Source · Select Committees · Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee
Recommendation 15
15
Accepted
Paragraph: 79
Proactively assess registered providers' reserve use for governance, value for money, and tenant responsiveness.
Recommendation
Social housing providers should involve their tenants in discussions about rent levels. When rent rises are being considered providers should explain to residents why such rises may be necessary. The Regulator should proactively assess how registered providers use their reserves not only as an indication of financial viability, but also as an indication of providers’ governance, value for money and responsiveness to tenants.
Government Response Summary
The government agrees that providers should involve tenants and that the Regulator should assess resource use, stating that existing Value for Money and new consumer standards already cover these aspects through regulatory engagement, published measures, and governance judgements.
Paragraph Reference:
79
Government Response
Accepted
HM Government
Accepted
13. We agree with the committee that the effective use of provider resources is an important element of their governance, value for money and responsiveness for tenants. Landlords must deliver the right outcomes for tenants. It is their responsibility to put in place governance arrangements that will achieve this. The Value for Money Standard requires providers to ensure that optimal benefit is derived from their resources and assets and to optimise economy, efficiency and effectiveness in the delivery of their strategic objectives. Our new consumer standards set out our expectations of meaningful scrutiny by tenants and the provision of information relating to how income is spent. These aspects are all explored thoroughly as part of our regulatory engagement with the sector. 14. The challenging economic climate in which providers are operating, along with greater focus on the quality of their homes and services, makes value for money increasingly important. Providers are required to report each year on their performance against a suite of value for money measures set by the regulator.5 Individual provider information is published by the regulator alongside a report summarising the findings at sector level. Our most recent report highlights how the difficult decisions made by many Boards regarding their strategic priorities have collectively had a significant impact on the sector’s value for money performance.6 We produce a value for money benchmarking tool7 which enables providers to assess their performance against our metrics and have seen evidence of its use by the sector when we do inspections. This work forms part of our continuing activity to help the sector contextualise the performance of individual providers more easily and enabling a wide range of stakeholders, including tenants, to assess their landlord’s performance against the rest of the sector. Where we have concerns about providers meeting the requirements of the Value for Money Standard this is reflected in their published governance judgement.