Affordable housing supply programme

Affordable Housing Supply Programme 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 builds. Latest statistics are available up to the end of September 2024 and include all homes supported through Scottish Government’s Affordable Housing Supply Programme (AHSP)

The statistics reflect the number of affordable homes delivered that have received some form of government support through loans, grants or guarantees.

Approvals, starts and completions are all measured for the AHSP. Approval is the point at which funding is granted. Starts are recorded when an on-site presence is established to progress site work. Completion measures when all units on the site are delivered and ready for occupation – this differs to how the housebuilding completions are reported, which reports unit by unit. Therefore, there will be times where the AHSP programme will report completions in a local authority when the completions data reported in the social sector new housebuilding will be 0 – this is because they will be reported in previous quarters.

Social Rent includes Housing Association Rent, Council House Rent as well as Homeowner Support Fund Rent.

Affordable Rent includes Mid-Market Rent (MMR), National Housing Trust (NHT) Rent as well as other programmes such as the Empty Homes Loan Fund (EHLF) and Rural Homes for Rent (RHfR).

Affordable Home Ownership includes Open Market Shared Equity (OMSE), New Supply Shared Equity (NSSE), Shared Ownership (LCHO) as well as other programmes such as Homeowner Support Fund Shared Equity.

In the year to the end of September 2024, there were 6,682 approvals, 5,925 starts, and 8,413 completions of affordable homes funded by the Scottish Governments affordable housing supply programme.

As Chart 6 shows, there was an increase in affordable housing supply approvals (524, 9%) and there were decreases in starts (-514, -8%), and completions (-2,373, -22%) in the year to the end of September 2024 compared with the previous year.

Affordable housing supply approvals were 42% lower than the peak in approvals in the 12 months to September 2019. Starts were the lowest since the year to end of September 2013 and completions were the lowest since 2017 excluding 2020 (where Covid-19 impacted housebuilding).

Chart 6: Affordable Housing Supply Programme, housing completions, starts, and approvals, 2011 to 2024 (year to end September).

Charts 7 to 9 present information on trends in affordable housing supply by type. Most approvals (78%, 5,192 homes), starts (80%, 4,712 homes), and completions (75%, 6,329 homes) were for social rent in the year to the end of September 2024.

Comparing the year to the end of September 2024 to the previous year, there was a decrease in the number of homes completed for affordable home ownership (-53%, -717 homes), social rent (-19%; -1,445 homes) and other affordable rent (-13%, -211 homes).

Chart 7: Affordable housing supply approvals by type, 2013 to 2024 (year to end of September).

Chart 8: Affordable housing supply starts by type, 2013 to 2024 (year to end of September).

Chart 9: Affordable housing supply completions by type, 2013 to 2024 (year to end of September).

Affordable housing starts, approvals and completions are published on a quarterly basis. Comparisons of quarterly data should be made to the corresponding quarter in a previous year as there have been no seasonal adjustments made to the data.

Table 1: Affordable housing approvals, starts, and completions, by quarter, for 2023 and 2024 (year to end September).

Table 1 shows approvals were lower in July to September 2024 (-23%, -264 homes) compared with the same period in 2023, starts and completions were also lower (-38%, -549 starts; -36%, -911 completions).

Quarterly affordable housing supply statistics are used to inform progress against Scottish Government affordable housing delivery targets, in which the ambition is to deliver 110,000 affordable homes by 2032, of which at least 70% will be for social rent and 10% will be in rural and island communities. So far, 24,382 affordable homes have been completed and counted towards the target. These completions consist of 18,539 (76%) homes for social rent, 3,501 (14%) for affordable rent, and 2,342 (10%) for affordable home ownership.

Timeseries data along with local authority breakdowns as well as further detail on affordable housing supply are contained in the supporting Excel tables.

The Scottish Government Affordable Housing Supply Programme policy area webpages also include annual Out-Turn Reports, which provide further detailed programme information for each financial year.