The Scottish Housing Regulator has published the findings from its thematic review of how social landlords assure themselves about their compliance with regulatory requirements, and how this helps them to inform their Annual Assurance Statements.

All social landlords are required to submit an Annual Assurance Statement to the Scottish Housing Regulator by the end of October each year about their compliance with regulatory requirements.

The Regulator visited 13 landlords to explore how they assured themselves they complied with regulatory requirements and their approach to preparing the Statement. The visits had a particular focus on how landlords assured themselves about meeting their tenant and resident safety duties, and for Registered Social Landlords (RSLs), how the Governing Body is assured on its approach to financial planning and the assumptions which underpin the RSL’s financial plans. and the review here.

You can read the news article here and the review here.

Scotland’s first high-rise building has seen its combustible cladding replaced as part of the Scottish government’s cladding remediation scheme.

Aurora Apartments, a nine-storey building in Aberdeen, has completed its remediation work to remove dangerous cladding as part of a pilot scheme set up by the Scottish government following the Grenfell Tower fire in 2017.

As reported by the Fire Industry Association, the building was identified as one of a number of ‘high priority’ buildings requiring remediation work under the government’s Single Building Assessment (SBA) scheme.

As part of the remedial work, combustible wall cladding and insulation were removed and replaced with non-combustible alternatives. According to the Herald Scotland, an “extensive” survey of the building was carried out, including using a drone for laser scanning.

You can read the full article here.

To support this review, the Regulator has established advisory groups to work with it to consider the current ARC indicators and help it to develop appropriate and meaningful indicators on tenant and resident safety, including new indicators on damp and mould.

The advisory groups will include relevant experts and people from the social housing sector and the first meeting of these groups will take place at the start of May 2024.

The Regulator will use the feedback it received about the ARC indicators during its recent framework review. It also hopes to include the development of appropriate indicators for the Social Housing Net Zero Standard following the conclusion of the Scottish Government’s consultation on the proposed Standard.

The Regulator will consult formally on the revised ARC indicators later this year. The new ARC will take place for collection year 2025/26, and landlords will make the first return under the new indicators in May 2026. The existing ARC will continue until then.

Helen Shaw, director of regulation, said: “The ARC allows landlords to report on how well they are delivering services to their tenants. The membership of the advisory groups is drawn from across the sector, including relevant experts. We look forward to working with the advisory groups as we review the current indicators. We will also ensure that we involve tenants and other service users as we develop the proposed new indicators to ensure the information we collect reflects what is important to them.”

The advisory group members consist of relevant experts and people from the social housing sector.

Read more here and here.

Guidance on regulations

This guidance publication is for anyone who has duties under the Gas Safety (Management) Regulations 1996 (as amended). For example:

• Gas conveyors
• Emergency reporting service providers
• Gas shippers
• Terminal operators

It provides advice and explains regulatory requirements, including changes made under the Gas Safety (Management) (Amendment) Regulations 2023 which came into force on 6 April 2023.

Download your free electronic copy of the guide here.

Information around how to safely purchase, charge and use e-bikes and e-scooters has been published by the government to improve consumer safety.

Following extensive consultation with industry, guidance on battery safety for both e-scooters and e-bikes will raise awareness for owners on how to safely purchase an e-cycle or e-scooter, ensure it meets manufacturing requirements and is only bought from reputable sellers. The documents also cover safe storage and charging, the warning signs for fire risk and how to address them, and how to dispose of batteries responsibly.

The guidance also reminds people that e-scooters cannot be used legally on roads unless they are part of an official rental trial.

The guidance can be found here.

The draft Standard has been developed by a drafting panel under FSH/14 Fire Precautions in Buildings. The methodology in this British Standard is intended to determine the risk-proportionate fire precautions required to protect occupants of housing premises and people in the immediate vicinity of the premises.

This British Standard gives recommendations and corresponding examples of documentation for undertaking, and recording the findings of, fire risk assessments (FRAs) in housing premises and parts of housing premises and is applicable to:

a) houses in multiple occupation;
b) blocks of flats or maisonettes (both purpose-built blocks and houses converted to flats); and
c) specialised housing.

This British Standard is not applicable to a private dwelling, to premises during the construction phase, before the building is used as housing, but it is applicable to vacant premises. It is also, not applicable to premises used solely for short-term letting (e.g. of flats), peer-to-peer rented accommodation nor to non‑domestic premises or residential care homes.

