The Scottish Housing Regulator today published its annual report and accounts for 2018/19. The report gives the highlights of the work the Regulator did last year to safeguard and promote the interests of tenants, homeless people and others who use the services of social landlords.
George Walker, the Regulator’s Chair, said: “During 2018/19, we published our fifth national report on the Scottish Social Housing Charter which showed a continued strong performance from Scottish social landlords.
“We published our landlord reports and comparison tool. These reports help empower tenants with information about how their landlord is doing when it comes to the things they said matter most such as homes and rents, quality and maintenance of homes and value for money.
“Our financial analysis showed landlords and tenants continue to access competitive borrowing rates. This is really important for investment in homes and services in Scotland.”
“We engaged with landlords and intervened, where we needed to, to safeguard and promote the interests of tenants and service users and the good reputation of social landlords.
“Our work on housing people who are homeless in Glasgow highlighted important lessons for all Scottish social landlords. We will continue to have a strong focus on this and will be contributing to the Scottish Government’s homelessness action plan.
“We focussed on site standards for Gypsy/Travellers during the year and this will continue to be a priority for us.”
“We welcomed new board members and said goodbye to others as their terms came to end. And, in April, we launched a new Regulatory Framework. Thank you to all of the landlords, tenants and others who helped shape this. We look forward to working with all of our stakeholders to continue to embed this over the coming year.”
Notes to editors
1. 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 eight Board members. More information about the Regulator can be found on its website at www.scottishhousingregulator.gov.uk
2. SHR sets out how it regulates social landlords in its published framework – Regulation of Social Housing in Scotland.