Among its priorities, SHR said it will regulate to support social landlords to meet their obligations and duties for tenants and those who use their housing service, with a focus on:

• landlords’ discharge of their duties to people who are or have experienced homelessness, with a particular focus on duties to provide appropriate temporary and permanent accommodation;
• the quality of the homes social landlords provide to their tenants and the standards of Gypsy/Traveller sites, particularly around energy efficiency and the safety of tenants and residents; and
• landlords being able to achieve the standards and outcomes in the Social Housing Charter and meet their wider obligations, while keeping rents affordable and providing value for money.

The Regulator said it will also review its Regulatory Framework to ensure it remains effective and sustainable, enabling it to do the right things in the right way at the right time.

Other priorities include listening to tenants and service users and working closely with stakeholders, being an effective public body, and responding to the Scottish Government’s public sector reform agenda, including helping to shape future private sector regulation.

George Walker, chair of the Scottish Housing Regulator, said: “Tenants and landlords continue to face enormous challenges. Many tenants are facing genuine hardship. Landlords are continuing to work to deliver homes and services for their tenants whilst tackling high inflation, interest rates, and other challenges including increasing requirements on quality of homes and responding to pressure to keep rents as low as possible.

“We have produced it as a one year strategy to allow us both flexibility to respond to emerging priorities during a challenging period and to carry out a periodic review of our Regulatory Framework. When we implement the reviewed Framework in April 2024 we will introduce a longer term strategy aligned to that.

“During the year ahead, we will continue to work closely with tenants, landlords and all of our stakeholders in the year ahead as we continue to work to deliver our shared vision of well-run social landlords delivering what tenants and people who are homeless, Gypsy/Travellers and others who use social housing services need and want, and at a price they can afford to pay.”