Find information about

Social Landlords in Scotland need to get the basics right, says Scottish Housing Regulator
Social Landlords in Scotland: Shaping up for improvement


The Scottish Housing Regulator has today published “Social Landlords in Scotland: Shaping up for improvement”, a major publication that reviews and comments on the performance of social landlords over the last five years.

The review concludes that while 53% of the housing services the Regulator has inspected were good or excellent, just under half, serving 320,000 households, were either poor or only adequate.

Scottish Housing Regulator Chief Executive Karen Watt said: “We recognise that there is much strength and good practice amongst Scotland’s social landlords in providing affordable housing. However, over half of tenants are receiving services which are poor or only adequate. Many landlords need to do more to get the basics right and focus on improving services in the future.

“Our recent inspections have found that, overall, homeless people need better services, tenants require explicit standards setting out what they can expect, handling of complaints should improve, rent levels need to be consistent and coherent, and landlords need to base their decisions about improving and developing their housing stock on better information.

“Social landlords house one in four households in Scotland and as such are hugely important to the wellbeing of hundreds of thousands of individuals and communities across the country.

“Our report points to the challenges facing the sector, its contribution to Scotland’s economy and what needs to make it fit for purpose and offer best value for the future.”

In its first major review of the sector, the Housing Regulator reports that:



• While 53% of the housing services the Regulator inspected were good or excellent, just under half, serving 320,000 households, were either poor or only adequate.

• Some landlords need to work harder at getting the basic services right such as speedy day to day repairs, affordable and transparent rents, home improvements, dealing with anti-social behaviour, good customer care including handling complaints and good quality accommodation.

• Tenants value being involved in decisions about the way their services are delivered. But, in terms of priorities, most tell the Regulator that participation is less important than getting a decent home in a safe neighbourhood with good services.

• Landlords do not always set explicit standards with or for their tenants to assist tenants to understand what they can expect and in holding their landlords to account.

• Social housing generates relatively high numbers of complaints to the Scottish Public Services Ombudsman. Landlords could do more to train and empower frontline staff to handle complaints; record complaints properly; and use complaints information to drive improvement.

• Rent levels and structures show little coherence across landlords and even within a landlord. There is often little relationship between the rents tenants pay and the quality of the home, service or location they get.

• Far too many homeless people are not getting good enough services or outcomes. Only four of the 28 inspected local authorities were delivering good or excellent services for homeless households, with seven delivering services the Regulator described as poor overall. Some local authorities with pressured housing markets will face challenges in meeting the Scottish Government’s target of giving all homeless people settled accommodation by 2012.

• Owners that get a factoring services from an RSL or local authority are generally satisfied with the service, although over one third feel they get fairly or very poor value for money. Improvement is needed in communication, information, itemised billing, the cost and apportionment of work carried out, the quality of work and complaint handling.

• Overall, landlords and homelessness authorities need to become much more responsive to their service users, treating people as customers, and placing them at the heart of their work. Landlords need a better grasp of the profile of the people they are housing and understand the way this may be changing.

The Review found that four out of five tenants live in houses that are more than 25 years old and while there is a clear need for more affordable housing, landlords can spend too much time pursuing a small number of new developments rather than focusing on the quality of services and stock for existing tenants.

The Regulator found that landlords need better information about the condition of their houses, costs, and demand to underpin their management and investment decisions and warned that without this some landlords risk not meeting the Scottish Housing Quality Standard by 2015.

Most landlords have started to use modern procurement approaches and better management of supply chains but this is not yet well established.

On finances, the review concluded that the sector overall is relatively stable financially, and many landlords continue to represent good investment opportunities for lenders and good investment partners for public investors. But landlords need to focus more on direction, stewardship, financial viability, business planning and treasury management. They should also explore other sources of debt funding or more strategic approaches to procuring finance if they are to secure adequate amounts of competitively priced loans in future.

On governance, the review found that of the 2,000 volunteer members who serve on RSL governing bodies, many make an excellent contribution but, overall, the quality of governance in the sector is variable.

Notes to Editors:

1. The Scottish Housing Regulator came into operation on 1 April 2008. It is the agency that independently operates the regulation and inspection powers in the Housing (Scotland) Act 2001, to:

• protect the interests of current and future tenants, and other service users;

• ensure the continuing provision of good quality social housing in terms of

decent homes, good services, value for money and financial viability; and

• maintain the confidence of funders.

2. The Scottish Housing Regulator regulates 240 registered social landlords (RSL) and 26 local authority landlords, that in total provide one in four (577,650) homes in Scotland. It also regulates the homelessness functions of local authorities and assesses how well RSLs and local authorities provide factoring services to owners and sites for Gypsies/Travellers.

A copy of the full review Social Landlords in Scotland: Shaping up for improvement is available on the Scottish Housing Regulator’s website (www. scottishhousingregulator.gsi.gov.uk). Please click here to access the report.