On 16^th September 2024, the Scottish Housing Regulator issued a consultation document with the proposed specific indicators on tenant and resident safety and for the appropriate monitoring of the effectiveness of landlords’ approach to managing reports and instances of damp and mould. SHR also invited views on the continuing appropriateness of existing ARC indicators.

A summary of the changes that the Regulator is proposing to make to the ARC, along with a full list of the indicators and the changes being proposed, is available on their website; also provided is a version of the Technical Guidance with the SHR proposals shown in tracked changes.

View the summary on the SHR website here.

We have summarised the tenant and resident safety elements here:

SHR propose to continue to collect the following:

Indicator 11: How many times in the reporting year did you not meet your statutory obligations to complete a gas safety check within 12 months of a gas appliance being fitted or its last check?

SHR also proposes to collect the following NEW indicators;

Electrical Safety: How many times in the reporting year did you not meet the requirement to complete an electrical safety inspection (EICR) within five years of the last EICR?

This is proposed in order to measure any incidences where landlords do not meet the requirement set out in the Tolerable Standard to carry out an EICR within five years of the last EICR. Landlords will be asked to provide a reason/s for any such incidences.

Fire Safety: Number of homes that do not have ‘satisfactory equipment for detecting fire and giving warning in the event of fire or suspected fire’ installed at the year end.

This is proposed to measure how many homes do not meet the requirement set out in the Tolerable Standard to install satisfactory smoke and heat alarms. Landlords will be asked to provide a reason/s for any such incidences.

Damp & Mould

Issues of damp and mould continue to be an important area of concern for tenants. Most social homes in Scotland are of good quality, but where issues with damp and mould arise, it is important that they are dealt with effectively and quickly. Landlords will want to make sure they understand the prevalence of these issues across their stock and the reasons for this. The root cause of damp and mould can vary and in some cases can be complex. But regardless of the causes, mould spores can pose a danger to heath, especially for young children, older people or people with existing skin and respiratory conditions or weaker immune systems. So it is important that landlords have assurance that they are dealing with any reported cases of damp and mould quickly and effectively.

SHR propose three new indicators on damp and mould:

• Average length of time taken to resolve cases of damp and/or mould;
• Percentage of resolved cases of damp and/or mould that were reopened; and
• Number of open cases of damp and/or mould at the year end.

This would mean landlords reporting on the following:

• Number of cases of damp and/or mould that were resolved within the reporting year
• Number of resolved cases of damp and/or mould that were reopened (within 12 months)
• Total number of working days to resolve cases of damp and/or mould
• Number of open cases of damp and/or mould as at 31 March each year.

SHR aim to confirm the revised ARC indicators by January 2025 with the new ARC being in place for collection year 2025/26.

The Scottish Housing Regulator would welcome general feedback on their proposals as well as answers to the specific questions that they have raised. You can read the consultation paper online or download the full consultation package including the annexes by clicking the link above.

As part of the development process for the new BSI standard, BS 8674 Built environment – framework for competence of individual fire risk assessors – Code of practice, the completed draft has now been opened to the public for further comment.

With a remit to give recommendations for competence criteria to be met by individuals undertaking general fire risk assessments in occupied buildings, BS 8674 is based upon the work done in the Fire Sector Federation’s approved code of practice for fire risk assessors, and on the recommendations and competence criteria set out in BS 8670-1.

Read more via the FPA website.

For details of the draft and to add comments, visit the BSI website.

The Scottish Housing Regulator has published the findings from its thematic review of how social landlords assure themselves about their compliance with regulatory requirements, and how this helps them to inform their Annual Assurance Statements.

All social landlords are required to submit an Annual Assurance Statement to the Scottish Housing Regulator by the end of October each year about their compliance with regulatory requirements.

The Regulator visited 13 landlords to explore how they assured themselves they complied with regulatory requirements and their approach to preparing the Statement. The visits had a particular focus on how landlords assured themselves about meeting their tenant and resident safety duties, and for Registered Social Landlords (RSLs), how the Governing Body is assured on its approach to financial planning and the assumptions which underpin the RSL’s financial plans. and the review here.

