Official Statistics

Forces Help to Buy quarterly statistics - Quarter 4 2021/22

Updated 28 April 2022

This quarterly statistical release provides summary statistics on applications, payments and purchases made under the Forces Help to Buy (FHTB) scheme. In addition, biannual statistics are provided on the proportions of payments by region and on the age of personnel using the scheme.

FHTB is an advance of salary scheme which was introduced in April 2014 and allows Regular Armed Forces personnel to borrow money to buy their first home or move to a new location.

Main Points and Trends

Since the Scheme began:

• 63,537 First Stage FHTB applications have been received.
• 31,106 of these applications have proceeded to the Second Stage.
• Payment has been made to around 27,079 applicants, totalling over £413 million, an average of approximately £15,270 per claim.
• At least 95% of payments, as at 31 March 2022, have already resulted in a purchased property or extension.

Figure 1: FHTB Payments – Q1 2014/15 to Q4 2021/22

Source: DBS

In Q4 (1 January to 31 March 2022) 2021/22:

• 1,850 First Stage applications were received.
• 634 Second Stage applications were received.
• 542 payments were made to Service personnel.

Responsible Statistician: Analysis Publications Head of Branch
Telephone: 030 679 84458
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Please refer to the Supplementary tables for all data presented in this publication.

Introduction

The FHTB scheme was launched in April 2014 with the aim of supporting and encouraging home ownership amongst Service Personnel whose level of home ownership has historically been lower than the rest of the UK population. Regular Service Personnel can borrow up to 50% of their gross annual salary (to a maximum of £25,000) to buy their first home, move to another or, in exceptional circumstances, extend an existing property, the scheme is due to end on the 31 December 2022.

First stage applications are those which pass initial eligibility checks, and second stage applications are those which pass detailed eligibility checks.

First and second stage application data and the values of FHTB payments are provided by Defence Business Services (DBS). The service and rank breakdowns are provided from Joint Personnel Administration (JPA). The two sets of data are ‘as at’ different dates in a month. DBS data is as at the end of the preceding month and JPA data is produced according to when the last pay run for military personnel was completed. The pay run occurs in the middle of the month and varies according to the month length.

Data on the proportion of payments that result in purchases of properties or extensions under the scheme are provided by Defence Business Services (DBS) on a quarterly basis. Some FHTB payments do not result in the purchase of a property or the extension of an existing property due, for example, to changes in personal circumstances or to the withdrawal of a party from a property chain.

These statistics were published monthly from March 2016 to November 2017 before being released quarterly.

Applications

Figure 2: FHTB First Stage Applications — Q1 2014/15 to Q4 2021/22

Source: DBS

Figure 2 shows an increase of first stage applications in Q4 2021/22 (1,850) compared to Q2 (1,537) and Q3 (1,309). Compared to the same time period last year there has been a 41% decrease in first stage applications, Q4 2020/21 (3,121).

Table 1: Quarterly average number of First Stage applications by financial year.

Financial year	2014/15	2015/16	2016/17	2017/18	2018/19	2019/20	2020/21	2021/22
Quarterly average of first stage applications	1900	1646	1928	1995	1923	2,210	2,534	1,749

The quarterly average of first stage applications for the financial year 2021/22 has decreased 31% since 2020/21. The stamp duty holiday introduced in July 2020 ended in Q1 2021/22 in Scotland and Wales and in Q2 in England and Northern Ireland. There was a period of stability for first stage applications between the financial years 2016/17 and 2019/20.

Applications

Figure 3: FHTB Second Stage Applications – Q1 2014/15 to Q4 2021/22

Source: DBS

Figure 3 shows a 15% increase in second stage applications in Q4 2021/22 (634) compared to Q3 (550). When comparing to the same period last year there has been a 43% decrease in second stage applications, Q4 2020/21 (1,108).

Q4 2021/22 is the third lowest number of second stage applications recorded, after Q1 2020/21 (532) and Q3 2021/22 (550) and is the lowest recorded second stage applications in a Q4 period.

Table 2: Quarterly average number of second stage applications by financial year

Financial year	2014/15	2015/16	2016/17	2017/18	2018/19	2019/20	2020/21	2021/22
Quarterly average of second stage applications	1,142	1,031	1,093	1,053	932	879	945	703

The quarterly average of second stage applications for the financial year 2021/22 has decreased 26% since 2020/21, and is the lowest quarterly average recorded since the scheme started. There was a period of stability for second stage applications between the financial years 2015/16 and 2017/18, since then there has been a decline in the quarterly average of second stage applications.

Payments and Purchases

A total of 27,079 payments have been made under the FHTB scheme since it was introduced in April 2014 (as at 31 March 2022). With an average claim of approximately 15,270, this has resulted in expenditure of over £413 million.

Figure 4: FHTB Payments – Q1 2014/15 to Q4 2021/22

Source: DBS

Figure 4 shows a 42% decrease between the number of payments in Q4 2021/22 (542 payments) compared to Q4 20/21 (929 payments). This is the lowest number of payments recorded in any Q4 period.

Table 3: Quarterly average number of payments

Financial year	2014/15	2015/16	2016/17	2017/18	2018/19	2019/20	2020/21	2021/22
Quarterly average of Payments	762	899	973	941	871	815	772	738

The quarterly average for the number of payments in 2021/22 decreased by 4% compared to 2020/21 and is the lowest recorded quarterly average since the scheme started. The quarterly average number of payments has been steadily decreasing since 2017/18 between 4% to 7% each year.

