Housing Regulator publishes outcome of its annual risk assessment

The Scottish Housing Regulator (SHR) recently published the outcome of its annual risk assessment of all social landlords; the main areas it focussed on in its risk assessment this year were homelessness, tenant and resident safety, governance and financial wellbeing and it highlights some of the risks and challenges facing tenants and other service users.

One of the key strategic risk areas, highlighted in the report is tenant and resident safety which not only ensures that tenants live in warm, safe and dry homes but also includes stock quality and how landlords ensure homes are meeting the Scottish Housing Quality Standard (SHQS) alongside their statutory obligations on health and safety.

Gas safety remains an important focus, but consideration to compliance with new requirements in relation to electrical safety testing and the installation of linked heat and smoke detectors is also a key strategic risk.

During their assessment, SHR found that compliance with SHQS fell from 86% in 2020/21 to 72% in 2021/22. In the information submitted by landlords, SHR saw that most of the homes failing or in abeyance from SHQS appear to be because some landlords had yet to fully comply with new requirements on electrical safety inspections and installation of interlinked smoke and heat detectors – even though compliance was due in February 2022. Landlords must fully meet the requirements as a matter of urgency and should further ensure they have accurate data to help with monitoring and reporting compliance.

Damp and mould is in the spotlight and the SHR expects governing bodies and committees to consider the systems that they have in place to ensure that their tenants’ homes are not affected, and they have proactive systems to identify and deal with any reported cases of mould and damp timeously.

Read the full article here.