The decision comes after a critical National Audit Office report last week warned that more than half of the Government's 80,000 affordable housing would be delivered in the last year of the programme.
The spending watchdog warned this made it vulnerable to slippage.
But HCA chief executive Pat Ritchie told a meeting of the Public Accounts Committee this week that 6,500 homes will be brought forward from 2014/15 into earlier years of the scheme.
The move will be welcomed by house builders and suppliers who have seen social housing starts plummet this year.
Ritchie said the agency has moved 6,500 homes out of the final year ‘and we will look at whether – subject to the availability of funding – we can do anything more around that’.
Ritchie suggested the HCA was also looking at extending the idea of releasing up to 75% of funding when building starts on site.
Normally funds are not released until homes are completed, but a similar early release scheme was temporarily piloted to kick-start the AHP programme.
Ritchie also made clear that the HCA was looking at shifting funding earmarked to providers to other sites if problems with specific sites arose.
Mike Leonard, director of the Modern Masonry Alliance said: “The coalition and the HCA continue to play on the fringe.
“Economic growth and jobs are needed now and building more public rented houses is the solution.
“It is time to stop playing with numbers and draw up an end to end plan to deliver 25,000 additional public rented homes over the next 18 months.
“We have the land, the materials, skills and the demand, all we need now is for Mr Osborne to find the funds to get Britain building.”
