Recommendation 46

We are also uncertain about the argument that any increase in the regulator’s powers would prompt the Office for National Statistics to reclassify the social housing sector as belonging to the public sector and so push its debt on to the government balance sheet. The primary consideration should be the interest of tenants, not where the debts sits. In any case, the sector’s debt is fairly insignificant compared to the overall public debt. We understand that the regulator’s consent powers in respect of mergers was one of the reasons the ONS reclassified the sector in 2015, but it should be possible to give it a stronger role in monitoring mergers that stops short of such a consent power. (Paragraph 184) 76 The Regulation of Social Housing