All social landlords are required to submit an Annual Assurance Statement to the Scottish Housing Regulator by the end of October each year about their compliance with regulatory requirements.  

This year, the Regulator visited ten landlords to explore how they assured themselves that they complied with regulatory requirements and how they prepared their Statement. The visits also considered how landlords assured themselves about meeting their tenant and resident safety duties, and for Registered Social Landlords (RSLs), how they monitored and reported to the governing body on compliance with their financial covenants.  

The Regulator found all of the landlords they visited have embedded their self-assurance processes into their annual cycles. It saw evidence of a comprehensive and robust self-assurance process in some of the landlords it visited. In its report on the visits, the Regulator has included recommendations for landlords such as, ensuring all areas of material non-compliance are disclosed in the Statement and considering how they get tenants’ and other service users’ views as part of their assurance framework.  

Helen Shaw, director of regulation, said: “The visits are a great way for us to engage directly with landlords about their self-assurance processes and their experience of producing their Statement. 
 
“Landlords told us that the process for producing the Statement provides RSL governing bodies and local authority committees with assurance about their compliance with regulatory requirements. 
 
“Our thematic review includes examples of what landlords told us worked well for them and it sets out a number of recommendations. We hope this report is helpful to landlords as they develop their approaches to self-assurance and prepare their next Statement.” 

Each year, the Regulator considers each landlord’s Statement as part of its annual risk assessment and publishes the outcomes of this in engagement plans around the end of March.