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One small contractor, actively involved in the Affordable Housing Supply Programme, went into liquidation in the last year during the course of delivering a 15 home project.

The Scottish Government published an update to the housing and regeneration outcomes indicators on 16 June 2020. The `Sources, Thresholds & Updates` tab of the master spreadsheet details dates that each indicator was last updated. This spreadsheet also shows each indicator that is used by the Scottish Government.

Work is underway to update indicators with the latest available data where available, and will be published before 9 November 2022. However, some data sources do not have available data for more recent years to allow for the associated indicators to be updated. This is for a number of reasons, including the impact from coronavirus and resulting restrictions, and other changes on data collection. Affected indicators will be detailed in the publication.

The Scottish Government is working on a package of measures in relation to cladding that will provide direct support to homeowners and details will be published in the coming months. We are taking steps to ensure a potential scheme has the appropriate funding and delivery model to adapt to demand.

The Scottish Government is monitoring in line with the Report on the work of the 2021 Affordable Housing Investment Benchmarks Working Group. The situations under which a meeting of the sector should be convened ahead of the planned 1 April 2023 publication of new benchmarks have not arisen and therefore a meeting has not been convened.

The work to design a potential homeowner assistance scheme is in the discovery phase which involves defining the scope of any potential scheme and evaluating the suitability of existing forms of assistance. This also includes identifying a resilient funding and delivery model. This discovery phase relies on existing resources until such time as a proposal is approved. This discovery phase work began during summer recess and is scheduled to completed in the coming weeks. Officials have regular engagement with potential delivery partners and homeowners as part of the overall process and additional discussions will be undertaken prior to any scheme launch.  

Scottish Ministers and officials regularly meet with representatives of the financial services sector, including lenders, to discuss a range of matters including measures to support households and businesses.

The Deputy First Minister met with the financial services sector (the quarterly Financial Services Growth and Development Board (FISGAD)) on 30 August 2022. Details of the membership of the Board can be found at https://www.gov.scot/groups/financial-services-growth-and-development-board/

Officials also regularly engage with UK Finance (representative body for the banking and Finance Industry). Details of UK Finance membership can be found at https://www.ukfinance.org.uk/

Attendees at such meetings vary according to representatives' availability.

We are not aware of any current difficulties affecting the immediate development pipeline related to insolvencies. We are unable to quantify the impact that the reported rise in insolvencies among small and medium house builders is having on the affordable housing supply programme development pipeline as for many projects until they are tendered we do not know who the house builder or construction company will be. Some local authorities and RSLs operate development framework agreements but we have not been made aware of any issues of insolvency affecting these frameworks. Scottish Government does not directly procure housing contracts. It is for Registered Social Landlords and Local Authorities to procure construction delivery partners.

Guidance documents for each participant are available at Support for homeowners at risk of homelessness - Homelessness - gov.scot (www.gov.scot). HOSF officials regularly provide support and information to applicants, Money Advisers, Social Landlords, Trustees and Lenders on individual applications.

The following table shows how many staff have been allocated to the Home Owners Support Fund in recent years. Staff are fully trained and highly experienced and levels have been sufficient to meet demand for the Fund.

The Scottish Government monitors trends in arrears and repossessions data published by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and UK Finance which is collated in the quarterly Scottish Housing Market Review Scottish housing market reviews - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) .

The Home Owners Support Fund is a last resort scheme aimed at properties at the lowest 20% of the housing market. Applicants must have either mortgage arrears or have an interest only mortgage that has reached the end of its term and have no appropriate option to either repay the loan or to re-mortgage. There are a range of protections, advice and support services already in place for homeowners and not all of those affected by the current cost of living crisis will apply to the scheme.