Impact of new regime to be assessed by research consortium in two-year project
The Regulator of Social Housing (RSH) has launched an evaluation of the impact of consumer regulation changes on tenants and landlords.
RSH has appointed an independent research consortium to carry out the evaluation made up of RAND Europe, Shared Intelligence and the Cambridge Centre for Housing and Planning Research.
The researchers will be contacting a range of landlords, tenants, and other stakeholders to gather views as part of the evaluation, which is expected to take two years to carry out.
The Social Housing Regulation Act 2023 introduced major reforms to the way social landlords are regulated in England.
The reforms which came into effect just over two years ago, in April 2024, introduced a new more robust consumer regulatory role for the regulator and revised standards.
Will Perry, director of strategy at RSH, said: “We want to understand if and how the reforms have led to change for social housing landlords and tenants.
“As well as supporting our accountability to stakeholders, we will take on board learning and insights throughout this evaluation to help inform any future decisions about the way we regulate and ensure RSH continues to provide proportionate, risk based and outcome focused regulation.”
Previously the RSH could usually only intervene on a consumer issue where a ‘serious detriment’ test is passed – placing a high threshold on the regulator’s ability to use its powers.
This test has since 2024 been removed and RSH now carries out inspections of housing associations and councils on a four-year cycle. Providers’ performance is assessed against four revised standards, with new objectives relating to safety, transparency and energy efficiency.
The act also gave RSH the power to set performance improvement plans backed up with penalties for landlords who do not deliver. The RSH has the power to issue unlimited fines, order emergency repairs and access homes at 48 hours’ notice.
The evaluation project’s report is expected to be published in 2028.
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