The Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee is keen to hear from tenants, organisations in the third sector, local authorities, housing associations, academics and anyone else with direct experience of the Regulator.

Evelyn Tweed MSP has welcomed the call for views and is urging people from across Scotland to engage with the review.

In a parliamentary speech in April last year, Ms Tweed highlighted serious concerns about the way that the SHR conducted its work with housing associations and that issues had been raised with her by constituents and others.

Her concerns were covered extensively by Scottish Housing News at the time.

The MSP for Stirling highlighted that these serious concerns were not going away and that an independent review of the Regulator was needed. 

Evelyn Tweed said: “I’m pleased that the committee is asking for views on this and I urge anyone affected by the SHR to take part. As I have stated before, there have been serious concerns raised about the conduct and culture of the SHR for many years without any repercussions and like any other regulator, they must be held accountable for their actions.

“Poor and destructive decisions by the SHR have had a knock-on effect on community housing which then impacts vast numbers of the community who need homes, people in local communities who just want to work and raise their families. Community-led housing is about giving communities the power to do what is right for them, to democratise the process, and to provide good quality, and affordable housing. The SHR, as a regulator, should help, not hinder community-led housing.

“Anyone who has concerns about the SHR or its agents should respond to the committee on this matter and have their views heard. I am aware there has previously been much anxiety around speaking up on this issue for fear of reprisal from the SHR, so I am appealing to those people to contact the committee directly by email to discuss giving their views privately.”

The SHR is responsible for safeguarding and promoting the interests of tenants and owners receiving services from social landlords. It regulates 158 registered social landlords (RSLs) and the housing activities of Scotland’s 32 local authorities. The SHR is independent of the Scottish ministers and is directly accountable to the Scottish Parliament.

Established by the Housing (Scotland) Act 2010, the objective of the independent non-ministerial department is to safeguard and promote the interests of:

• around 600,000 tenants who live in homes provided by social landlords;
• over 120,000 owners who received services from social landlords;
• around 40,000 people and their families who experience homelessness and seek help from local authorities; and
• around 2,000 Gypsy/Travellers who can use official sites provided by social landlords.

The main functions of the SHR are to keep a publicly available register of social landlords; monitor, assess and regularly report on all social landlords’ performance of housing activities and on registered social landlords’ financial well-being and standards of governance; and take action, where necessary, to protect the interests of tenants and other service users.

The committee will be considering the SHR’s annual report later this year and to support this work it is looking for responses to the following questions:

• Is the SHR effectively performing its duty to safeguard and promote the interest of current and future tenants, people who are (or may become) homeless, factored owners and gypsy travellers?
• How effectively is the SHR carrying out its functions to monitor, assess and report on social landlords performance and RSLs financial well being and standards of governance?
• Does the SHR have sufficient intervention powers and are these powers being used to the best effect?
• Is there a culture of the SHR encouraging asset transfers of community-controlled housing associations to large Registered Social Landlords and if so, what evidence is there for that?
• How effective is the SHR’s engagement with both social landlords and tenants and other service users?
• Is the SHR performing its role in accordance with the Scottish Regulators Strategic Code of Practice? How does the SHR’s role and performance measure up against other social housing regulators internationally?
• Does the SHR retain a high level of trust from its stakeholders?
• In the context of a housing emergency, is there more that the SHR could be doing to help social landlords respond to the challenges it presents and ensure the availability of high quality social housing?
• Is the statutory remit of the SHR, and the delineation of that remit from other bodies, sufficiently appropriate and clear?
• Is the level of parliamentary scrutiny and oversight of the SHR sufficient?

The public have until the 11th October to give their views via an online form, with the option to remain anonymous.

Anyone who would prefer to give their views privately can contact the committee directly via localgov.committee@parliament.scot before making their submission.