Chamber and committees

I attended a meeting with the Wheatley Housing Group (WHG) on 13 July 2016. At this meeting, the Chief Executive of WHG emphasised that, despite recent changes, the WHG still has a strong credit rating and had enough liquidity to borrow significant sums in future.

The agenda for the next meeting of the Joint Housing Policy and Delivery Group in November has not yet been finalised. The agenda for this meeting will be published on the Scottish Government website in November 2016, after the meeting has taken place.

Minutes from previous meetings of the Joint Housing Policy and Delivery Group can be viewed on the Scottish Government website: http://www.gov.scot/Topics/Built-Environment/Housing/reform/jhpdg/jhpdg-meetings

The most recent meeting of the Joint Housing Policy and Delivery Group was on 22 June 2016. The Group has not met in plenary since the UK voted to leave the European Union. The next meeting of the Group will be in November 2016.

‘Risk and capital lending – delivery challenges for affordable housing providers’ was an agenda item at the most recent Joint Housing Policy and Delivery Group meeting (22 June 2016). The minutes of this meeting will be available on the Scottish Government website once they have been approved by the group in November 2016.

Schedule six of the Land and Buildings Transaction Tax (Scotland) Act 2013, as amended by The Land and Buildings Transaction Tax (Addition and Modification of Reliefs) (Scotland) Order 2015, provides relief for certain acquisitions by registered social landlords. Paragraph two of schedule six sets out the qualifying conditions. If these conditions are not met then relief will not be available.

During the last parliamentary term, a total of 1362 affordable homes were delivered by the Wheatley Housing Group.

The remit of the Joint Housing Policy and Delivery group is to promote collaboration and joint working across the sector with a specific focus on the Joint Housing Delivery Plan for Scotland, and to advise Ministers on new and existing housing policy and legislation. Although there is no specific action in the plan which directly covers the borrowing commitments of the social housing sector, access to finance is key to delivering many of the actions and, as such, may be discussed by the group in general terms from time to time.

The Joint Housing Delivery Plan for Scotland can be viewed here: http://www.gov.scot/Publications/2015/05/3392

Scottish Planning Policy (2014) sets out the Scottish Government's policy on enabling the delivery of new homes. It sets out that local authorities, through their development plans, should address the supply of land for all housing, maintaining at least a five-year supply of effective housing land at all times. Planning authorities should prepare an annual housing land audit as a tool to review and monitor the availability of effective housing land, the progress of sites through the planning process, and housing completions. This information is not held centrally by the Scottish Government. Local authorities are not required to provide this information in their Strategic Housing Investment Plans.

While we have yet to receive final details of the financial settlement that the Scottish Government will receive from the introduction of the Apprenticeship Levy in 2017, we are aware of the importance of engaging with employers in Scotland in shaping our response.

Our engagement with employers has focused on developing an approach which covers a range of ways in which the use of Levy funding coming to Scotland might support our wider social and economic ambitions while protecting our current Modern Apprenticeship commitments.

Over the summer we undertook further consultation with employers and other interested parties, the terms of which were informed by the prior engagement. We received over 350 responses to this consultation which closed on 26 August 2016.

We will consider responses as swiftly to ensure arrangements are in place to use the levy as soon as possible.