Affordable Homes Guarantees Programme

Homes & Communities Agency

Government announced its proposal to guarantee up to £10bn of debt which will help housing providers expand the provision of both purpose built private rented and affordable housing as part of the Housing and Planning package on 6 September 2012. This housing guarantee will use the Government’s fiscal credibility to reduce the cost of borrowing for housing Providers, as well as attract investment from fixed income investors seeking a stable, long term return on their investment without exposure to residential rental property risk. The rules for the Housing Guarantee Schemes, clarifying their terms, and an invitation to tender for delivery of the Schemes were launched early in 2013. 

As well as the Guarantee for the Affordable Homes element, the Government confirmed that it would make £225m of funding available for new affordable housing, for use where needed alongside the Affordable Homes Guarantee. This funding was then doubled in the 2013 Budget to £450m, including London, to support up to 30,000 new affordable homes.

We have published details of how Registered Providers can bid for a share of the £450m and how this might work, whether grant funding and/or agreement to convert existing stock to deliver additional affordable homes is sought. This essentially builds on our existing AHP Framework, and should be used in conjunction with that.

• Download the Affordable Homes Guarantees Programme Framework - PDF (274KB)
• Download the update to the Prospectus following the 2013 Budget - Word (38KB)

Bids were invited on 27 February 2013 with a closing date of  21 May 2013 and bidding under that bid round has now closed with resulting allocations being announced on 25 July 2013. In addition to entering bids on IMS, providers were also required to submit a number of supporting statement setting out further details of their proposal a cover sheet in the form supplied below.

For the avoidance of doubt bidders are advised that reference in the AHGP Framework to the ‘standard offer template’ should not be taken to mean that a standard offer template must be completed in order to submit a bid, bidders are asked to submit bids via IMS and accompany IMS bids with AHG lead respondent information which can be accessed via the link below.

Full details of what is required in these statements are listed in the Affordable Homes Guarantee Programme Framework. Supporting statements along with the cover sheet were required to be emailed to AHPOffers@hca.gsi.gov.uk by 21 May 2013 and were to be saved with a file name or names that clearly identifies the provider and scheme name, ideally using the same names as in the IMS bid. 

• AHG lead respondent information - xls (60KB)

In addition registered providers were required to email relevant information direct to the Regulator at FA.Enquiries@hca.gsi.gov.uk including an updated financial forecast return. This should be the latest version of the financial forecast return template which contains specific information requirements relevant to the Affordable Homes Guarantees Programme bids as provided below.

• Financial forecast return template - xls (228KB)

On 24 July 2013 we published the successful bids that could deliver over 13,800 new affordable homes:

• Allocations for AHGP 2013-16 delivery - xls (41KB)

Please note: that allocations contained in this document are subject to contract.

In summary: Midlands

Funding Requested £63,289,871

Units 4,436