides the following:

Tables showing the Registered Social Landlords (RSLs) in receipt of grant for social housing:

Tables showing the recipients of grant for Mid-Market Rent:

Please note that the published figures above may be net of receipts.

For the number of properties committed (we refer to this as approvals), the attached table shows the number of RSL approvals over the same time period. Please note however, that monies paid in a financial year will not correlate directly to the homes approved. This is because grant is not paid at the point of approval, but upon receipt of works completed. Grant is therefore not paid in advance of need.

With regard to the total amount of grant provided for shared ownership, please see the attached table which provides a breakdown of expenditure in respect of both shared equity and shared ownership for the period 2016-2017 to 2020-21. To note the minus numbers within the table represent the net spend position where the repayment amount has exceeded that expended.

Please also find attached a breakdown of grant which has been repaid in each financial year over the same time period. These repayments are in line with the conditions set out in our offer of grant.

Repayments relating to shared equity have been excluded. As advised in our response to your previous request, funding through shared equity is classified as an investment rather than a loan and the contract is between Scottish Ministers and the home owner. Whilst it would be possible to determine how much of the initial investment has been repaid, this would require us to review each investment made between 2016-17 and 2020-2021 individually to determine if the home owner has sold the property or tranched up their percentage share.

When a property is sold by the purchaser the Scottish Government receives back the same percentage share of the selling price as initially invested. It is not possible to state whether this will equate to the full investment, however we would expect to receive our total investment across the portfolio in full.

I have attached our template offer of grant for your information which includes the terms and conditions under which we offer the grant and the circumstances when repayment would be required. Whilst there may not be an expectation that the grants are repaid they are recorded (unspecified amount) on the annual accounts as a contingent asset, meaning that there is a recognition that they could become repayable.

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.