SHR Update - July 2023

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Welcome

We all continue to work in a complex and challenging landscape. Rises in the cost of living for tenants, rises in costs for landlords, rises in interest rates, all contribute to the really difficult circumstances we are all having to deal with.

The latest research from the National Panel of Tenants and Service Users which we've just published highlights the worsening financial difficulties tenants are facing. You can read the report below.

Each year social landlords give us their Annual Assurance Statements. Ahead of the next submission in the Autumn, we’ve published a report on our thematic review of landlords’ approach to preparing their Statements. This includes positive practice from eleven landlords we visited. You can read more about this below.

At the beginning of June we launched a national discussion on how we regulate, in line with our commitment to review Regulatory Framework every five years. Thank you to everyone who has already given us their views, and there’s still time to get involved before we close this part of our review on 11 August. You can find the link to the national discussion in the story below.

Michael Cameron

Chief Executive

Michael Cameron, Chief Executive

We launched our national discussion on the future of social housing regulation

In June, we launched a national discussion on the future of social housing regulation in Scotland.

We published a discussion paper inviting tenants, landlords and others with an interest in our work to share their feedback and views by 11 August 2023.

The discussion paper sets out our early thinking on our future approach, regulatory priorities and how we will work. We will use the feedback on the paper to develop our detailed proposals for a new Regulatory Framework. We will consult on the new Framework later this year.

Read more

Annual Assurance Statement visits

We published the findings from our

thematic review of social landlords’ Annual Assurance Statements, highlighting a range of positive practice in how landlords prepared their Statements.

We visited eleven landlords to explore their approach to preparing the Statement and how they assured themselves they complied with regulatory requirements.

Helen Shaw, Director of Regulation, said, “We wanted to hear from landlords about their experience of producing their Statement and what worked well for them. Landlords told us the process provides governing bodies and committees with welcome assurance on their compliance with regulatory requirements.”

Read more

Crowd of people standing in the shape of a speech bubble

Annual Assurance Statements: advice for social landlords

We recently wrote to social landlords with advice on preparing their annual assurance statements due in by 31 October 2023.

We asked landlords to provide assurance around how they collect equalities information and their compliance with tenant and resident safety obligations.

Read more

National Panel highlights worsening financial difficulties being faced by tenants

We published the latest research from the National Panel of Tenants and Service Users. The report highlights the worsening financial difficulties being faced by tenants.

It found that a quarter of members that responded said they are not managing well financially, and around three quarters feel that their financial circumstances are worse now than twelve months ago.

Increased food and energy costs were cited as the biggest contributor to financial difficulties, with more than 7 in 10 saying these have had a significant impact.

Speaking about the research at this year's TPAS conference, Helen Shaw, our Director of Regulation, said: "Our work with the National Panel is an important way for us to better understand the priorities, concerns and thoughts of tenants and service users of social landlords in Scotland. This year's report once again highlights that tenants are facing significant cost of living challenges, and that pressures on household finances have heightened. We hope the research is helpful to anyone with an interest in our work."

Read more

Statutory manager list refresh

We have powers to appoint a manager to a social landlord in specific circumstances where we identify serious risks to tenants’ and service users' interests. We are finalising arrangements to refresh the list of people who we may appoint as a manager. This will be an open selection process, which we will advertise in September. We will be looking for people with a proven track record of successfully carrying out interim senior officer roles in regulated bodies with serious governance and/or financial management problems and delivering improvements and lasting change.

Speeches & events

Helen Shaw, our Director of Regulation, spoke at the TPAS conference at the end of June.

Helen spoke about research from the National Panel and the challenges tenants are facing, and our national discussion on the future of social housing regulation in Scotland.

Read Helen's speech

Engagement plans

We published revised engagement plans for Copperworks and
Spire View Housing Association.

Read more

Man using a tablet to get the latest news

What's next?

National Report on the Scottish Social Housing Charter & landlord reports
Our response to the discussion paper on our regulation of social housing.
Annual Report and Accounts
Consultation on our regulation of social housing in Scotland
Analysis of social landlords loan portfolio returns

www.housingregulator.gov.scot

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