Red Tape Risk of Social Housing Charter Must be Avoided

Responding to the launch of the Scottish Government's Social Housing Charter, the SFHA said... it risked creating more red tape for Scotland's housing associations and co-operatives.

The charter lists the outcomes that housing associations and co-operatives will be expected to achieve. The Scottish Housing Regulator will monitor and report on performance against these targets.

The SFHA has highlighted a number of concerns in relation to the proposed Charter.

Mary Taylor, CEO of the SFHA said:

"The Scottish Government's proposed new Social Housing Charter contains some fine aspirations, but risks more red tape for housing associations and co-operatives, at a time when there are already huge financial pressures.

"This risk of more bureaucracy must be avoided at all costs.

"The new Social Housing Charter cannot in any way increase the regulatory burden on housing associations in Scotland. The SFHA is looking at each part of the charter in more depth with our specialist forums in order to assess how they might work in practice. However, it is clear we need early indications from the Scottish Housing Regulator about how it intends to measure performance against the outcomes in the draft charter.

"The Scottish Housing Regulator begins a separate consultation about its future direction on 1st September. It is imperative that the regulator's consultation and the Scottish Government's consultation are joined up, in order to produce an effective and proportionate regulatory system, to allow housing associations and co-operative to continue doing what they do best - providing quality affordable housing and services to communities."

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Visit our website at www.sfha.co.uk

NOTES:

1) The draft Social Housing Charter is available at www.scotland.gov.uk/consultations/current

2) The SFHA was established in 1975 and has around 170 members providing affordable housing and wider community services in Scotland, as well as a further 200 commercial members. The SFHA is owned by its membership and exists to support the work of housing associations and co-operatives in Scotland by providing services, advice and good practice guidance.

3) The SFHA is the voice of the principal builders and managers of new affordable housing for rent in Scotland. Housing Associations own and manage around 40% of the country's affordable rented housing stock, over a quarter of a million homes across Scotland.

4) Housing associations and co-operatives are not-for-profit bodies regulated by the Scottish Housing Regulator.