SFHA is liaising with the Scottish Housing Regulator (SHR) and the Scottish Government as the situation regarding coronavirus develops and will update members accordingly. SFHA will issue a message to member chief executives today. SHR has issued the following message to RSLs.

The Scottish Housing Regulator has written to all social landlords to highlight how to access advice on Coronavirus Covid-19 and to advise landlords on business continuity issues.

SHR said that landlords need to be aware of, and have regard to, the latest advice from government, the NHS and the Chief Medical Officer. The position is changing on a daily basis, and, therefore, it is important to check that advice regularly.

The Scottish Government’s advice can be found here: www.gov.scot/coronavirus-covid-19/

Public health advice can be found at: Coronavirus (COVID-19) on NHS Inform.

For the latest advice and information from the UK Government go to gov.uk/coronavirus. 

Health Protection Scotland provides general advice on protecting people from the virus at: www.hps.scot.nhs.uk/a-to-z-of-topics/wuhan-novel-coronavirus/

The latest travel advice is available here: gov.uk/guidance/travel-advice-novel-coronavirus.

The regulator has advised all social landlords to ensure that their business continuity/resilience plan is up to date and accessible to all who may need it. It has advised that landlords should prepare to maintain a record of any instances where service cannot be delivered because of Coronavirus Covid-19, for example, where a tenant cannot give access to their home/attend its office because he or she is self-isolating. 

The regulator has advised social landlords to notify it of any significant service disruption or financial impact as a consequence of Coronavirus Covid-19.

The regulator will monitor the impact of Coronavirus-Covid-19 on social landlords and will report any significant impact to the Scottish Government. It will take account of the impact of Coronavirus Covid-19 reported by a landlord when it assesses the landlord’s performance in the annual risk assessment.