Annual Report and Accounts 2022-23

Published

05 October 2023

Welcome message

Welcome to our annual report and accounts for 2022/23.

This year we focused our work on our priorities around giving tenants a strong voice, the quality and safety of homes, discharge of homelessness duties, and rent affordability and supporting landlords.  We worked with stakeholders to provide landlords with advice on damp and mould and we published thematic reviews on rents and homelessness. 

 e also published our National Report on the Charter and findings from our research with our National Panel of Tenants and Service Users.  

We engaged with landlords as set out in the plans we published in March 2022 and updated throughout the year.  We carried out a comprehensive regulatory risk assessment of social landlords and published the outcome in engagement plans in March 2023.  For Registered Social Landlords (RSLs), we assessed 131 as compliant and 5 as working towards compliance.  At 31 March 2023, we were not using our statutory powers to intervene in any landlords.  

Moving into 2023/24 social landlords are faced with cost inflation, higher interest rates, and increasing requirements on quality of homes.  This is all combined with huge demand for support from tenants who are facing genuine financial hardship, and there is pressure to keep rents as affordable as possible.  We are seeing acute issues around homelessness, and temporary accommodation in particular. The year ahead is likely to remain unpredictable, volatile and difficult. 

We recognise that the current context means that social landlords are likely to have to prioritise their attention and resources on the most critical and immediate issues, including tackling the acute problems in homelessness, alleviating fuel poverty and maintaining tenant safety.  We are working with our stakeholders to understand what achievable priorities at a sustainable pace look like for social housing for the next year.

At the start of 2023/24 we published a new strategy detailing our regulatory priorities including homelessness, quality of homes, affordability and value for money.  In 2023/24 we will carry out a periodic review of our Regulatory Framework as it is time to ensure that it remains up to date and effective. We will also respond to the Scottish Government’s public service reform agenda.     

We would like to thank our resilient and professional staff team, Board members and all the tenants, service users and stakeholders who have worked with us.  We are grateful to Bob Gil who retired at the end of March 2023 having completed his second term with SHR Board.  We welcomed the appointment of Andrew Watson from our Board to become our Deputy Chair.  In 2023 we look forward to welcoming new staff, as we recruit to ensure we have the resources to continue to regulate effectively. We are also pleased that Scottish Ministers have reappointed Ewan Fraser, Colin Stewart and Helen Trouten Torres to our Board for a second term.  

We would like to pay tribute to the hard work of all those who volunteer and work in social housing in Scotland. Together, they are supporting some of the most vulnerable people in Scotland.  

  

George Walker, Chair and Michael Cameron, Chief Executive

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