The Regulator’s annual risk assessment is the main way it works to safeguard and promote the interests of tenants and service users.

It uses its risk assessment to decide whether it needs any further information or assurance from landlords and where landlords may need to improve.

The broad areas of risk the Regulator will focus on are as follows:

• Homelessness – How councils deliver services for people who are threatened with, or experiencing, homelessness. This includes providing people who need it with suitable temporary accommodation
• Performance in delivering services – How councils and RSLs deliver services for their tenants and other service users, and meet the standards and outcomes from the Scottish Government’s Social Housing Charter. This will also include how landlords that provide Gypsy/Travellers sites ensure they achieve the Scottish Government’s minimum site standards and fire safety requirements for Gypsy/Traveller sites
• Development – How RSLs manage the impact on their finances of any plans for building new homes
• Quality of homes – How councils and RSLs ensure that the homes they provide to tenants meet the Scottish Housing Quality Standard (SHQS), and whether they have a good understanding of the condition of those homes
• Tenant and resident safety – How councils and RSLs meet their statutory obligations on tenant and resident safety
• Financial health of RSLs – How financially healthy RSLs are and how well they manage their money with a focus on financial planning and compliance with Regulatory Standard 3
• Good governance of RSLs – How well RSLs are run with a focus on compliance with Regulatory Standards.  

The Regulator said its approach and priorities within these areas will be informed by the current challenges and risk landscape faced by social landlords. For example, it will pay particular attention to councils’ compliance with the statutory obligation to provide temporary accommodation, increasing risk in the building of new homes, and compliance with tenant and resident safety obligations.   

John Jellema, assistant director of regulation, said: “Tenants, other service users and social landlords continue to face a difficult economic context with continued volatility and uncertainty. And the Scottish Government has declared a national housing emergency as a result of the significant challenges facing tenants and landlords.

“Our risk assessment will continue to have a strong focus in particular on how social landlords deliver homes and services for people who are homeless or at the risk of homelessness.

“We will also keep a focus on social landlord performance in how they deliver services, the development of new homes, the quality of homes, tenant and resident safety, and financial health and governance in registered social landlords.”

The Regulator will publish the outcome of its risk assessment along with an engagement plan for each social landlord by the end of March 2025.