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England’s social housing regulator has confirmed its gradings for 25 providers.
Today the Regulator of Social Housing (RSH) issued strapline judgements upholding G1/V1 gradings for 18 landlords.
Among these were 57,000-home Sovereign Housing Association and 52,000-home Anchor Hanover, as well as LiveWest and Vivid Housing, which each have stocks of more than 30,000 homes.
A score of G1/V1 indicates the highest of four possible grades for both governance and financial viability.
Three housing associations had G2/V2 grades confirmed, indicating compliance with governance standards but a need to improve and a requirement to manage “material risks” to viability.
These were Southern Housing Group, which owns more than 28,000 homes, Wandle Housing Association and Abbeyfield Society.
Wandle has avoided a non-compliant grading after being issued a regulatory notice in September for failing to implement fully the 1% rent cut, having already been G2.
Southern was downgraded last April over insufficient business reporting, while supported housing provider Abbeyfield has been G2 since March 2018.
The remaining four providers issued gradings today – Poplar Harca, Origin Housing and Broadland Housing Association and Gloucester City Homes – were all kept at G1/V2.
All 25 judgements follow routine stability checks by the RSH, as opposed to more rigorous in-depth assessments.
In November, the RSH announced that it would publish weekly regulatory judgements for providers which have been subject to a stability check until February, to deal with the high volume of judgements at this time of year.
A full list of providers issued gradings today is below.
G1/V1
Advance Housing and Support
Anchor Hanover
Broadacres Housing Association
Castles & Coasts Housing Association
English Rural Housing Association
LiveWest Homes
Longhurst Group
Magna Housing
NSAH (Alliance Homes)
Plymouth Community Homes
Silva Homes
South Lakes Housing
South Liverpool Homes
Sovereign Housing Association
United Communities
Vivid Housing
West Kent Housing Association
Westward Housing Group
G1/V2
Broadland Housing Association
Gloucester City Homes
Origin Housing
Poplar Harca
G2/V2
Abbeyfield Society
Southern Housing Group
Wandle Housing Association
The Regulator of Social Housing publishes regulatory judgements for all providers owning 1,000 or more social housing homes.
These judgements set out whether the provider is complying with the regulator’s governance and financial viability standards.
The regulator carries out an assessment either through a scheduled in-depth assessment, or reactive engagement (in which the regulator acts following information about a provider).
It then awards the provider a rating from one to four for financial viability (V) and a separate rating from one to four for governance (G).
Providers must score two or higher in both categories to be judged as complying with the standards.
As providers have increasingly taken on more risk to cross-subsidise social and affordable housing delivery through market-facing activity, the regulator has changed a number of associations’ viability ratings from V1 to V2.
The regulator often categorises this kind of regulatory action as ‘regrades’ rather than downgrades. Click here to read more.
Key to ratings:
V1/G1: Compliant
V2/G2: Compliant
V3/G3: Non-compliant and intensive regulatory engagement needed
V4/G4: Non-complaint, serious failures, leading to either intensive regulatory engagement or the use of enforcement powers
Rating straplines in full:
Governance ratings:
G1: The provider meets our governance requirements.
G2: The provider meets our governance requirements but needs to improve some aspects of its governance arrangements to support continued compliance.
G3: The provider does not meet our governance requirements. There are issues of serious regulatory concern and in agreement with us the provider is working to improve its position.
G4: The provider does not meet our governance requirements. There are issues of serious regulatory concern and the provider is subject to regulatory intervention or enforcement action.
Financial viability ratings:
V1: The provider meets our viability requirements and has the financial capacity to deal with a wide range of adverse scenarios.
V2: The provider meets our viability requirements. It has the financial capacity to deal with a reasonable range of adverse scenarios but needs to manage material risks to ensure continued compliance.
V3: The provider does not meet our viability requirements. There are issues of serious regulatory concern and, in agreement with us, the provider is working to improve its position.
V4: The provider does not meet our viability requirements. There are issues of serious regulatory concern and the provider is subject to regulatory intervention or enforcement action.
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