Regulator highlights the performance of social landlords and the challenges they face

The Scottish Housing Regulator today published its National Report on the Scottish Social Housing Charter for 2023/24.

The report shows that social landlords have performed well against the Charter given the ongoing challenges facing them and their tenants, including the cost-of-living crisis and acute issues affecting local authority homelessness services.

The National Report follows early analysis published by the Regulator in July 2024 on empty homes and lettings, as well as on data submitted by Registered Social Landlords (RSLs) on their plans to build new homes. This showed that, despite the lower number of homes becoming available to let, social landlords have increased both the number and percentage of homes they let to people who were homeless.

Today’s report also shows that:

• tenant satisfaction remains high, but satisfaction levels amongst Gypsy/Travellers and factored owners are at their lowest since the introduction of the Charter;
• more homes meet the Scottish Housing Quality Standard than last year; and
• RSLs generally perform better than local authorities across most indicators, including for average re-let time, level of rent arrears and almost all tenant satisfaction indicators.

The Regulator has also published a suite of performance information alongside the National Report including individual landlord reports, an online interactive comparison tool, and all of the statistical information landlords provided under the Charter.

George Walker, chair of the Scottish Housing Regulator said “2023/24 was another tough year for social landlords, their tenants and other service users. Although inflation started to reduce, many households continued to face financial hardship with the ongoing cost-of-living crisis; and landlords were continuing to operate in a complex and difficult context.

“There were – and continue to be – pressures on landlords to manage their priorities including investment in new and existing homes, and those landlords who saw a drop in satisfaction amongst Gypsy/Travellers said that it was because work to upgrade their sites was either ongoing, delayed or was needed.

“During 2023/24 we said that systemic failure is now impacting the delivery of homelessness services in some areas of Scotland, with others at heightened risk. Since then, a national housing emergency has been declared by the Scottish Government, and more local authorities have made similar declarations at a local level. We will continue to engage with every local authority about their homelessness services.”

The Regulator’s national report, landlord reports and comparison tool and all of the statistical information it publishes on landlords performance against the Charter is available on its website www.housingregulator.gov.scot