All 32 of Scotland’s councils will share £406 million in grant subsidy in 2016/17 to deliver more affordable homes, over £100 million more than last years’ allocation.

It is part of the Government’s overall investment of over £572 million to the Affordable Housing Supply Programme (AHSP) in 2016/17, the funding is allocated for each local authority area, which the Scottish Government refers to as Resource Planning Assumptions (RPAs).

The remaining £166 million will be managed centrally, with £80 million already announced to help up 2,000 first time buyers under the Open Market Shared Equity Scheme. The rest will go to other projects that promote innovation, greener homes and the Home Owners’ Support Fund.

The overall funding will support delivery of between 8,000 – 9,000 affordable homes, the first part of a £3 billion investment to deliver 50,000 homes by 2021, and an increase of 28% more homes than the average output in the last two years.

In addition to knowing their planning assumptions for 2016/17 Councils also need as much advance notice as possible of their full RPAs for 2017/18 and beyond.

The Scottish Government is now committed to a new offer of five year resource planning assumptions for councils following the 2016 Spending review.

Housing Minister