Housing Matters: Conference reflections and a plan for our housing emergency

There’s no denying that a lot has happened in the world of housing and beyond over the last few weeks – and hot on the heels of the General Election results, there's likely more change to come.

I'll have more to say about our plans to follow-up with the new UK Government soon, but looking back on these past few weeks here in Scotland, the housing emergency continues to be the defining issue of our time.??In response to that, we joined with partners across the housing and anti-poverty sectors to set out a Housing Emergency Action Plan .

Among our key asks was for the Scottish Government to commit to publicly funding affordable rented housing- at a minimum, reversing the recent hammer-blow cut to the Affordable Housing Supply Programme. Despite the concrete actions we set out, the Minister for Housing’s subsequent statement to Parliament was disappointing - with nothing new or substantial which reflected the urgency of the emergency.

And the latest quarterly housing statistics set out just how urgent this is, showing a decline in starts and completions across the board. Alarmingly, housing association completions have dropped by a third in the last year. And to be clear, these statistics reflect a period before the latest cut to the affordable housing budget takes effect.

Last but not least, on the back of Labour's win in the General Election, SFHA will be following up with the new UK Government to make the case for policies which will assist our housing associations and social tenants. As part of that, we’ve campaigned with organisations from across the UK to call for an ‘Essentials Guarantee’, ensuring the level of Universal Credit is increased to cover the cost of basic essentials. And just this week, we joined with our sister housing federations in urging the next Government to introduce a social tariff in the energy market.

And we know that lots of you have supported our Operation Social Vote campaign, aimed at increasing the turn-out of social tenants at the election. It was so?encouraging to see. All of us together will continue driving this forward as we look now towards the Holyrood elections in 2026 – making sure that your voice is heard no matter your income.

Whatever change comes next, we'll be making the case for what our housing associations and social tenants need to thrive.

Best wishes,?

Sally??