RSH Chair urges social housing landlords to focus on their fundamental role
RSH Chair urges landlords to focus on their fundamental roles: to provide safe, well-maintained homes for their tenants and provide more homes for those who need them.
Bernadette Conroy, Chair of the Regulator of Social Housing, today (1 December 2022) used her keynote speech at the Social Housing Annual Conference to urge social housing landlords to focus on their two fundamental roles: to provide safe, well-maintained homes for their tenants; and provide more social homes for people who need them.
Bernadette Conroy said that the tragic case of Awaab Ishak emphasises the need for landlords to:
- Listen to their tenants’ concerns and take appropriate action
- Understand and take account of tenants’ diverse needs
- Have an up to date and detailed understanding of the condition of tenants’ homes, and
- Remove unnecessary barriers that tenants may have in accessing services and being heard
The speech also highlighted the very challenging economic backdrop in which social landlords are operating. This includes high inflation, labour and material shortages, increased borrowing costs and the new rent cap. Bernadette Conroy said: “your Boards face a series of very difficult trade-offs in delivering your organisational objectives, because you must maintain your financial viability, provide quality services and keep tenants safe. It is essential that you continue to carry out robust stress testing to assess the impact of a range of severe and multiple scenarios and plan your risk mitigation strategies”.
Bernadette Conroy also pointed to the crucial role the sector plays in helping to alleviate the country’s housing shortage, by investing in much needed new homes. She added: “this makes you guardians of a really valuable asset, both in financial terms and to the public more generally. Your activities and investment priorities need to reflect the issues this raises”.
Bernadette Conroy concluded her speech by saying: “the [regulator’s] consumer standards and the economic standards are two sides of the same coin. It is only by meeting them both that you will be able to deliver on your fundamental purpose…to provide safe, well-maintained homes for tenants and to provide more homes for those in housing need”.
ENDS
Notes to editors
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A full version of Bernadette Conroy’s speech is available on the RSH website.
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The speech follows a letter sent by the regulator on 22 November 2022 to all registered providers of social housing to highlight landlords’ responsibility to take action to protect tenants from hazardous damp and mould. Housing association and local authority landlords will need to submit evidence to the regulator to demonstrate that they have systems in place to deal with damp and mould in their homes.
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For press office contact details, see our media enquiries page. For general queries, please email enquiries@rsh.gov.uk or call 0300 124 5225.
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The Regulator of Social Housing promotes a viable, efficient and well-governed social housing sector able to deliver homes that meet a range of needs. It does this by undertaking robust economic regulation focusing on governance, financial viability and value for money that maintains lender confidence and protects the taxpayer. It also sets consumer standards and may take action if these standards are breached and there is a significant risk of serious detriment to tenants or potential tenants.