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 December 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. 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 December 2024, there were 6,440 approvals, 6,501 starts, and 8,180 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 (249, 4%) and starts (254, 4%), and a decrease in completions (-1,736, -18%) in the year to the end of December 2024 compared with the previous year.

Affordable housing supply approvals were 48% lower than the peak in approvals in the 12 months to December 2018. Starts were slightly higher than the previous year 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 December)

Charts 7 to 9 present information on trends in affordable housing supply by type. Most approvals (82%, 5,296 homes), starts (82%, 5,360 homes), and completions (78%, 6,366 homes) were for social rent in the year to the end of December 2024.

Comparing the year to the end of December 2024 to the previous year, there was a decrease in the number of homes completed for affordable home ownership (-70%, -1,016 homes), social rent (-9%; -636 homes) and other affordable rent (-6%, -84 homes).

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

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

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

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 December)

Table 1 shows approvals were lower in October to December 2024 (-18%, -242 homes) compared with the same period in 2023, completions were also lower (-12%, -233 homes) and starts were 45% higher (488 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, 26,039 affordable homes have been completed and counted towards the target. These completions consist of 19,945 (77%) homes for social rent, 3,644 (14%) for affordable rent, and 2,450 (9%) 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 Programme policy area webpages also include annual Out-Turn Reports, which provide further detailed programme information for each financial year.