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 2025 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. Completions are measured when all homes on the site are delivered and ready for occupation – this differs to how the all sector 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 2025, there were 5,222 approvals, 5,494 starts, and 6,582 completions of affordable homes funded by the Scottish Governments affordable housing supply programme.

As Chart 6 shows, there was decreases in affordable housing supply approvals (-1,460 -22%), starts (-853, -13%), and completions (-1,931, -23%) in the year to the end of September 2025 compared with the previous year.

Affordable housing supply approvals were 55% lower than the peak in approvals in the year to the end of September 2019. Starts were the lowest since the year to the end of September 2013 and completions were the lowest since the year to the end of September 2014.

Chart 6: Affordable Housing Supply Programme, housing completions, starts, and approvals, 2010 to 2025 (years to the end of September)

Charts 7 to 9 present information on trends in affordable housing supply by type. Most approvals (86%, 4,468 homes), starts (83%, 4,580 homes), and completions (83%, 5,493 homes) were for social rent in the year to the end of September 2025.

As shown in Chart 9, comparing the year to the end of September 2025 to the previous year, there was a decrease in the number of homes completed for affordable home ownership (-62%, -407 homes), other affordable rent (-42%, -608 homes) and social rent (-14%; -916 homes).

Chart 7: Affordable housing supply approvals by type, 2013 to 2025 (years to the end of September)

Chart 8: Affordable housing supply starts by type, 2013 to 2025 (years to the end of September)

Chart 9: Affordable housing supply completions by type, 2013 to 2025 (years to the 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 to the end of September as there have been no seasonal adjustments made to the data.

Table 3: Affordable housing approvals, starts, and completions, by quarter, for the 2024 and 2025 (years to the end of September)

Table 3 shows approvals and starts were higher in July to September 2025 compared with the same period in 2024 and completions were lower. Approvals increased by 61% (542 homes) and starts increased by 18% (181 homes). Completions decreased by 16% (-269 homes).

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, 31,064 affordable homes have been completed and counted towards the target. These completions consist of 24,112 (78%) homes for social rent, 4,345 (14%) for affordable rent, and 2,607 (8%) 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 year.