Chamber and committees

The number of households that benefited from the mortgage to rent scheme between May 2006 and May 2009 broken down by month are contained in the following table:

	2006-07	2007-08	2008-09	2009-10
April		6	10	13
May	20	12	13	25
June	21	10	15
July	19	17	7
August	15	16	20
September	9	15	29
October	20	14	23
November	15	18	27
December	16	12	22
January	13	14	25
February	8	15	23
March	11	12	19
Total	167	161	233

Source: mortgage to rent allocation of cases database.

The Cabinet Secretary for Health and Wellbeing set out details of how we will take forward the Repossessions Group''s recommendations in her statement to Parliament on 17 June 2009. Work is underway to introduce legislation in the autumn, and action is also being taken on other non-legislative recommendations.

When the revised mortgage to rent scheme and new mortgage to shared equity schemes were launched on 16 March, the following promotional action was taken:

We updated the Scottish Government website to contain full details about the schemes including; our new application form and information leaflet, administrative procedures, list of approved money advice agencies and new maximum property values;

We wrote to all local authorities and registered social landlords with information about the schemes and our literature;

We wrote to every MSP and Scottish MP with information about the schemes;

We wrote to approved money advice agencies with information about the schemes and provided them with a stock of application forms and information leaflets;

We also wrote to a number of equalities'' organisations and other representative bodies with information about the schemes.

More recently, officials have met with a number of different organisations to promote the schemes including; local authorities, registered social landlords, money advice agencies and insolvency practitioners.

We have participated in conferences organised by the Chartered Institute of Housing in Scotland, the Council of Mortgage Lenders and the Scottish Federation of Housing Associations.

Officials have also, in partnership with Money Advice Scotland, ran information sessions in Edinburgh, Glasgow and Inverness. More than 100 organisations and 250 practitioners attended the sessions.

In addition, we participate in conferences organised by Money Advice Scotland and Citizens Advice Scotland.

The number of low cost home ownership homes funded by the Affordable Housing Investment Programme that have been completed since devolution broken down by financial year is as follows:

Low Cost Home Ownership Completions 1999-2009

1999-2000	1,619
2000-01	2,033
2001-02	1,550
2002-03	1,060
2003-04	500
2004-05	1,031
2005-06	814
2006-07	1,482
2007-08	1,429
2008-09	1,520

We do not record our information on calendar years. You can find the official published statistics at:

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Statistics/Browse/Housing-Regeneration/HSfS.

The Scottish Government defines homes for low cost ownership as the five grants it makes available under the Low-cost Initiative for First-Time Buyers (LIFT). This initiative brings together the Scottish Government''s range of schemes to support first-time buyers. It aims to help people on low to moderate incomes to access home ownership where that is sustainable for them. It also aims to help the Scottish Government to deliver mixed communities in new housing developments.

LIFT includes the following schemes:

The Open Market Shared Equity Pilot (OMSEP) - a pilot scheme to allow first-time buyers to buy a property on the open market;

The New Supply Shared Equity scheme (NSSE) “ a scheme to allow first-time buyers to buy a new build property;

The Shared Ownership scheme - where a first-time buyers buys part-ownership of a property and make an occupancy payment to a registered social landlord on the remaining portion;

Rural Home Ownership Grants (RHOGs) “ a grant which contributes to the costs of acquiring, self-building or renovating a home for people in rural areas who could not otherwise afford to buy; and

GRO grants for owner occupation - grants to private developers to build houses for sale. They are used both to introduce housing for sale in areas with little or no private housing and to help meet local shortages.

Guidance for independent money advisers, registered social landlords, local authorities and others has already been produced and was published on the Scottish Government''s website on 16 March 2009 and is available using the following link:

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Built-Environment/Housing/investment/hosf.

The number of completions recorded in the Affordable Housing Investment Programme in 2008-09 was 6,260. The split of this by low cost home ownership and rent is as follows:

Completions 2008-09

Rent	4,740
Low Cost Home Ownership	1,520
Total	6,260

These figures differ very slightly to the published statistics due to minor definitional differences:

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Statistics/Browse/Housing-Regeneration/HSfS.

In order to increase access to the Home Owners'' Support Fund, we are now accepting applications earlier than under the previous rules. Fully completed applications will now be accepted where the applicant has been unable to make full payments on a secured loan for at least three months, and the cumulative arrears are equal to one month''s full payment.

In addition, we have allocated a record £20 million to the Home Owners'' Support Fund for the financial year 2009-10. This is double what was allocated at the start of 2008-09.

Social housing is a widely recognised shorthand for the housing provided for rent by registered social landlords and local authorities.

Affordable housing is a wider term which covers these properties and other initiatives, such as mid-market rent, shared ownership and low-cost homes.

Local authorities must determine for themselves how best to incorporate the biodiversity duty in their programmes and actions. There are no formal centralised monitoring arrangements. Although there is no specific obligation for local authorities to include measures relating to the biodiversity duty within their single outcome agreements, some agreements do include reference to relevant actions and targets and I have recently written to all local authorities to encourage them to consider whether this would provide a helpful way of setting out their plans for biodiversity delivery going forward. Local authority single outcome agreements for 2009 are published and available on the Improvement Service website www.improvementservice.org.uk.