We're consultng on proposals for how we regulate social housing in Scotland. We are inviting tenants, landlords and others with an interest in our work to give their views by 15 December.
In our proposals, we explain how we will continue to safeguard and promote the interests of current and future tenants, people who are homeless and others who use social landlords’ services.
A key proposal is to introduce a new provision to our statutory guidance to allow us to require landlords to provide explicit assurance in the Annual Assurance Statement (AAS) on a specific issue or issues.
We also proposes changes to strengthen the emphasis in our Regulatory Framework on social landlords listening to tenants and service users, to make it clearer when a social landlord is non-compliant, and to initiate a comprehensive review of the Annual Return on the Charter which it will consult on next year.
Our proposals reflect the feedback from stakeholders on our discussion paper from earlier this year. Since then we’ve continued to discuss our ideas at meetings and events, to develop and test our thinking.
Overall, stakeholders have told us that in general the current Regulatory Framework works well and remains relevant and appropriate. We’ve also seen a clear appetite from those involved in social housing for a period of stability and for changes to be kept to a minimum. There was also general support from tenants, landlords, investors and representative bodies for the approach that we set out in the discussion paper and for the changes we proposed.
Thank you to everyone who has shared their views so far. This has been a really constructive discussion, and your feedback has been invaluable. The draft Regulatory Framework and guidance we are now proposing have been shaped by your feedback, and will continue to be informed by your responses to this consultation.
We will use the consultation feedback to develop our final Regulatory Framework and guidance which we will publish in February 2024 and implement on 1 April 2024.
Best wishes,
George Walker
Chair
