Rural Housing Fund and Risk Register Assessment for the Affordable Housing Supply Programme: FOI release

Information requested

• The latest Risk Register assessment for the Affordable Housing Supply Programme;
• Any additional internal assessments, measurements, predictions or projections with regards to the progress and success of the Affordable Housing Supply Programme – such as how many affordable homes are predicted to have been completed by the target date;
• How many homes have been completed;
• How much of the £25 million pledged to the Rural Housing Fund has been spent to this date;
• How much of the £5 million Islands Housing Fund has been spent to this date;
• How many homes have been completed through the Rural Housing Fund, and where these homes are;
• How many applications have been approved under the Affordable Housing Supply Programme; and
• How many applications have been rejected under the Affordable Housing Supply Programme.

Response

To respond to your request in turn:

1. Whilst we have attached the latest Risk Register assessment for the Affordable Housing Supply Programme, an exemption under section s.38(1) of FOISA applies to some the information you have requested.

This exemption is 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.

2. We continue to update on progress against the target 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 through publication of our quarterly statistics on the Affordable Housing Supply Programme and continue to work closely with local partners to progress the delivery of affordable homes as quickly as possible. These can be found here: Housing statistics - gov.scot.

Budgets are not known beyond 2025-26 and therefore we do not have projections for completed homes to be delivered in the target period. As can be seen from the previous 50,000 affordable homes target, delivery is not evenly spread across all years and is usually backloaded to allow sectoral capacity to grow. We will continue to update on progress against the target through publication of our quarterly statistics on the Affordable Housing Supply Programme and continue to work closely with local partners to progress the delivery of affordable homes as quickly as possible.

An exemption under section 30(c) of FOISA (prejudice to effective conduct of public affairs) also applies to the information requested. It is essential for officials be able to model a number of programme scenarios. Disclosing the content of those scenarios is likely to inhibit communications on these types of issue in the future as they could prejudice commercial activity in relation to costs and tendering. This would significantly harm the Government’s ability to carry out many aspects of its work, and could adversely affect its ability to gather all of the evidence it needs to make fully informed decisions.

This exemption is subject to the ‘public interest test’. Therefore, taking account of all the circumstances of this case, we have considered if the public interest in disclosing the information outweighs the public interest in applying the exemption. We have found that, on balance, the public interest lies in favour of upholding the exemption.

We recognise that there is a public interest in disclosing information as part of open, transparent and accountable government, and to inform public debate. However, there is a greater public interest in allowing officials a private space within which to model scenarios to assist the Scottish Government’s management of the Affordable Housing Supply Programme. This private space is essential to enable all options to be properly considered, so that good decisions can be taken based on fully informed advice and evidence and that there are no adverse commercial impacts.

3. How many homes have been completed, as well as how many homes have been approved under the Affordable Housing Supply Programme, can also be found at: Housing statistics - gov.scot. There has been a total of 26,039 affordable homes completed between 23 March 2022 and 31 December 2024 towards the target of 110,000 affordable homes by 2032, consisting of 19,945 (77%) homes for social rent, 3,644 (14%) for affordable rent, and 2,450 (9%) for affordable home ownership.

Under section 25(1) of FOISA, we do not have to give you information which is already reasonably accessible to you. If, however, you do not have internet access to obtain this information from the website listed, then please contact me again and I will send you a paper copy.

4. In answer to how much of the £25 million pledged to the Rural Housing Fund has been spent to this date, based on management information from between 2016 to this date, £15.869 million has been spent on the Rural Housing Fund (and this increases to £30.113 million if under Rural and Islands Fund - see table below).

Financial Year	Rural (Mainland) Spend (£m)	Island Spend (£m)	Total Spend (£m)
2016-2017	0.107	0.027	0.134
2017-2018	0.955	0.106	1.061
2018-2019	1.431	0.219	1.650
2019-2020	2.141	0.682	2.823
2020-2021	3.062	1.734	4.796
2021-2022	2.392	2.401	4.793
2022-2023	1.458	2.625	4.083
2023-2024	3.923	2.756	6.679
2024-2025	0.400	3.694	4.094
Total Spend (£m)	15.869	14.244	30.113

5. The Island Spend between 2016-2025 has been £14.244 million.

6. There has been 168 Rural Housing Fund completions during the same period, but this goes up to 265 completions if includes island areas. A detailed breakdown by local authority is as follows:

Local	Authority Island	Rural (Mainland)	Total
Angus		12	12
Argyll & Bute	23		23
Dumfries and Galloway		16	16
Highland	25	73	98
Moray		34	34
Eilean Siar	10		10
Orkney Islands	35		35
Perth & Kinross		16	16
Scottish Borders		16	16
South Lanarkshire		1	1
Western Isles	4		4
Total	97	168	265

7. Since the start of the Affordable Housing Supply Programme in 2012-13, a total of 18,659 applications for funding have been accepted for the Affordable Housing Supply Programme.

8. While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, our system does not hold information on rejected applications for funding.

About FOI

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

FOI 202500461362 - Information Released - Annex

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