Official Statistics

Forces Help to Buy Scheme quarterly statistics - Quarter 2 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.

1. Main Points and Trends

Since the Scheme began:

• 60,378 First Stage FHTB applications have been received.
• 29,922 of these applications have proceeded to the Second Stage.
• Payment has been made to around 25,956 applicants, totalling over £395 million, an average of approximately £15,240 per claim.
• At least 95% of payments, as at 30 September 2021, have already resulted in a purchased property or extension.

1.1 Figure 1: FHTB Payments – Q1 2014/15 to Q2 2021/22

Source: DBS

1.2 In Q2 (1 July to 30 September) 2021/22:

• 1,537 First Stage applications were received.
• 646 Second Stage applications were received.
• 834 payments were made to Service personnel.

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Please refer to the Supplementary tables containing all data presented in this publication.

2. 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.

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.

3. Applications

3.1 Figure 2: FHTB First Stage Applications — Q1 2014/15 to Q2 2021/22

Source: DBS

Figure 2 shows a 51% decrease in the number of First Stage applications when comparing Q2 2020/21 (3,112 applications) and the latest Q2 2021/22 (1,537 applications). 2021/22 Q2 First Stage application figures are the lowest seen since Q3 2015/16. The UK has eased most of their COVID-19 restrictions through this latest quarter.

3.2 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
Quarterly average of 1st Stage Applications	1900	1646	1928	1995	1923	2,210	2,534

The quarterly average has remained relatively stable between financial year 16/17 and 18/19. However, it has increased 15% between 18/19 and 19/20 and 15% between 2019/20 and 2020/21 (see Figure 2 and Table 1). It should be noted that the average for 2014/15 is inflated by the high number of applications received when the scheme first opened.

4. Applications

4.1 Figure 3: FHTB Second Stage Applications – Q1 2014/15 to Q2 2021/22

Source: DBS

Figure 3 shows a 49% decrease in the number of second stage applications when comparing Q2 2020/21 (1,267 applications) and the latest Q2 2021/22 (646 applications). Q2 2021/22 is the second lowest number of second stage applications seen to date (after Q1 2020/21) and the lowest Q2 second stage applications seen to date. Q2 2021/22 is the first Q2 since 2018/19 to have a decrease in second stage applications com-pared to the previous financial year.

4.2 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
Quarterly average of 2nd Stage Applications	1,142	1,031	1,093	1,053	932	879	945

Although the number of Second Stage applications decreased 12% between 2017/18 and 2018/19 and a further 6% between 2018/19, it has increased 8% between 2019/20 and 2020/21 (see Figure 3 and Table 2). It should be noted that the average for 2014/15 is inflated by the high number of applications received when the scheme first opened.

5. Payments and Purchases

A total of 25,956 payments have been made under the FHTB scheme since it was introduced in April 2014 (as at 30 September 2021). With an average claim of approximately £15,240, this has resulted in expenditure of over £395 million.

5.1 Figure 4: FHTB Payments – Q1 2014/15 to Q2 2021/22

Source: DBS

Figure 4 is a copy of Figure 1 with additional extension announcement reference points

Figure 4 shows a 1% increase between the number of payments for Q2 20/21 (822 payments) and the latest Q2 21/22 (834 payments). The number of payments in Q2 2021/22 is an increase from the previous two financial year’s Q2s’.

5.2 Table 3: Quarterly average number of payments

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

The quarterly average for the number of payments increased 18% between 14/15 and 15/16. Averages increased to a peak in 2016/17 (973) but have decreased (between 3% and 7%) each financial year since then. Please note that the average for 2014/15 is reduced by the low number of payments made when the scheme opened.

6. Payments and purchases by rank and service

In Q2 2021/22, the highest percentage of payments were made to Other Ranks, 78%, compared to 22% 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]}

The highest percentage of the payments in Q2 2021/22 were made to Army personnel, 47%, with 27% of payments made to Royal Navy/Royal Marines personnel and 25% to RAF personnel^{[footnote 1]}. For comparative purposes, the regular full-time trained Armed Forces strength population is made up of 56% Army personnel, 22% RN/RM personnel and 22% RAF personnel^{[footnote 2]}.

6.1 Figure 5: Payments by Rank, Q2 2021/22

Source: JPA

6.2 Figure 6: Payments by Service, Q2 2021/22

Source: JPA

It is estimated that at least 95% of payments, as at 30 September 2021, 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.

6.3 Payments by Age

The largest shares of payments have been made to personnel in the 30 to 34 (31%), 35 to 39 (21%) and 25 to 29 (20%) age groups. For comparison, personnel in these age groups make up 18%, 15% and 20% of the Regular Service population respectively. Service personnel aged between 18 to 24 account for 24% of the Service population and received 4% of payments. Receipt of FHTB payments among the remaining age groups are broadly similar with their representation in the Service population^{[footnote 3]}.

6.4 Figure 7: Proportion of Payments by Age, April 2014 – September 2021

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

6.5 Payments by region

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 30 September 2021, just over a fifth (22%) of payments were used to purchase or extend properties in the South West of England – the largest share of any region. The regions with the lowest share of payments were Northern 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]}, over half of Service personnel were in the South East (28%) and South West (27%). By contrast, very few were in the North East (1%), North West (1%) or Northern Ireland (1%).

6.6 Figure 8: Proportion of Payments^{[footnote 5]}, by UK region of property, April 2014 – September 2021

Source: JPA

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

7. 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.

Rounding

Payment figures in this publication have been rounded to the nearest £1 and the average payment rounded to nearest £100. 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

8. Further Information

8.1 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.

8.2 Contact us

Defence Statistics welcome feedback on our statistical products. If you have any comments or questions about this publication or about our statistics in general, you can contact us as follows:

Telephone: 030 679 84458

Email: [email protected]

If you require information which is not available within this or other available publications, you may wish to submit a Request for Information under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 to the Ministry of Defence.

For general MOD enquiries, please call: 020 7218 9000

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 July 2021 taken from the Defence Statistics Quarterly Service Personnel Publication. 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 ↩

4. Exclude missing or invalid postcodes 1%. ↩

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