Source · Select Committees · Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee
Recommendation 18
18
Accepted
Paragraph: 94
New for-profit financing models offer investment potential but require careful and effective regulation.
Conclusion
The for-profit financial models involved in social housing are evolving and can be more complicated than traditional financing models. However, we are optimistic that new financing models have some role to play in generating the investment that the sector as a whole needs, although these new models do need careful and effective regulation.
Government Response Summary
The government agrees on the importance of understanding and scrutinizing the for-profit sector, detailing how it has recruited expert staff, engages with advisors, conducts audits, and has a 2024-25 priority to review knowledge of for-profit providers, thereby addressing the need for careful regulation.
Paragraph Reference:
94
Government Response
Accepted
HM Government
Accepted
We agree with the committee that it is important we ensure that we can understand and scrutinise the for-profit part of the sector. To support this we have recruited staff with experience of banking, financial markets, consultancy, and corporate law/legal structures to for-profit providers and corporate finance in our regulatory engagement, strategy and legal teams and we train and develop our staff. We use a variety of ways to keep our regulation under review including through our audit function. The Government Internal Audit Agency (GIAA) recently carried out an internal audit of our regulation of for-profits which received a substantial assurance rating. We have in our 2024–25 priorities a review of our current knowledge and future development of for-profit providers. As with all our internal audit activity this work was reported to our Audit and Risk Assurance Committee the minutes of which are published on our website.10 We also provide details on our performance in our annual report.