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Scottish regulator issues updated advice on annual assurance statements following pandemic
New advice has been published for Scottish social landlords as they prepare to submit their latest annual assurance statements (AAS).
In a letter sent to social landlords last week, the Scottish Housing Regulator (SHR) said that landlords should distinguish between non-compliance caused as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic from non-compliance caused by other reasons in their annual statements.
This is because “it is important that the AAS reflects the context that landlords have to operate in”, the regulator said.
Since 2019 social landlords in Scotland have had to submit an AAS to the regulator.
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Within the AAS landlords will either ensure the regulator they are fully compliant with regulatory standards or self-identify any areas of non-compliance.
In last week’s letter, the regulator also asked landlords to provide the SHR with assurance “that they have appropriate plans to implement an effective approach to the collection of equalities information and that they have started to consider how they can adopt a human rights approach in their work”.
The SHR said it had anticipated that guidance on equalities data collection would be available to landlords by now, but that the production of this guidance had been slowed as a result of the pandemic.
It said it is continuing to work with the Scottish Federation of Housing Associations, Glasgow and West of Scotland Forum of Housing Associations, and the Associations of Local Authority Chief Housing Officers to produce the guidance, which it now expects to publish this summer.
Social landlords have until 31 October to submit their annual assurance statements.
