Housing performance

Scottish Social Housing Charter (SSHC)

The SHR are the independent regulator of RSLs and local authority housing services in Scotland and were established on 1 April 2011 under the Housing (Scotland) Act 2010.

The regulator has one statutory objective, to: "safeguard and promote the interests of current and future tenants of social landlords, people who are or may become homeless, and people who use housing services provided by registered social landlords (RSLs) and local authorities".

The SHR regulate social landlords to protect the interests of people who receive services from them and do this by assessing and reporting on:

how social landlords are performing their housing services
RSLs' financial well-being
RSLs' standards of governance

The Scottish Housing Regulator has produced a handy guide for Tenants and Service Users - How we regulate: a guide for tenants and service users. The short, summary guide lets people know more about the Scottish Housing Regulator:

who they are and what they do,
what you can expect from your landlord,
how you can find out about your landlord's performance; and
how to raise a concern about your landlord

You can find out more about the SHR online at www.scottishhousingregulator.gov.uk

Annual Return on the Charter (ARC)

From April 2013 all social landlords are required to collect and provide the Scottish Housing Regulator (SHR) with key information on their performance in achieving the outcomes and standards in the Charter. The SHR will use the landlords' ARC to report publicly on their progress in achieving the Charter outcomes and standards and use this information to inform their regulatory assessments.

Scottish Housing Regulator (SHR) Landlords Report

Each year the SHR will publish a range of accessible information to allow tenants, homeless people, other service users, other landlords, funders and policy makers to understand and compare landlords performance in achieving the Charter outcomes and standards. This will help tenants to hold their landlords to account and service users and other groups to understand the performance of social landlords.

Scottish Housing Regulator - New Regulatory Framework - Engagement Plans

In February 2019, the Scottish Housing Regulator published a new Regulatory Framework entitled 'Regulation of Social Housing in Scotland'. This is a statement setting out how SHR will regulate Registered Social Landlords and the housing and homelessness services provided by Councils.

The Regulator now publishes an Engagement Plan for each landlord, this outlines what they will do and the Regulatory returns that South Ayrshire Council must provide.

View the latest Engagement Plan for South Ayrshire Council

Annual Assurance Statement

As part of the new Regulatory Framework, we must consider the standards and outcomes for tenants, people who are homeless and others who use our services. Each year we must assess its performance and provide an update to the Scottish Housing Regulator, giving assurance against the following:

the regulatory requirements set out in Chapter 3 of the Regulatory Framework
all relevant standards and outcomes in the Scottish Social Housing Charter
all relevant legislative duties

Each year our Leadership Panel will consider the evidence to support the level of assurance against each of the requirements.

Performance reports

The content and design of our annual performance newsletter has been developed in consultation with involved tenants.

We have retained the same format as our previous performance report due to the positive feedback received through a survey included within the report last year.

The report is largely based on our Annual Return on the Charter (ARC) and also includes some additional information you would like to see reported to all tenants.

Significant Performance Failures: information for tenants of social landlords

If you are a tenant of a registered social landlord (RSL), such as a housing association or co-operative, or if you are a council tenant, you can report a significant performance failure (SPF) to the Scottish Housing Regulator. A group of tenants or an individual acting on behalf of tenants, such as a representative of a registered tenants' organisation, can also report an SPF. An SPF is not an individual tenant complaint about services. If you have a complaint, for example if you are unhappy about how your landlord carried out repairs to your own home, then you should raise this directly with your landlord through its complaints procedure. Provide feedback

More information for tenants is provided within the Significant Performance Failures Information for tenants of social Landlords Leaflet (PDF) [602KB]

An SPF is where a landlord:

consistently and repeatedly fails to achieve outcomes in the Scottish Social Housing Charter or outcomes agreed locally with tenants; or
has not reported its performance annually to its tenants or the annual reported performance does not reflect actual performance; or
has materially failed to meet the Standards of Governance and Financial Management; and
has acted, or failed to take action, in a way which puts tenants' interests at risk and this significantly affects a number of the landlord's tenants.

Examples

An SPF could happen where a landlord is:

consistently not doing repairs when it should
not allowing tenants to apply for another house
putting tenants' safety at risk, for example because it is not doing gas safety checks when it should
not helping tenants to report anti-social behaviour

You can find out more about the Scottish Housing Regulator atwww.housingregulator.gov.scot