Research and analysis

RSH statistics - user engagement statement (accessible version)

Published 27 January 2023

Applies to England

Introduction

This document describes the approach of the Regulator of Social Housing for consulting with and informing users of our published statistics.

RSH publishes an annual statistical release of data and documents providing information on the social housing sector in England. This includes information on housing stock and rents for registered providers of social housing, both private and local authority.

Understanding the needs of the full range of users of these statistics is an important part of our statistical production and reflects our commitment to the Code of Practice for Statistics.

Although our statistical data is primarily collected for the purpose of regulating the social housing sector, the data is published annually, and we recognise the contribution that users can bring to improving our published material. We consult with users to seek their feedback and ideas, to ensure that our publication is based on a range of user priorities, and we inform users of our plans and activity to ensure that we are being transparent in our approach.

Statistical plans

We publish information about any planned changes to our scheduled statistical outputs on our website.

We invite comments on our plans and consider feedback received from all users, internal and external, on our work throughout the year to ensure that our work takes this into account.

User feedback

We recognise that users can provide useful contributions that can help to improve our statistical output. Users are invited to provide feedback on the presentation, usability, and content of our statistics.

We aim to make it easy for users to express views by providing opportunities to feedback on all published documents. A contact email for each statistical product and web page is provided in a clear location and each document contains embedded instant feedback buttons.

We will inform users when we have made changes to our statistical products as a result of user suggestions, and we continually seek to improve the ways in which we enable users to provide feedback.

User groups

We consult with users across a variety of organisations where these are known as key users of our published statistics.

Known key user categories include colleagues in associated government departments, such as the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities as well as internal regulatory team members who rely on our statistical work. Along with these, colleagues across the social housing sector from private and local authority providers are also consulted.

We also aim to build relationships with any organisations or individuals that can reasonably be identified as being users of our statistical work, such as sector specific consultancies or journalistic publications.

We will continually seek ways to develop better relationships with the users of our statistics going forward.

Consultations

We use more formal and focussed consultations on particular topics to ensure that we are seeking user views in a systematic, evidence-based manner. For example, during late 2021 and early 2022, we consulted with users on our proposal to change the method of calculating a statistic based on data collected through the Local Authority Data Return.

The results of all consultations relating to statistics are published on our website.

Training

We are committed to continuously improving the way in which we work with and understand the interests of our users. We endeavour to ensure that team members involved with the collection and publication of our statistics have the opportunity to engage in training that will benefit this objective.

Any enquiries regarding this publication should be sent to us via enquiries@rsh.gov.uk or call 0300 124 5225.