Michael Cameron

In the Annual Assurance Statements submitted in both 2021 and 2022, social landlords were asked to provide the Regulator with assurance that they had appropriate plans to implement an effective approach to the collection of equalities information and that they had started to consider how they can adopt a human rights approach in their work.

In the letter, chief executive Michael Cameron said social landlords will again be asked to provide assurance that they “have an effective approach to the collection of equalities information and are considering how your landlord can adopt a human rights approach in its work”.

“We are also looking for a clear statement in the Annual Assurance Statement this year on your landlord’s compliance with relevant obligations in relation to tenant and resident safety,” he adds. “We wrote to all landlords on 1 December 2022 to confirm this and to say that we would provide additional advice on the areas to be covered.”

In the Annual Assurance Statement to be submitted this year, landlords need to confirm whether they meet all duties in relation to tenant and resident safety, and in particular that they have obtained appropriate assurance about their compliance with all relevant safety requirements including:

• Gas safety
• Electrical safety
• Water safety
• Fire safety
• Asbestos
• Damp and Mould
• Lift safety

Michael Cameron said: “The SFHA Self Assurance Toolkit may provide you with further information on this, as will the SFHA’s advice note for governing body members on dealing with damp and mould.

“We recently carried out a programme of visits to landlords to discuss their Annual Assurance Statements. During the visits, we asked how landlords had assured themselves about compliance with their duties in relation to tenant and resident safety.

“We will shortly publish a report on the findings from the Annual Assurance Statement visits to share lessons learned.”