The recently published Housing Investment Taskforce Report offers a considered and pragmatic response to the ongoing challenges in Scotland’s housing system. With rising costs, limited public funding, and increasing pressure across all tenures, the report rightly shifts the focus toward creating the conditions for long-term investment and more flexible delivery models.
Its central message is clear: meeting Scotland’s housing needs will require a system that is more adaptable, more investable, and more responsive to local context.
Unlocking Viability Through Policy Clarity
A recurring theme in the report is the need to improve investor confidence. Long-term investment depends on clarity, consistency, and a policy environment that supports predictable returns. In particular, greater certainty around rent-setting mechanisms is critical – especially for Build to Rent and Mid-Market Rent schemes, where viability is closely tied to the ability to align rents with local market conditions.
While wider rent control proposals remain a concern for many in the sector, the report recognises the need to distinguish investment-ready tenures and ensure they are not constrained by blanket regulation. Clear guidance on how rents will be treated over time – and a willingness to maintain a market-facing approach – will be essential to bringing forward new homes at scale.
A More Diverse Delivery Landscape
One of the report’s most important conclusions is the need to broaden the range of organisations delivering affordable homes. It encourages a more open approach to new entrants, including socially focused for-profit providers, and calls for a rethink of the default reliance on public and third-sector delivery.
This direction aligns with our own. While currently focused on agency and consultancy services, our ambition is to become a direct provider of affordable homes in Scotland, particularly through Shared Ownership and Mid-Market Rent. With our Managing Director, Ryan Blair, having previously served as COO of a for-profit registered provider in England, our goal is to create a delivery model that is operationally lean, financially viable, and tenant-focused.
Revisiting Shared Ownership
The report’s call to revisit Shared Ownership is both timely and necessary. Scotland’s current model remains underused and poorly aligned with lender requirements, making it difficult to deliver at scale or reach the households it is intended to serve.
Highlight Housing is actively pushing for a more structured, lender-friendly approach to Shared Ownership in Scotland, proposing that we take lessons from the Homes England model. We support the development of a new framework that is legally robust, mortgageable, and practical to implement, with safeguards for buyers and features that make it investable. Done well, Shared Ownership could become a core part of Scotland’s affordable housing offer, providing a pathway into homeownership for households priced out of the market but ineligible for social housing.
Supporting Absorption and Reducing Risk
The report also highlights the need for earlier and more structured engagement between developers, local authorities, and delivery partners. From our work on new build schemes, we know that early input on tenure mix, pricing, and customer qualification can significantly improve sales velocity and reduce fall-through risk.
While investor sentiment is showing signs of improvement, the gap between consented schemes and those actually delivered remains wide. Closing that gap will require grounded, market-facing support – not just at board level, but on on-the-ground too.
Conclusion
The Housing Investment Taskforce has made a valuable and timely contribution to the future of housing in Scotland. It acknowledges that public funding alone is no longer sufficient and that reform is needed across the planning, delivery, and investment landscape.
There is now a clear opportunity to build more inclusive and better-governed delivery models – combining public purpose with commercial discipline. We will continue to support this shift by offering agency and advisory services that enhance customer experience, accelerate absorption, and improve the long-term performance of new build developments.
The challenge is significant. But the direction is right.