Modified industry praise comes for the Scottish Government's relaunch of the Help to Buy scheme, which had proved too successful for its own good, running spectacularly out of funds after just a few months.

The new £100 million allocation for 2015-16 will allow the Scottish Government to take a stake of 5%-10% in properties valued up to £250,000, instead of the previous £400,000 ceiling.

Homes for Scotland chief executive Philip Hogg said his organisation would continue to press for an increased budget for next year "to avoid a repeat of the stop-start experience of this year".

Scotland's housebuilders want the Scottish Government to follow Westminster and provide more long-term certainty - and, if necessary, allocatE more of the £125m housing investment announced in last week's draft Budget.

Attempting to prise open the mysteries of one of Scotland's largest housing associations last week, Agenda was politely reminded that housing associations and registered social landlords, despite their reliance on public funding, are not covered by Freedom of Information legislation.

As part of the 10th anniversary celebrations of FoI, the Information Commissioner is conducting new research into the coverage of the act and how that could be improved. But while the FoI genie cannot be put back in the bottle, it is hard to see extending its reach being a priority either for politicians or civil servants.