It's DESNZ stats day 🤓 …
- Adrian Wright
- 6 days ago
- 3 min read
Updated: 6 days ago
…my favourite day of the month, when DESNZ flood us with stats on all sorts of bits and bobs, including SHDF/WHSHF and WHLG. So let’s hop straight in and update you on how all schemes are 100% on time and 100% on budget.
SHDF Wave 2.1 and 2.2
Firstly, I should point out a DESNZ disclaimer, that there is often a lag in reporting and therefore, even though the data should include installations up to the end of January 2026, the likelihood is that there will be a lot of back reporting which will bump these figures up. As an example of this, in the SHDF Wave 2 reporting, the number of homes upgraded went up by 1,230 compared to last month, but only 250 of these were actual January installs, the rest were from previous months playing reporting catch up.
SHDF Wave 2.1 had a budget of £778m (of which around £720m was for measures) and it was expected that 90,000 homes would be upgraded. Grant funding for Wave 2 needed to be spent by the 31st March 2025, with co-funding used after that. So what are the scores on the doors now we are almost a year past that date? Number of homes upgraded 38,551, the average (mean) measure cost is £7300, with circa 83,000 measures installed, which comes to just over £600m, but the footnote states that this is the full works cost, both grant and landlord contribution, so with a 50% co-funding element, does that mean that just £300m of the £720m grant has been spent to date?
SHDF Wave 2.2 had a budget of £80m (£74m for measures) and was anticipated to upgrade 9,500 homes. The report today indicates that homes upgraded is 3,940 and 8,752 measures at an average cost of £6500, giving a total spend of £57m, which when we apply the 50% landlord contribution, means a grant spend of £28.5m?
Warm Homes Social Housing Fund Wave 3
This is the big fella, a budget of £1.29bn, of which around £1.2bn is for measures. Property numbers are hard to find, but we estimate they are expecting around 140,000 homes to be upgraded. Wave 3 was due to start in April 2025 and the money was split between 138 project leads, representing 282 organisations. Admittedly, Wave 3 has been hampered by social landlords finishing off Wave 2 during 2025/26, but let’s see what today’s stats say. Of the 138 lead authorities, only 21 have actually submitted a report showing completions. Based on these reports, 501 homes (I will put that in words for the avoidance of doubt - five hundred and one) have had works completed to the end of February 2026, 896 measures at an average of £12,926, a spend of £11.5m, a 50% grant spend of £5.75m. This will inevitably shoot up once landlords have finished juggling between their finalised Wave 2 and Wave 3 divvy up, but we should see in the next few months.
Warm Homes Local Grant
A £500m budget over 3 years, around £425m of which is for measures, aiming to upgrade around 34,000 homes over that time. In total, 74 lead authorities covering 271 individual local authorities received funding, today’s statistical release, which includes installs to the end of February 2026, shows that just 30 have submitted completion reports, which in turn show that 582 homes have been upgraded, with a total of 1002 measures, at an average of £6522, giving a total grant measure spend of £6.5m.
I will leave you all to make your own judgment on these delivery figures and to decide how charitable you will be in giving some allowance for delayed reporting. The one question I will raise though, is how much funding has been underspent in the last few years and how much of it has been allowed to be carried forwards (“none” you all shout)? As a follow up question, whilst the Government has announced an “extra £295m” is being pumped into WHSHF in 2026/27, how does that compare to the underspend from rounds 1 and 2 of SHDF and is it really additional money, or just a fraction of the underspend being carried forwards and lastly, given all the previous underspend, is it realistically going to be spent in 2026/27?
As always, this is a quick summary from the DESNZ published stats, feel free to comment if you believe that there are any miscalculations, but the above is believed to be a fair reflection of what has been published.
