Why we are engaging with Falkirk Council (Falkirk)
We are engaging with Falkirk about its service quality and tenant and resident safety.
To assess the risk to social landlords we have reviewed and compared the 2024/25 service quality performance of all social landlords. We will engage with Falkirk because its level of rent arrears is one of the highest of all social landlords.
A significant number of Falkirk’s tenants’ homes do not fully comply with electrical safety requirements, which came into force in early 2022 and form part of the Scottish Housing Quality Standard. Falkirk is progressing inspections to provide Electrical Installation Condition Reports in all of its tenants’ homes.
We are engaging with Falkirk to monitor its progress in completing this outstanding work as quickly as possible and maintaining future compliance.
What Falkirk must do
Falkirk must:
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improve its rent arrears performance and tell us when it has delivered the necessary improvements;
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complete the outstanding electrical safety work as quickly as possible; and
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send us monthly updates on progress on achieving compliance with electrical safety requirements. Each update should include the latest projected timescale for achieving full compliance.
What we will do
We will:
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review the information that Falkirk provides about its improvements to its rent arrears performance and engage as necessary;
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review Falkirk’s progress with its plan to achieve and maintain compliance with electrical safety requirements and engage as necessary; and
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update our published engagement plan in the light of any material change to our planned engagement with insert name of landlord.
Regulatory Returns
Falkirk must provide us with the following annual regulatory returns:
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Annual Assurance Statement; and
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Annual Return on the Charter.
It should also notify us of any material changes to its Annual Assurance Statement, and any tenant and resident safety matter which has been reported to or is being investigated by the Health and Safety Executive or reports from regulatory or statutory authorities or insurance providers, relating to safety concerns.