Developments in Social Housing Finance in Scotland: The Implications of the Green Paper

Training Course:

"Developments in Social Housing Finance in Scotland: The Implications of the Green Paper"

January 2008

What the Course will cover:

A new Scottish Parliament was elected in May 2007 that led to the formation of a new Scottish Government. The local authority elections also resulted in the election of new administrations in many Scottish local authorities.

It is widely agreed that there are a range of difficult housing issues in Scotland. These include the need to ensure that there is sufficient new affordable housing and to tackle homelessness; the need to achieve the Scottish Housing Quality Standard in all social housing; the failure of some local authorities to persuade their tenants to accept a stock transfer; and the need to find efficiencies in delivering ongoing services to tenants, improvements to existing housing and new affordable housing.

The Scottish Government published its housing green paper ‘Firm Foundations: The Future of Housing in Scotland’ in October 2007. It included a number of radical proposals for the future finance of social housing in Scotland. These included:

• Challenging Scotland’s local authorities, developers and builders to increase the rate of new housing supply to at least 35,000 a year
• A new positive role for local authorities as social landlords by offering them incentives to build new council houses
• Safeguarding the future of all new social housing by ending the right to buy for new properties
• Improving the supply of new housing association houses by awarding subsidies to associations on a strategic and competitive basis
• Monitoring progress in complying with the Scottish Housing Quality Standard and being prepared to consider support for local authorities that choose to retain their stock and create Arms Length Management Organisations to achieve compliance with the standard

This seminar will examine the implications of these and other proposals for Scottish Local Authorities and Scottish Housing Associations. It costs £220 plus value added tax to attend. The course is accompanied by a very useful book entitled:

“Developments in Social Housing Finance in Scotland: The Implications of the Green Paper”

Venue and Date

Edinburgh: Capital Hotel - 30th January 2008