Elected Member Briefing - Affordable Housing Supply Programme, End of Year Summary 24-25

About this Briefing Note

Report by: Nicola Sworowski, Place Strategies Manager & Chief Planning Officer

Date: 23rd May 2025

Subject: Affordable Housing Supply Programme, End of Year Summary 24-25

Details

Purpose

To provide an end of financial year (24/25) update on the Affordable Housing Supply Programme in Perth and Kinross.  

Briefing Information

Background

New supply affordable housing, both council and RSL (registered social landlord), is primarily delivered via the Strategic Housing Investment Plan. This plan sets out investment decisions in each local authority area over a 5-year period. To support this, the Scottish Government provide a yearly grant allocation, known as a Resource Planning Assumption (RPA). The RPA, which was £12,659,000 in Perth and Kinross for 24/25, covers 1 year, and any monies unspent at the end of the financial year, are returned to Scottish Government.  

Scottish Government Funding

A principal aim of managing the delivery of affordable housing is ensuring that, not only is nothing returned to the Scottish Government, but, where possible, additional funding over and above the RPA is awarded to the programme to maximise the delivery of affordable housing. The total amount given to Perth and Kinross at the end of the financial year 24/25 by the Scottish Government for the new supply programme was £14,957,448.60. This is £2,298,448.60, or 18%, over the original allocation of £12,659,000. This is a significant additional allocation and should be seen as a successful year in terms of the coordination and spend of the funding available.  

Completions

Successful management of the funding means the purchase and development of properties to meet current housing need and demand.  The current Local Housing Strategy target for delivery of affordable housing per year is 210, and the table below sets out the affordable housing completions in Perth and Kinross for 24/25. 

Table 1. 24/25 completions 

Completions Mapping

https://maps.pkc.gov.uk/portal/apps/mapviewer/index.html?webmap=0edceb15acfb45aca65daa011d3bc3ff  

Buybacks Mapping

https://maps.pkc.gov.uk/portal/apps/mapviewer/index.html?webmap=6b4a532aec4e4431be9b394747b0b8ce 

Beyond the headline completion target for new supply affordable housing, the LHS sets out other targets related to the type of affordable housing that is being delivered.  

Table 2. LHS targets 

Work is ongoing to enhance the delivery of MMR in Perth and Kinross to ensure that LHS targets are met in future.  

The table below sets out new supply homes by Council ward.  

Table 3. New homes by ward 

Future Delivery

The table below sets out the currently expected delivery of affordable housing for 25/26. This sets out the current position based on information known at this point, it does indicate that completions in 25/26 would be below target but it does not account for any mitigating action to enhance the programme via further off the shelf opportunities and buybacks. 

Table 4. Projected completions 25/26

To deliver a successful programme beyond 25/26, however, there needs to be enough site starts to enable the completions to follow on thereafter. The table below sets out the number of anticipated site starts within the year 25/26 based on current information. This does not include buybacks or open market purchases as these are unknown at this point but historically have always occurred to increase numbers.  

Table 5. Site starts projected 25/26 

It should however be noted that the programme is over-provisioned to allow for slippage and so it is to be expected that some of these units may stall and need to be moved back into 26/27.  

Even allowing for some slippage though, the current 25/26 programme seeks to again, spend the full RPA for 25/26, £16,634,000, and lay the foundations for a successful 26/27 and 27/28 for the delivery of affordable housing across Perth and Kinross. 

Community Led Rural Housing

Community-Led Housing is affordable housing that is primarily funded via Scottish Government's Rural & Islands Housing Fund, which is a discrete fund though it complements the AHSP/SHIP fund.  PKC supports rural specialist housing enabler Communities Housing Trust (CHT), who work with local Community Development Trusts (CDT) to provide a range of affordable housing to meet local needs and demand.  CHT has undertaken six localised Housing Needs Assessments (HNAs) since 2022 and worked with the relevant CDTs to develop affordable housing plans appropriate to their areas.   

In 2024/25, the following Community-Led Housing projects began to emerge:   

Table 6. Community led housing projects