Regulator publishes new information on Coronavirus impact on Scottish social landlords

Updated

23 November 2020

The Scottish Housing Regulator today published October’s monthly dashboard report. This report is designed to help the Scottish Government and social landlords to understand the continuing impact of the Coronavirus pandemic and to support the work of the Social Housing Resilience Group.

Since April, all social landlords provide the Regulator with a monthly return of a small set of key measures that focus on the main areas of impact on landlords’ operations.

October’s dashboard shows that rent arrears have risen slightly after a drop in September. Beyond the aggregate level, rent arrears for Registered Social Landlords have fallen for the second successive month while arrears for local authorities have risen to their highest level since April after a reduction last month.

The number of people who applied to local authorities as homeless remained stable, with just over 2,900 homeless applications made during both September and October. For the second month in a row there has been a small drop in the number of households in temporary accommodation; where just over 14,100 households remain. Almost 4,900 lets were made in October, which is 2% more than in September; and 40% of the lets made in October were to people who were homeless.

Landlords are due to submit the next monthly return on 7 December.

The Regulator has committed to continue to work closely with the Social Housing Resilience Group to monitor the impact of the pandemic on landlords.

Read the published dashboards and full dataset.

 

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 housingregulator.gov.scot
  2. SHR sets out how it regulates social landlords in its published framework – Regulation of Social Housing in Scotland.

 

Contact

Tracy Davren Communications Manager