The data on Affordable Housing Supply Programme approvals, starts and completions does not contain any personal information.

Several quality assurance methods are carried out on the data. For example, the data is compared to previous quarters’ figures and to the same quarter’s figures from the previous year to look for any unusual changes, and overall counts are cross-checked to outputs from the Scottish Government Affordable Housing Supply Programme Database.

The figures for the Affordable Housing Supply Programme are monitored closely and therefore are accurate to the best of our knowledge. An approval is the point at which funding is granted and, along with completion, is a significant part of the administration process meaning that the data should be of good quality. Starts meanwhile can be recorded at any point in the development, for example when site clearance begins or any point up to the beginning of ground works for foundations. As a result approvals are generally deemed a better measure than starts for AHSP data.

These statistics are not seasonally adjusted, so comparisons with the previous quarter will include some seasonal effects. As a result figures are often compared to those for the same quarter one year earlier.

Changes in the funding programme in 2011 and 2012 impacted on the timing of affordable housing activity as well as the level of activity and this should be borne in mind when making comparisons over time.

The social rent new build element of this dataset covers largely the same houses as the social houses recorded in the ‘New Build Starts and Completions’ dataset.

The Affordable Housing Investment Programme (AHIP) changed to the Affordable Housing Supply Programme (AHSP) in 2011.

‘Other Affordable Rent' can include Mid Market Rent (MMR), Rural Empty Property Grants (REPG), Special Needs Capital Grant (SNCG), Rural Homes for Rent (RHfR), National Housing Trust (NHT), Empty Homes Loan Fund) EHLF

'Other Affordable Home Ownership' can include Partnership Support for Regeneration (PSR) (previously GRO Grant), Improvement and Repair (I&R).

Affordable Housing Supply Programme (AHSP) statistics reflect the broader supply of affordable homes (i.e. for social rent, affordable rent and affordable home ownership) and include off the shelf purchases and rehabilitations as well as new builds.

Quarterly affordable housing supply statistics are used to inform the Scottish Government target to deliver 50,000 affordable homes, including 35,000 homes for social rent, over the period 2016/17 to 2020/21.

Quarterly statistical tables are published on the Scottish Government Housing Statistics website as soon as possible once data collection, data processing and preparation of tables and publication material is complete . This data is generally published around three months after the end of time period referred to. The open data platform will be updated as soon as possible after publication. We aim to have the dataset updated within a week of publishing the quarterly housing statistics data.

Quarterly Affordable Housing Supply figures may be subject to revisions, especially prior to the year-end of the financial year. These revisions are made when the next quarter's data is published.