Payments and Purchases by Rank and Service

Figure 5: Payments by Rank, Q4 2021/22

Source: JPA

In Q4 2021/22, the highest percentage of payments were made to Other Ranks, 77%, compared to 23% of payments made to Officers^{[footnote 1]}.

For comparative purposes, the regular full-time trained Armed Forces strength population is made up of 81% Other Ranks and 19% Officers^{[footnote 2]}.

Figure 6: Payments by Service, Q4 2021/22

Source: JPA

The highest percentage of the payments in Q4 2021/22 were made to Army personnel, 51%, with 27% of payments made to Royal Navy/Royal Marines personnel and 21% to RAF personnel^{[footnote 1]}. For comparative purposes, the regular full-time trained Armed Forces strength population is made up of 55% Army personnel, 22% RN/RM personnel and 23% RAF personnel^{[footnote 2]}.

It is estimated that at least 95% of payments, as at 31 March 2022, have already resulted in a purchased property or extension. There is a small lag between payments and loan repayments once a property has been purchased or extended. Some FHTB payments do not result in the purchase of a property or the extension of an existing property, due, for example, to changes in personal circumstance or to the withdrawal of a party from a property chain.

Payments by Age

There has been a refinement to the methodology used for age, please see the background quality report for more information. The largest shares of payments have been made to personnel in the 25 to 29 (34%) and 30 to 34 (23%) age groups. For comparison, personnel in these age groups make up 20% and 18% of the Regular Service Population respectively. Service personnel aged between 18 to 24 account for 24% of the Service population and received 15% of payments. Receipt of FHTB payments among the remaining age groups are broadly similar with their representation in the Service population ^{[footnote 3]}.

Figure 7: Proportion of Payments by Age, April 2014 – March 2022

Age data is reported using the ONS Harmonised Standard 4 age bandings

Payments by region ^{[footnote 4]}

Figure 8 shows the estimated proportions of payments used to purchase or extend properties in each UK region under the scheme since it began. As at 31 March 2022, almost half of payments were used to purchase or extend properties in the South West of England (22%), East Midlands (13%) or South East of England (12%). The regions with the lowest share of payments were North-ern Ireland (1%) and London (1%). These proportions have remained stable since they were first reported in the FHTB September 2016 edition. For comparison, as at 1 April 2021 ^{[footnote 4][footnote 5]}, over half of service personnel were in the South East (28%) and South West (27%). By contrast there were very few in the North East (1%), North West (1%) or Northern Ireland (1%).

Figure 8: Proportion of Payments^{[footnote 5]}, by UK region of property, April 2014 – March 2022

Source: JPA

Contains Ordnance Survey data © Crown copyright and database right 2016.

Glossary

Forces Help to Buy (FHTB): FHTB is an advance of salary scheme which was introduced in April 2014 and allows Regular Armed Forces personnel to borrow money in order to buy their first home or move to a new location.

Regular Armed Forces Personnel: Full time Service personnel excluding Full Time Reserve Service (FTRS) personnel.

First Stage applications: Applications which pass initial eligibility checks.

Second Stage applications: Applications which pass detailed eligibility checks.

Defence Business Services (DBS): Organisation which provides corporate services, such as recruitment and payroll, across the Ministry of Defence.

Joint Personnel Administration (JPA): The system used by the Armed Forces to deal with matters of pay, leave and other personnel administrative tasks. JPA replaced several single Service IT systems and was implemented in April 2006 for RAF, November 2006 for Naval Service and April 2007 for Army.

Q1: April to June. Q2: July to September. Q3: October to December. Q4: January to March.

Rounding

Payment figures in this publication have been rounded to the nearest £1 and the average payment rounded to nearest £10. Percentages are calculated from unrounded data and rounded to the nearest whole number, therefore may not sum to 100%.

Statistics quoted in the narrative may be rounded for clarity, with more precise figures available in the Supplementary tables.

Further Information

Revisions

Corrections to the published statistics will be made if errors are found, or if figures change because of improvements to methodology or changes to definitions. When making corrections, we will follow the Ministry of Defence Statistics, revisions and corrections policy. All corrected figures will be identified by the symbol “r”, and an explanation will be given of the reason for and size of the revision. Corrections which would have a significant impact on the utility of the statistics will be corrected as soon as possible, by reissuing the publication. Minor errors will also be corrected, but for convenience these corrections may be timed to coincide with the next release of the publication.

Contact us

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1. JPA data is produced according to when the last pay run for military personnel was completed. The pay run occurs in the middle of the month, which varies according to the month length. Therefore, the Officer/ Rank and Service breakdowns represent the number of payments recorded between the pay runs in that month and the preceding month. ↩ ↩²

2. Based on figures as at 1 January 2022 taken from the Defence Statistics [Quarterly Service Personnel Publication] (https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/quarterly-service-personnel-statistics-2022). Due to rounding, percentages may not sum to 100%. ↩ ↩²

3. Service population data by age was taken from the latest MOD [UK Armed Forces Diversity Statistics] (https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/uk-armed-forces-biannual-diversity-statistics-october-2021) ↩

4. Excluding missing or invalid postcodes ↩ ↩²

5. Service population data by region was taken from the latest MOD UK Armed Forces Location Statistics ↩ ↩²