Chamber and committees

The Low-cost Initiative for First-Time Buyers (LIFT) brings together a range of Scottish Government initiatives to help households get onto the housing ladder.

This includes the New Supply Shared Equity scheme and Open Market Shared Equity Pilot scheme; shared ownership; Rural Home Ownership Grants (RHOGs), and GRO grants for owner occupation (grants to private developers to build low cost housing for sale).

The annual fund for LIFT, published on 12 May 2009, is £97.396 million and from this budget we hope to be able to help over 2,055 first time buyers. From 1 April 2009 to date, a total of 60 people have been able to purchase a home from the Open Market Shared Equity Pilot scheme. A breakdown of the budget is as follows:

LIFT	2009-10	Units
New Supply Shared Equity/ shared ownership	£32.564	452
Open Market Shared Equity Pilot	£60.000	1,500
Rural Home Ownership Grant	£1.002	33
GRO	£3.830	70
Total	£97.396	2,055

 

In October 2007, the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Wellbeing announced the establishment of a new Low-cost Initiative for First-Time Buyers (LIFT) to bring together a range of Scottish Government initiatives to help households get onto the housing ladder.

LIFT covers a broad range of support for first-time buyers, including the New Supply Shared Equity and Open Market Shared Equity pilot schemes; shared ownership; Rural Home Ownership Grants (RHOGs), and GRO grants for owner occupation (grants to private developers to build low cost housing for sale).

The only waiting list information held centrally for LIFT relates to the Open Market Shared Equity Pilot scheme. Waiting lists for New Supply Shared Equity and shared ownership are held locally by RSLs. There are no waiting lists for RHOGs.

With regard to the Open Market Shared Equity Pilot scheme, as at 15 May 2009 there were 77 potential applicants on a reserve list in the following three local authority areas:

Local Authority	Number on Waiting List
Aberdeen City	27
Aberdeenshire	7
Highland	43
Total	77

 

There are no reserve lists being held in any other local authority areas.

In order to ease demand for the scheme in the Grampian and Highland Open Market Shared Equity Pilot scheme administrative areas, a further £1.2 million has been allocated to each of these areas. This should allow a further potential 30 purchasers to benefit from the scheme in each area. The scheme will continue to be monitored closely in relation to applications and sales levels across the country.

Private Landlord Registration is a key tool to raise standards of accommodation and management in the private rented sector. It also increases the visibility of the sector and provides local authorities with information about privately rented properties and landlords in their area. Since the introduction of registration there have been over 142,000 applications from private landlords which contain details of over 198,000 let properties. This information provides local authorities with an indication of the number of private landlords and properties operating within their area and helps them to include the sector in planning for housing at a local level.

Engagement between local authorities and private landlords has also increased, for example, there have been over 120 landlord forums held across different local authorities since the scheme began.

Registration places a duty on local authorities to provide advice to landlords and tenants on general letting issues. In addition, many local authorities issue regular newsletters which are intended to keep the sector informed about the law and their responsibilities as landlords. Training and guidance is also provided by some local authorities.

We have committed to an evaluation of the scheme in 2010 which will look at the overall impact that registration has had.

I refer the member to the answer to question S3W-23804 on 15 May 2009. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament''s website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/Apps2/Business/PQA/Default.aspx.

Local authorities receive income from Scottish Government grant and landlord fees for the purposes of implementing the Private Landlord Registration scheme. The following table summarises this income from the financial year 2005-06 to 2007-08.

Under the concordat arrangements between local authorities and the Scottish Government, baseline grant funding of £1.98 million per annum in 2007-08 for landlord registration has been rolled up in the overall local government settlement for the period 2008-11. From April 2008, we no longer collect information on the amount of fee income that local authorities receive under the scheme.

	Fee Income	Grant Income	Total Income
2005-06	0.0 million	1.25 million	1.25 million
2006-07	3.118 million	1.975 million	5.093 million
2007-08	1.910 million	1.975 million	3.885 million
Total	5.028 million	5.2 million	10.228 million

 

Ten landlords have been refused registration under the private landlord registration scheme and one landlord had had their registration revoked. Of these, four landlords have reapplied for registration and two have been approved as at 13 May 2009.

This information is not held centrally.

There have been no prosecutions under the Private Landlord Registration scheme.

It is for local authorities to determine locally how fee income from landlord registration will be used.

However, it is the Scottish Government''s intention that the income gained from registration be used for the purposes of administering and enforcing the Private Landlord Registration scheme.

This information is not held centrally.