Since April 2019, social landlords in Scotland have a statutory obligation to produce an Annual Assurance Statement relating to the previous financial year by 31 October each year.

The statements, which are readily available to the council’s tenants, are presented to committee and signed by the convener of housing and regeneration prior to submission to the regulator.

These are in place to ensure landlords are responsible and accountable for delivering positive outcomes and services for tenants and service users in areas including homelessness, complaint management and tenant and resident safety.

Signing the Assurance Statement on behalf of the Housing and Regeneration Committee, convener, Councillor Heather Brannan-McVey, said: “This statement reaffirms our commitment to all of our service users and is one we intend to fulfil at all levels. As the largest local authority landlord in Scotland, we absolutely recognise the importance of complying with all the necessary regulations and standards that our tenants rightly expect to receive from their landlord.

“To ensure compliance is met we have robust and effective processes and mechanisms in place. We will continue to monitor, review and update these, if required, on an ongoing basis to support our tenants and ensure we continue to deliver first-class housing services.”

An update was also provided on the plans we have in place to allow the council to effectively approach collecting equalities data and how we are adopting a human rights approach in its work.

This year, the council highlighted one issue to the regulator. The covid pandemic impacted on landlords and local communities, and we were unable to gain access to carry out a gas safety check in one of the council homes within the timescale.