The Regulator launched a national discussion on the future of social housing regulation in Scotland with a discussion paper that invited tenants, landlords and others to share their feedback.

While there are no proposals for any major changes, the updated framework aims to reflect the changing context in which housing organisations are operating, with a particular focus on tenant safety and homelessness performance.

SHR said it believes its regulatory priorities should be:

• listening and responding effectively to tenants and service users
• providing good quality and safe homes
• keeping homes as affordable as possible
• doing all they can to reduce the number of people who are experiencing
  homelessness

While CIH Scotland agreed that issues around health and safety and homelessness need to be prioritised, its main concern in relation to prioritising regulatory focus “is the ability
of social landlords across Scotland to balance these priorities with other statutory requirements, with limited resources, compounded by the financial climate and ongoing inflationary pressures”.

“External pressures such as the continuing impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, cost of living crisis and resettlement schemes are also increasing demand for housing and homelessness services,” it added.

In its response, CIH Scotland said: “While social landlords are doing everything they can to deliver high quality homes and services while keeping rents affordable, the reality is that, without further funding from the Scottish Government, some programmes will need to be scaled back, whether that is provision of new homes, retrofitting to meet net-zero, or the provision of non-statutory services. Social landlords need support and flexibility to meet wide ranging priorities in a way that best suits the needs of their tenants, other customers and wider communities.”

On a proposal to amend statutory guidance on Annual Assurance Statements to include provisions on specific areas of assurance, CIH Scotland said it understands the need to
closely scrutinise issues which are of national significance and pose a potential risk to tenants and customers such as damp and mould, but said it may not be necessary to update statutory guidance in order to achieve this.

” If statutory guidance is updated to require reporting on specific issues, housing organisations will need sufficient notice to gather information, and flexibility in how assurance is presented to ensure that any additional requirements do not create unnecessary burdens,” it said.

SHR has also suggested amending, adding or deleting ARC indicators to better reflect current needs and to address issues of health and safety, damp and mould.

On this, CIH members have suggested consideration of the following ARC indicators:

• Indicator 10 considers repairs completed right first time. This indicator is overly complex in terms of the definitions and the exclusions which leads to a lack of consistency when attempting to compare and benchmark the results of this indicator with other social landlords so it would be useful if this indicator could be reviewed to make it simpler or removed entirely.
• Indicator 15 in respect of anti-social behaviour (ASB) is flawed as it reports on anti-social behaviour cases reported in the last year which were resolved. This means that cases that are received at the end of the reporting year (for example in March) have no time to be resolved and are considered to be not resolved in the indicator just because they were received at the end of the year and not through any drop in performance. It would be useful if this indicator could be reviewed to look at resolved cases in the year instead of cases received. There is variation in how guidance is interpreted in relation to “resolved” cases which can lead to inconsistencies in reporting. Large organisations may also have more legal powers (local authorities) or options in how they are able to deal with ASB.
• Indicator 30, average length of time taken to re-let properties in the last year, would benefit from clearer guidance around what constitutes an exclusion. There is an emerging issue with meter installations across the country within void properties that the Regulator has previously advised should not be counted as an exclusion. This leaves
  organisations entirely reliant on power companies as properties cannot be let without a power or gas supply resulting in longer average re-let times and increased rent lost which then impacts on other indicators. 

CIH Scotland also said that a “cautious approach” should be taken if a new intermediary regulatory status is to be introduced between compliant and working towards compliance, adding that a “period of stability” is “what the sector really needs” to focus resources on providing good quality services and value for money for tenants and customers.

Responses to the discussion paper will be considered ahead of a more formal consultation later this year.