The Regulator of Social Housing has today (9 September 2025) published a review of its regulatory casework over the last year, since its new inspection programme began on April 1, 2024.
This new annual report covers the key themes from RSH’s governance, financial viability and consumer regulation of social landlords. It provides important learnings for all social landlords – including councils, housing associations and for-profit providers – to help them to deliver more and better homes for tenants.
The report reinforces several important points for landlords. They must
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Have strong governance and manage risk effectively, including by keeping robust data on the safety and quality of tenants’ homes and other key issues.
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Demonstrate that tenants are safe in their homes, with effective oversight from boards and councillors
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Keep up-to-date and comprehensive data on homes and tenants to make the right, evidence-led decisions across all areas of their business.
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Embed tenants’ views into decision making.
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Manage financial viability so they can prioritise efficiency and value for money, maximising resources to invest in current and future homes
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Refer themselves to RSH if they find or suspect a failure to meet our standards.
While RSH’s economic standards do not apply to local authorities (other than the rent standard), the report shows that many of the lessons from RSH’s regulation of governance can also be used by councils to improve outcomes for tenants.
Fiona MacGregor, Chief Executive at RSH, said
“Landlords should carefully consider the insights from today’s report to see how they can improve their ways of working and outcomes for tenants.
“There are early signs that our new proactive approach is already making an impact. We will continue to hold landlords to account to make sure current and future tenants have a safe, decent place to live.”
RSH has published more than 100 regulatory judgements from inspections since the new programme began last April.
Notes to Editors
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On 1 April 2024, RSH introduced new consumer standards and started a proactive inspection programme for landlords with over 1,000 homes. It also continues to review landlords’ information regularly and investigate cases that are referred by tenants and other stakeholders. For more information about RSH’s regulation see our How we regulate page.
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RSH promotes a viable, efficient and well-governed social housing sector able to deliver more and better social homes. It does this by setting standards and carrying out robust regulation focusing on driving improvement in social landlords, including local authorities, and ensuring that housing associations are well-governed, financially viable and offer value for money. It takes appropriate action if the outcomes of the standards are not being delivered.