You can read the news article here and the review here.

Scotland’s first high-rise building has seen its combustible cladding replaced as part of the Scottish government’s cladding remediation scheme.

Aurora Apartments, a nine-storey building in Aberdeen, has completed its remediation work to remove dangerous cladding as part of a pilot scheme set up by the Scottish government following the Grenfell Tower fire in 2017.

As reported by the Fire Industry Association, the building was identified as one of a number of ‘high priority’ buildings requiring remediation work under the government’s Single Building Assessment (SBA) scheme.

As part of the remedial work, combustible wall cladding and insulation were removed and replaced with non-combustible alternatives. According to the Herald Scotland, an “extensive” survey of the building was carried out, including using a drone for laser scanning.

You can read the full article here.

Updated Regulatory Framework & Statutory Guidance

The Scottish Housing Regular (SHR) Has recently published a raft of guidance and information for landlords, including the updated Regulatory Framework and statutory guidance which went live from 1 April 2024.

The Regulatory Framework sets out how the SHR regulates Registered Social Landlords (RSLs) and the housing and homelessness services provided by local authorities. All of the requirements are based in the powers given to the SHR in The Housing (Scotland) Act 2010.

The updated framework can be found here.

Statutory Guidance

Each year RSLs are required to tell SHR if they meet the Regulatory Standards and Requirements. The guidance has been updated, in line with the updated Framework, and explains how they should prepare their statement and submit it.

Social landlords must submit to us an Annual Assurance Statement providing assurance that their organisation complies with the relevant requirements of section 3 of the Regulatory Framework. This includes regulatory requirements that apply to all social landlords and the Standards of Governance and Financial Management that apply to Registered Social Landlords (RSLs)

The updated guidance can be found here.

Notifiable Events

As the Regulators approach to regulation is risk-based and proportionate, they will only gather information that they need to regulate effectively. Therefore, RSLs are required to tell SHR about certain events as quickly as possible as well as complying with their wider statutory duties including those duties which are set out in the Housing (Scotland) Act 2010.

SHR are interested in events which may put at risk:

• the interests or safety of tenants, people who are homeless and other service users;
• the financial health of the RSL, public investment in the RSL, or the confidence of private lenders; or
• the good governance and reputation of an individual RSL or the RSL sector.

The Housing (Scotland) Act 2010 requires that RSLs notify SHR about certain disposals of land and assets, and constitutional and organisational changes and therefore, they should not assume that notifying the SHR about various events necessarily means that the RSL has performance issues.

In complying with the updated statutory guidance, RSLs will meet the regulatory requirements in chapter 3 of the Regulatory Framework and their obligations under the 2010 Act.

SHR risk assessment of social landlords: summary outcomes – April 2024

The annual risk assessment is one of the principal ways in which the SHR carries out their statutory functions including how they plan the engagement they need with social landlords.

SHR set out their approach and the risks that they would focus on in their annual risk assessment in ‘The risks we will focus on’ published information in November 2023.

You can read a summary of the outcomes of the SHR annual risk assessment and work with social landlords, including the main risks and challenges that the SHR will engage with social landlords on during 2024 to 2025 here.

RSH’s reshaped consumer regulation will begin from 1 April 2024.

RSH have developed a new integrated approach to social housing regulation by listening to the views of tenants, landlords and other stakeholders, building on the strengths of what they do currently, and by extensively testing and piloting new tools.

You can read more here.

This page groups together a number of pages, which set out RSH’s role and approach to regulating landlords, including guidance on how they use and intend to use their powers, along with their Inspection plan.

You can access the page here.

Information around how to safely purchase, charge and use e-bikes and e-scooters has been published by the government to improve consumer safety.

Following extensive consultation with industry, guidance on battery safety for both e-scooters and e-bikes will raise awareness for owners on how to safely purchase an e-cycle or e-scooter, ensure it meets manufacturing requirements and is only bought from reputable sellers. The documents also cover safe storage and charging, the warning signs for fire risk and how to address them, and how to dispose of batteries responsibly.

The guidance also reminds people that e-scooters cannot be used legally on roads unless they are part of an official rental trial.

The guidance can be found here.