Housing Statistics for Scotland Quarterly Update (Published 15th March 2016)

Affordable Housing Supply up to end December 2015

Affordable Housing Supply Programme (AHSP) statistics reflect the broader supply of affordable homes (i.e. for social rent, affordable rent and affordable home ownership) and include off the shelf purchases and rehabilitations as well as new build. The social rent new build element of this covers largely the same houses referred to in the social sector new build section of this report. Statistics for the AHSP are available up to the end of December 2015. As a result they have been presented here for the year to end December. This differs from the figures in much of the remainder of this report which cover years to end September.

Changes in the funding programme in 2011 and 2012 impacted on the timing of affordable housing activity as well as the level of activity and this should be borne in mind when making comparisons over time.

Approvals, starts and completions are all measured for the AHSP. Approval is the point at which funding is granted and, along with completion, is a significant part of the administration process meaning that the data should be of good quality. Starts meanwhile can be recorded at any point in the development, for example when site clearance begins or any point up to the beginning of ground works for foundations. As a result approvals are generally deemed a better measure than starts for AHSP data.

Chart 10: Annual Affordable Housing Supply Programme (AHSP) approvals and completions, years to end December, 2006 to 2015

Chart 11: Quarterly Affordable Housing Supply Programme approvals completions, 2005-2015

A total of 1,255 affordable homes were completed in the quarter between October and December 2015. This is slightly lower than the same quarter in 2014, with a 4% decrease, or 52 fewer homes than the same quarter last year.

Between October and December 2015 a total of 2,053 affordable homes were approved. This is 856 (72%) more than in the same quarter in the previous year. It brings the total for the year to end December 2015 to 7,321 approvals, up 7% on the previous year.

Chart 12a: AHSP Completions, years to end DEC, 2006 to 2015

Chart 12b: AHSP Completions, financial years 2005-06 to 2014-15

Chart 12a above shows that in 2015 (year to end December), total affordable housing supply programme completions have increased between 2014 and 2015, and this increase has been seen across all the categories of affordable rent, social rent and affordable home ownership. Social rent completions increased by 17% (585 homes), affordable rent completions have increased by 44% (335 homes), and affordable home ownership completions have increased by 10% (165 homes).

The quarterly Affordable Housing Supply statistics provide an update on progress against the Scottish Government's target to deliver 30,000 affordable homes, including 20,000 social rented homes and 5,000 council homes between 2011-12 and 2015-16. The Quarterly statistics from April 2011 to end December 2015 show that there were a total of:

• 31,034 affordable housing supply completions, of which:
• 20,854 were for social rent, including 5,405 council house completions
• 3,104 were for other affordable rent
• 7,076 were for affordable home ownership