Social Landlords in Scotland: Shaping up for improvement

More documents

Recommendations

Info

Social Landlords in Scotland: Shaping up for improvement.1. Introduction1.1 We regulate social landlords and the homelessness functions of localauthorities to protect the interests of tenants and the people who use theirservices. This report draws on evidence from our regulation and inspectionwork over the last five years, and in our first year as The Scottish HousingRegulator, to highlight key areas that still need to improve to make thingsbetter for tenants and service users.1.2 We have seen some excellent performance and innovative practice in asector that has a strong track record of providing affordable housing for manyin Scotland. And we have worked with some talented and dedicated staff,governing bodies and councillors. We have written this to encourage RSLsand local authorities to evaluate their own performance, build on theirstrengths and improve areas of weakness; to highlight the broadermacroeconomic factors that could undermine the performance of somelandlords if improvement is not made; and to contribute to the debate on thefuture of the social rented sector and the development of standards, as theScottish Government consults on our role as a regulator.1.3 In this paper we are focusing not on the excellent areas of provision we haveidentified, but on the areas that require improvement, or that might beundermined by macroeconomic instabilities. We have used the evidence setout in our published inspection reports, thematic studies and statistics. Andwe have also drawn on our broader regulatory engagement withorganisations throughout the sector.5
Social Landlords in Scotland: Shaping up for improvement.2. ContextWho we regulate2.1 We regulate over 240 RSLs and 26 local authority landlords, that in totalprovide one in four (577,650) homes in Scotland. We also regulate thehomelessness functions of local authorities. Around 56,500 households applyas homeless every year. We also assess how well RSLs and local authoritiesprovide factoring services to owners and sites for Gypsies/Travellers. Weregulate to protect the interests of people who are among the poorest inScotland and who often live in the most disadvantaged areas.2.2 RSLs are non-profit distributing, independent landlords that together have anannual turnover of around £1 billion, have secured £3.3 billion in privatelending facilities to support their businesses, have invested an average of£130 million in their stock every year, and have received over £3 billion ofpublic funding 1 over the last fifteen years to build and improve social housing.For local authorities, landlord services are often the third highest area ofspend, with housing revenue account turnover that amount to over £1 billionin total across Scotland and a gross annual investment in their housing stockof around £450 million.Why we regulate2.3 We regulate social housing because:a) tenants have limited bargaining power, the supply of affordable housing isconstrained, and tenants cannot easily shop around for another landlord.Many landlords and homelessness authorities offer good services. Butregulation is needed to protect tenants and other service users when theydo not;b) there has been substantial past public investment in social housing andregulation makes sure it is properly safeguarded and used in the publicinterest and for future tenants;c) the quality of housing stock and services affects the wider quality of life incommunities. Regulation can reduce the potentially damaging widereffects of poor housing within neighbourhoods; and1 This figure relates to Housing Association Grant and does not include other forms of publicfunding6
Page 2: Social Landlords in Scotland: Shapi
Page 7: Social Landlords in Scotland: Shapi
Page 13 and 14: Social Landlords in Scotland: Shapi
Page 59 and 60:
Social Landlords in Scotland: Shapi
Page 61:
Social Landlords in Scotland: Shapi
show all

Social Landlords in Scotland: Shaping up for improvement

Create successful ePaper yourself

Delete template?

Save as template?