About us
We are the independent regulator of social landlords in Scotland.
Our one objective is to safeguard and promote the interests of:
We regulate
Our role is to monitor, assess and report on social landlords’ performance of
housing activities and RSLs’ financial well-being and standards of governance.
We intervene, where we need to, to protect the interests of tenants and service
users.
Our Regulatory Framework explains how we regulate social landlords. It is
available on our website www.scottishhousingregulator.gov.uk
This publication
Each year we carry out an annual assessment of the risks facing all social landlords.
This publication gives information on the outcomes from this year’s annual risk assessment.
It also sets out our reasons for engagement. You can read our individual regulation plans for
each landlord we are engaging with on our website at:
www.scottishhousingregulator.gov.uk/publications/list-regulation-plans-2017
We work with Audit Scotland and other scrutiny bodies through Local Area Networks (LANs)
on a joint approach to scrutiny of local authorities. This publication also explains how we will
engage with local authorities. Audit Scotland will publish Local Scrutiny Plans on its website
after the Scottish Local Government elections in May 2017. We will also make these
available on our website at https://www.scottishhousingregulator.gov.uk/local-scrutinyplans.
Our engagement with RSLs
We monitor, assess and report on the financial well-being, governance and
performance of RSLs through our annual risk assessment.
Where our risk assessment indicates that we need assurance on any part of an
RSL’s financial well-being, governance or performance we will engage with that
RSL.
We have high engagement where we require the most intensive or continuous
regulatory relationship.
We have written to 58 of
these landlords where we
have identified a particular
risk.
We will review progress
when we receive the next
set of returns.
Risk assessment outcomes 2017
1
 We will only publish regulation plans for RSLs that we have high or medium
engagement with.
 Where an RSL has registered subsidiaries, we will publish a single regulation plan
which will include details of our engagement with the subsidiaries.
Our regulation plans are also available on our website @
https://www.scottishhousingregulator.gov.uk/publications/list-regulation-plans-2017
Risk assessment outcomes 2017
2
Principal reasons for our engagement with
RSLs
This year we are planning a modest
increase in the number of RSLs with
which we will be engaging.
We are engaging with more RSLs on
financial issues and governance issues.
Landlords are increasingly complex
businesses and face a range of
challenges arising from welfare reform,
pension funding, covenant compliance,
treasury management, the Scottish
Housing Quality Standard and the
Energy Efficiency Standard for Social
Housing. And with increased
development activity and increased
gearing, we know that RSLs are facing
more risk.
We are therefore engaging with more
RSLs to get additional assurance about
how they are managing this risk. More
RSLs are also diversifying into non-core
areas of business. The ratings
agencies and lenders have made it
clear that diversification may be credit
negative so increased diversification is
an important driver of increased
regulatory engagement.
The figure below summarises the RSLs we will be
engaging with by stock size, and the principal focus
of that engagement.
Risk assessment outcomes 2017
3
Systemically important RSLs
For some RSLs, there are certain characteristics in terms of stock size, turnover, debt and
geographical location that would increase the difficulty for us to fulfil our statutory objective
of protecting tenants and others if the RSL were to experience financial difficulty.
We refer to these RSLs as systemically important. We need to develop and maintain a
detailed understanding of the business plans for these RSLs.
We have identified 22 RSLs as systemically important. This is a slight increase on
previous years because we have reviewed the criteria we use to assess this. We have
included debt per unit and extended the peak debt period. The systemically important
RSLs are detailed in the table below.
Risk assessment outcomes 2017
4
Our engagement with local authorities
During 2017/18 we will engage with 20 of Scotland’s 32 local authorities, one more than
we engaged with during 2016/17. We explain below which local authorities we will engage
with and the reasons for this.
Risk assessment outcomes 2017
5
We will have a more intensive engagement
with Glasgow City Council and Dumfries
and Galloway Council to obtain assurance
about the action they are taking to improve
their homelessness services and outcomes
for homeless people. And we will engage
with Highland Council and Shetland Islands
Council to help us understand aspects of
the quality of their housing services for
tenants as reported to us in their Annual
Return on the Charter (ARC).
*We will engage with some local
authorities for more than one reason.
On going monitoring
This year we will regularly monitor and review the performance of 16 local authorities across
a range of housing service areas where we identified areas of weaker performance in how
the local authority is delivering those services to tenants. For some these local authorities
we will also monitor the performance of services delivered to homeless people and people
threatened with homelessness.
Performance in homelessness services continues to be the main reason for our
engagement with local authorities this year. We will engage with 18 local
authorities on one or more of the following aspects of their homelessness service:




access to services, advice and prevention;
assessment: the decisions a local authority makes on homeless
applications;
outcomes for homeless people; and
the use of temporary accommodation.
Reviewing regulatory engagement
Our annual risk assessment determines the engagement status of each landlord at the start
of each financial year. However, in the course of the year, if circumstances change or where
new information becomes available we will change the engagement status of the landlord.
For RSLs, we may publish a new or revised regulation plan. For local authorities, we will
discuss any new risks with the Local Area Network.
Appendix
We will have medium engagement with the following RSLs
Abbeyfield Scotland Ltd
Albyn Housing Society
ANCHO
Ardenglen Housing
Association Ltd
Argyll Community Housing
Association Ltd
Ark Housing Association
Ltd
Bellsmyre Housing
Association Ltd
Berwickshire Housing
Association Ltd
Bield Housing Association
Ltd
Caledonia Housing
Association Ltd
Castle Rock Edinvar Housing Castlehill Housing
Association Ltd
Association Ltd
Clyde Valley Housing
Association
Craigdale Housing Association
Ltd
Cube Housing Association
Ltd
Cunninghame Housing
Association Ltd
Drumchapel Housing
Association Ltd
Dumfries and Galloway
Housing Partnership
Dunedin Canmore Housing
Ltd
Dunbritton Housing
Association Ltd
The Glasgow Housing
Association Ltd
Fife Housing Association Ltd
Fyne Homes
Hebridean Housing
Partnership Ltd
Grampian Housing
Association Ltd
Hanover (Scotland) Housing
Association Ltd
Home in Scotland Ltd
Hillcrest Housing Association
Ltd
Hjaltland Housing Association
Ltd
Langstane Housing
Association Ltd
Key Housing Association Ltd
Kingdom Housing Association
Ltd
Maryhill Housing
Association Ltd
Link Group Ltd
Linthouse Housing Association
Ltd
Ore Valley Housing
Association Ltd
Next Step Homes Ltd
North Glasgow Housing
Association Ltd
River Clyde Homes
Osprey Housing Ltd
Queens Cross Housing Ltd
Scottish Borders Housing
Association Ltd
Ruchazie Housing
Association Ltd
Sanctuary (Scotland) Housing
Association Ltd
Viewpoint housing
Association
Strathclyde (Camphill)
Housing Association Ltd
Thistle Housing Association
Ltd
West of Scotland Housing
Association
Yoker Housing Association
We will monitor the performance of the following 16 local authorities
Aberdeen City Council
Dundee City Council
East Ayrshire Council
East Dunbartonshire Council
East Lothian Council
East Renfrewshire Council
City of Edinburgh Council
Falkirk Council
Fife Council
Inverclyde Council
Midlothian Council
Orkney Islands Council
Perth and Kinross Council
Scottish Borders Council
South Lanarkshire Council
West Dunbartonshire Council