Correspondence

CEO letter re 2024/25 RSH data requirements (small providers)

Published 12 March 2024

Applies to England

Dear Chief Executive

2024/25 RSH data requirements

I am writing to you to let you know about the arrangements for data collection in the coming year. Timely and accurate data submission is a cornerstone of the co-regulatory settlement, and we rely on the information you supply us to ensure proportionate and risk-based regulation. I would therefore be grateful if this letter can be passed on to the appropriate person within your organisation.

From April 2024, we will be commencing our annual round of data collection from private registered providers (‘providers’) via the NROSH+ website.

It is essential that guidance notes provided on NROSH+ are reviewed before the completion of the returns on NROSH+. Additionally, we remind you that it is your responsibility to correctly categorise and record stock accurately according to the latest applicable legislation and to ensure you understand and apply the rent rules correctly.

Statistical Data Return

All providers registered with us (including those who own no stock), are required to complete and submit a Statistical Data Return to NROSH+ by 31 May 2024.

We ask that you pay particular attention to the classification of units to ensure they align with the 2020 rent standard and that you give particular focus to your reporting of decent homes non-compliance to ensure that the submitted figures across all questions are an accurate reflection of your stock’s performance against the requirements of the Decent Homes Standard.

We would also like to take this opportunity to remind providers that any properties covered by the Decent Homes Standard which contain one or more hazards assessed as serious (Category 1) under Housing Health and Safety Rating System which have not been rectified are non-compliant with the Decent Homes Standard by default.

Please submit your SDR return as early as possible within the survey period, allowing sufficient time to raise any questions you have regarding your submission.

Fire Safety Remediation Survey

The Fire Safety Remediation Survey is a quarterly survey which the RSH asks all providers to complete. Providers are asked to complete the online survey and upload a spreadsheet containing detailed building level information for the Department of Levelling Up, Housing and Communities.

This spreadsheet is provided within the documents section of the NROSH+ application each quarter and providers must ensure they are completing the correct version. This spreadsheet should then be uploaded as a supporting document to the FRS. We share the data from the FRS with DLUHC, including information on submission statuses and data quality. The building level spreadsheets are supplied to DLUHC as submitted to us.

The next FRS will launch in late March 2024, for completion in the first weeks of April with an as at 31 March 2024 position being reported. The survey will align with standard reporting quarters for 2024/25. The deadline for each quarter will be notified to all providers on, or before, the launch of the survey.

If the FRS is assigned to you, you must complete this. If you are not the responsible entity for any buildings within the scope of the survey (11 metres or more in height or which have five or more storeys) you must confirm this within the survey.

We expect all providers assigned the return to ensure they complete both the FRS and the correct version of the building level spreadsheet in line with the guidance provided. It is essential that providers check the data provided to the FRS and building level spreadsheet match, please see our FAQ on FRS and building level spreadsheet alignment on NROSH+ site for more information.

Please note that this survey will not automatically be allocated to providers who own fewer than 1,000 units of social housing, and who have confirmed to us in a previous FRS submission that they are not the responsible entity for any building of 11 metres or more in height (or which has five or more storeys). Providers must notify us if they subsequently acquire a building which they should report within this survey.

Disposal notifications

A Disposal Notification Form is also available on the NROSH+ site for the collection of information about disposals made by providers. Providers are required to notify us about disposals it has made in line with the Direction on disposal notification. The Direction and supporting guidance sets out the details of what must be notified and the type of information that must be provided.

Please note that the data collections listed above are distinct from other returns you may be required to make, for example to the Housing Ombudsman or to the CORE survey to the Department of Levelling Up, Housing and Communities.

Queries

We aim to respond to all queries within five working days. Please note that queries made to us within five working days of a survey deadline may not receive a response until after the deadline has passed. This may result in submissions which do not meet the survey deadline. Extensions to the deadline will not be granted due to late queries.

As in previous years we will publish a list of all late or missing returns for 2024 when the SDR data is published in the Autumn. Failure to supply quality data in line with the timescales we outline may be reflected in our published regulatory judgements.

During the checking of submissions, we may contact some providers to discuss their data returns before signing them off for further analysis. Subsequently, we may contact a minority of providers where there are any regulatory issues arising from this analysis of the validated data.

User accounts

All providers must ensure that they have at least one active user on the NROSH+ application and that the details for all users are maintained. This includes disabling or deleting users who should no longer have access to the NROSH+ system and to your organisation’s data.

Organisational and contact details

The NROSH+ website requires your organisation to enter and maintain a suite of organisational and contact details. It is the responsibility of each individual provider to ensure that this contact information is kept updated and accurate throughout the year. This is important because we use this information to contact your organisation on regulatory matters.

It is very important that the organisational and contact details in NROSH+ are kept accurate and up to date by your officers. If they are not:

a) your organisation may not receive important information on statutory consultations and/ or regulatory requirements; and/ or

b) correspondence (which may include information about the provider’s business or regulatory compliance) may be sent to the wrong individuals (who in some cases may no longer work for the provider).

Please note that from 1 April 2024 all providers are asked to provide the name and contact details of their Health and Safety lead through the NROSH+ and publish that information. Further details about the requirement can be found here.

We take our duties in relation to data protection seriously, but to do this we rely on providers maintaining their user details and updating their contact information in a timely fashion. Please see our privacy notice on the NROSH+ site for more details.

If you have any queries, please refer to the guidance and FAQs on the NROSH+ website. If further assistance is required, you can contact the referrals and regulatory enquiries team NROSHenquiries@rsh.gov.uk who will assist you with your query.

More information on our information requirements can be found here. This webpage will be updated throughout the year with details of any changes to our data collection requirements.

Yours faithfully,

Will Perry

Director of Strategy