In February 2019, the Scottish Government announced it was investing £40 million into Allia’s Scottish charitable bond programme for 2019/20.  The successful programme has been oversubscribed this year, and so the Scottish Government has confirmed it will commit a further £20 million into the programme to meet demand.

Allia’s charitable bond model is an innovative funding mechanism which provides development finance for new affordable housing. It also generates instant capital funds, in the form of charitable donations, which the government is using for new social housing.  The programme allocates funding on a first come, first served basis, with drawdowns to be completed before 31^st March 2020.

To date, the Scottish Government has invested over £139 million in Allia’s Scottish charitable bonds, which has led to £102 million in loans for 13 housing associations and £37 million being generated as grants.

The additional £20 million will help to increase the number of affordable homes delivered under the programme, which all feed into Scottish Government’s target of building 50,000 affordable homes by 2021.