The Scottish Housing Regulator today published the findings from its thematic review of how social landlords assure themselves about their compliance with regulatory requirements, and how this helps them to inform their Annual Assurance Statements.
All social landlords are required to submit an Annual Assurance Statement to the Scottish Housing Regulator by the end of October each year about their compliance with regulatory requirements.
The Regulator visited 13 landlords to explore how they assured themselves they complied with regulatory requirements and their approach to preparing the Statement. The visits had a particular focus on how landlords assured themselves about meeting their tenant and resident safety duties, and for Registered Social Landlords (RSLs), how the Governing Body is assured on its approach to financial planning and the assumptions which underpin the RSL’s financial plans.
The Regulator found most landlords have developed comprehensive and robust self-assurance processes and had appropriate measures in place to ensure the governing body is sufficiently assured regarding the organisation’s financial planning and the assumptions which underpin this.
Helen Shaw, Director of Regulation, said, “We wanted to hear from landlords about their self-assurance processes and their experience of producing their Statement”.
“This year the visits again had a focus on tenant and resident safety and we found this was a key priority for the landlords we visited”.
“Our thematic review includes many examples of what landlords told us worked well for them and it sets out a number of recommendations. We encourage all landlords to consider this report as they develop their approaches to self-assurance and prepare their next Statement”.
Each year the Regulator considers each landlord’s Statement as part of its annual risk assessment and publishes the outcomes of this in engagement plans around the end of March.
Notes to editors
- The Scottish Housing Regulator was established on 1 April 2011 under the Housing (Scotland) Act 2010. Its objective is to safeguard and promote the interests of tenants and others who use local authority and RSL housing services. The Regulator operates independently of Scottish Ministers and is accountable directly to the Scottish Parliament. It assumed its full regulatory responsibilities on 1 April 2012. The Regulator consists of the Chair and seven Board members. More information about the Regulator can be found on its website at housingregulator.gov.scot
- SHR sets out how it regulates social landlords in its published framework – Regulation of Social Housing in Scotland.