Strategic Housing Investment Plan (SHIP) guidance note MHDGN 2026/01

Introduction

Housing links to and underpins all four of the First Minister’s priorities: to eradicate child poverty; to grow Scotland’s economy; to tackle the climate emergency by investment in green energy and infrastructure; and to improve

Scotland’s public services as an investment in Scotland’s future health, equality and prosperity.

The Scottish Government wants everyone to have a safe, energy efficient home that is affordable and meets their needs in the place they want to be.

Housing to 2040 sets out the Scottish Government’s approach about increasing the supply of homes across all tenures through a range of measures including:

• the Housing and Planning Delivery Framework, which reinforces the links between planning and housing requirements to support the provision of the right homes in the right places to create and sustain thriving communities. Local Housing Strategy (LHS) guidance underpins the importance of strong alignment between housing and planning authorities and encourages local authorities to demonstrate how they are addressing housing need and supporting effective placemaking;
• the Affordable Housing Supply Programme (AHSP), which comprises a range of funding mechanisms to enable affordable housing providers to deliver homes for social rent, mid-market rent, and low cost home ownership in communities across Scotland to support local authorities’ Local Housing Strategies;
• building investor confidence and attracting further mobile capital into housing; and
• making best use of existing homes, including bringing long-term empty homes back into use.

Housing to 2040 sets out the Scottish Government’s ambitions for how it wants the homes and communities of the future to be, with actions on how to achieve that. The strategy shows how integral housing is to the Scottish Government’s objectives of tackling poverty and inequality, and our continuing work to end homelessness, creating and supporting jobs, meeting energy efficiency and decarbonisation aims as well as delivery of fuel poverty and child poverty targets, and creating connected, cohesive communities.

The Scottish Government remains focussed on its target of delivering 110,000 affordable homes by 2032 of which at least 70% will be for social rent, and at least 10% in rural and island areas.