All details can be found on the British Standards website and you can read the document and comment / respond from there accordingly (you may need to register).

HSE has launched a new campaign to highlight the risk of asbestos in buildings and raise awareness of the legal duty to manage those risks.

Asbestos can become dangerous when disturbed or damaged. However, people who work in or visit buildings containing asbestos will not be exposed to asbestos if it is properly managed.

HSE’s 'Asbestos – Your Duty' campaign targets those responsible for managing asbestos in the building (dutyholders).

The dutyholder could be the building owner, the landlord for the premises, the business owner, or the person or organisation with clear responsibility for the building's maintenance or repair.

A few simple questions can help identify if you have a legal duty to manage asbestos.

The duty to manage asbestos ensures workers and building users are protected from the risks of exposure to asbestos.

To support dutyholders, HSE recently updated their web pages and provided a range of resources.

Asbestos - where it hides

Asbestos is the greatest cause of work-related deaths in Great Britain. Around 5,000 people die every year from asbestos-related diseases which typically take decades to develop and cannot be cured.

HSE have designed posters and diagrams to raise awareness of asbestos-related health risks. They aim to inform workers of the most common locations asbestos can be found in industrial and residential buildings. Whether you are a worker, building owner, landlord, employer or person responsible for building maintenance, you should be aware of where asbestos is most frequently found in buildings in order to protect yourself and others.

You can view and download these useful diagrams here.

The Scottish Housing Regulator is consulting on proposals for how it regulates social housing in Scotland. It is inviting tenants, landlords and others with an interest in its work to give their views by 15 December.

In its proposals, the Regulator explains how it will continue to safeguard and promote the interests of current and future tenants, people who are homeless and others who use social landlords’ services.

A key proposal would see the Regulator introduce a new provision to its statutory guidance to allow the Regulator to require landlords to provide explicit assurance in the Annual Assurance Statement (AAS) on a specific issue or issues.

The Regulator also proposes changes to strengthen the emphasis in its Regulatory Framework on social landlords listening to tenants and service users, to make it clearer when a social landlord is non-compliant, and to initiate a comprehensive review of the Annual Return on the Charter which it will consult on next year.

The Regulator will use the consultation feedback to develop its final Regulatory Framework and guidance which it will publish in February 2024 and implement on 1 April 2024.

Read the consultation package 

Landlords legal responsibilities – Annual Gas Safety Checks

We are proud to be supporting Gas Safety Week 2023, taking place 11 – 17 September.

Gas Safety Week is an annual safety week to raise awareness of gas safety and the importance of taking care of your gas appliances. It is coordinated by Gas Safe Register, the official list of gas engineers who are legally allowed to work on gas.

Badly fitted and poorly serviced gas appliances can cause gas leaks, fires, explosions, and carbon monoxide (CO) poisoning. CO is a highly poisonous gas that can kill quickly with no warning, as you cannot see it, taste it, or smell it.

Landlords are legally responsible for the safety of their tenants. Landlords must make sure maintenance and annual safety checks on gas appliances are carried out by a Gas Safe registered engineer to ensure their tenants and wider communities stay safe.

If you’re a landlord, you are legally obliged to make sure:

• Gas pipework, appliances and flues provided for tenants are maintained in a safe condition.
• All gas appliances and flues provided for tenants’ use have an annual safety check. Your tenants can report you to the HSE if you don’t provide one, so it’s important to remember! You can set a free email and/or text reminder so you don’t forget, visit StayGasSafe.co.uk.
• A Gas Safety Record is provided to the tenant within 28 days of completing the check or to any new tenant before they move in.
• You keep a copy of the Gas Safety Record until two further checks have taken place.
• Maintenance and annual safety checks are carried out by a qualified Gas Safe registered engineer.
• All gas equipment (including any appliance left by a previous tenant) is safe or otherwise removed before re-letting.

Before any gas work is carried out always check the engineer is qualified to carry out the work that needs doing e.g., natural gas, domestic boiler. You can find this information on the Gas Safe Register website or by checking the back of the engineer’s Gas Safe ID card. Encourage your tenants to also check the card when the engineer arrives at the property, and to be aware of any warning signs that their gas appliance is working incorrectly, such as dark or sooty staining, excess condensation, pilot lights which frequently blow out and and error messages on the appliance’s control panel

For more information and to find or check an engineer visit GasSafeRegister.co.uk.