Scottish Social Housing Charter: consultation analysis

Introduction

Background

1. The Housing (Scotland) Act 2010 (The Act) introduced the Scottish Social Housing Charter (the Charter). This focuses on improving the quality and value of services provided by social landlords across Scotland and sets the standards and outcomes social housing landlords should be achieving for their tenants and other customers. The standards and outcomes do not add any new duties on social landlords; rather they describe what a good social landlord should be achieving for its tenants and other customers. Specifically, the Charter:

• Gives tenants, homeless people and other customers a clear understanding of what they should expect from a social landlord.
• Gives landlords a clear understanding of what they should be delivering via their housing activities.
• Provides the basis for the Scottish Housing Regulator (SHR) to monitor, assess and report on the performance of social landlords, and if necessary to request compliance with the Charter, and, through the Regulator's reports.
• Gives landlords the information they need to achieve continuous improvements in their performance and in the value for money they provide.
• Gives tenants and other customers information on how their landlord is performing in relation to other landlords, so that they can actively engage with their landlord in discussions about performance.

2. The Scottish Housing Regulator (SHR) monitors and reports on landlord performance against the Charter. In May each year, all social housing landlords are required to submit an Annual Return on the Charter (ARC) to the SHR. This is used by SHR to make its assessment.

Background to the consultation

3. The Scottish Government (SG) has given a commitment to review the Charter every five years; it was last reviewed in 2017 and is currently undergoing a further review, with the aim of implementing the revised Charter in 2022. Since the 2017 review, the SG has already identified some changes that are required to reflect new legislation, standards and new business ways of working developed during the pandemic. These include, virtual engagement and digital connectivity and the new milestone for improving energy efficiency of social housing, EESSH2.

4. As part of the current review, the SG launched a consultation in June 2021. A series of virtual stakeholder consultation events were held, facilitated by TPAS (Tenant Participation and Advisory Service) and TIS (Tenants Information Service), for tenants, tenant and resident group representatives, Local Authority landlords, councillors, Registered Social Landlord (RSL) governing body members and anyone with an interest in the Charter. Additionally, a series of "Involving All" tailored virtual consultations were also undertaken among remote, rural and island tenants and landlords, younger people, people with support needs, gypsy travellers and homeless people. The views gathered across this consultation and associated discussions are outlined in this report and will feed into the development of the revised Charter.

Consultation responses

5. In total, there were 86 responses to the consultation, of which 52^[1] were from organisations and 34 from individuals.

6. Respondents were assigned to respondent groupings in order to enable analysis of any differences or commonalities across or within the various different types of organisations and individuals that responded. Table 2 shows the number of respondents in each organisational category.

7. A list of all those organisations that submitted a response to the consultation and agreed to have their name published is included in Appendix 1.

Methodology

8. Responses to the consultation were submitted using the Scottish Government consultation platform Citizen Space or by email; most respondents submitted their views via Citizen Space. Where responses were submitted in email or hard copy, these were entered manually onto the Citizen Space system to create a complete database of responses.

9. TPAS and TIS produced two reports outlining the findings from the events and consultation activities they facilitated. Reports from these events and consultation activities have been incorporated into this consultation report at the relevant questions. In most instances, the issues brought up during events and activities mirrored those raised by individuals and organisations who responded to the consultation; where this is the case, they have not been reported on separately. Where new issues were raised in events or consultation activities, these have been referred to in the relevant section of this report.

10. It should be borne in mind that the number responding at each question is not always the same as the number presented in the respondent group table. This is because not all respondents addressed all questions. This report indicates the number of respondents who commented at each question.

11. Some of the consultation questions were closed with specific options to choose from. Where respondents did not follow the questions but mentioned clearly within their text that they supported one of the options, these have been included in the relevant counts.

12. The researchers examined all comments made by respondents and noted the range of issues mentioned in responses, including reasons for opinions, specific examples or explanations, alternative suggestions or other comments. Grouping these issues together into similar themes allowed the researchers to identify whether any particular theme was specific to any particular respondent group or groups.

13. When considering group differences however, it must also be recognised that where a specific opinion has been identified in relation to a particular group or groups, this does not indicate that other groups did not share this opinion, but rather that they simply did not comment on that particular point.

Analysis of responses

14. The analysis of responses is presented in the following chapters which follow the order of the questions raised in the consultation paper. While the consultation gave all who wished to comment an opportunity to do so, given the self-selecting nature of this type of exercise, any figures quoted here cannot be extrapolated to a wider population outwith the respondent sample.

15. The Citizen Space database was exported to an Excel working database for detailed analysis. Where respondents requested anonymity and / or confidentiality, their views have been taken into account in the analysis but quotations have not been taken from their responses. Quotations have been included where they illustrate a point of view clearly and have been selected across the range of respondent sub-groups.