The Regulator of Social Housing has today (9 September 2025)
published a review of its regulatory
casework over the last year, since its new inspection
programme began on April 1, 2024.
This new annual report covers the key themes from RSH's governance, financial
viability and consumer regulation of social landlords. It
provides important learnings for all social landlords – including
councils, housing associations and for-profit providers – to help
them to deliver more and better homes for tenants.
The report reinforces several important points for landlords.
They must:
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Have strong governance and manage risk effectively, including
by keeping robust data on the safety and quality of tenants'
homes and other key issues.
-
Demonstrate that tenants are safe in their homes, with
effective oversight from boards and councillors
-
Keep up-to-date and comprehensive data on homes and tenants
to make the right, evidence-led decisions across all areas of
their business.
-
Embed tenants' views into decision making.
-
Manage financial viability so they can prioritise efficiency
and value for money, maximising resources to invest in
current and future homes
-
Refer themselves to RSH if they find or
suspect a failure to meet our standards.
While RSH's
economic standards do not apply to local authorities (other than
the rent standard), the report shows that many of the lessons
from RSH's
regulation of governance can also be used by councils to improve
outcomes for tenants.
Fiona MacGregor, Chief Executive at RSH, said:
“Landlords should carefully consider the insights from today's
report to see how they can improve their ways of working and
outcomes for tenants.
“There are early signs that our new proactive approach is already
making an impact. We will continue to hold landlords to account
to make sure current and future tenants have a safe, decent place
to live.”
RSH has
published more than 100 regulatory judgements from inspections
since the new programme began last April.
Notes to Editors
-
On 1 April 2024, RSH introduced new
consumer standards and started a proactive inspection
programme for landlords with over 1,000 homes. It also
continues to review landlords' information regularly and
investigate cases that are referred by tenants and other
stakeholders. For more information about RSH's regulation see our
How we regulate
page.
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RSH promotes
a viable, efficient and well-governed social housing sector
able to deliver more and better social homes. It does this by
setting standards and carrying out robust regulation focusing
on driving improvement in social landlords, including local
authorities, and ensuring that housing associations are
well-governed, financially viable and offer value for money.
It takes appropriate action if the outcomes of the standards
are not being delivered.
