Decision

Islington and Shoreditch Housing Association Limited (L0457) - Regulatory Judgement: 30 April 2025

Updated 30 April 2025

Applies to England

Our Judgement

	Grade/Judgement	Change	Date of assessment
Consumer		Not assessed yet
Governance	G1 Our judgement is that the landlord meets our governance requirements.	Upgrade	April 2025
Viability	V2 Our judgement is that the landlord 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.	Based on previous assessment	September 2024

Reason for publication

We are publishing a regulatory judgement for Islington and Shoreditch Housing Association Limited (ISHA) to upgrade its governance grading from G2 to G1 and to confirm a financial viability grading of V2.

This regulatory judgement is a result of our responsive engagement that followed a self-referral from ISHA regarding a fraud and completed in April 2025. Our responsive engagement focused on ISHA’s governance arrangements and the elements of ISHA’s control framework that enable it to effectively manage its risks and adequately control the organisation, allowing it to deliver its objectives.

Prior to this regulatory judgement, the governance and financial viability grades for ISHA were last updated in September 2024 following responsive engagement, that resulted in a governance downgrade to G2, and a stability check which confirmed a viability grade of V2.

We have not yet assessed this landlord against the consumer standards.

Summary of the decision

From the evidence and assurance gained through responsive engagement our judgement is that ISHA meets our governance requirements. ISHA has provided evidence to demonstrate that it has strengthened its governance arrangements since it was previously downgraded in September 2024. Based on this assessment, we have concluded a G1 grade for ISHA.

We last reviewed ISHA’s financial viability grading in September 2024 through a stability check review that concluded there was no change to the V2 grading.

How we reached our judgement

Following the governance downgrade, we carried out responsive engagement that focused on ISHA’s risk management and internal controls assurance framework. The responsive engagement completed in April 2025.

Our engagement included reviewing documents and information provided to us by ISHA, along with follow up meetings and discussions with ISHA’s non-executive directors and executive team. This regulatory judgement is based on all the relevant information we obtained during the responsive engagement together with information provided to us by ISHA as part of its regular regulatory reporting.

Based on the stability check that concluded in September 2024, our assessment of ISHA’s viability grade remains V2.  

Summary of findings 

Governance – G1 – April 2025

Based on the evidence gained from our responsive engagement, we have concluded that we have appropriate assurance that ISHA’s governance arrangements enable it to effectively manage its risks and adequately control the organisation, allowing it to deliver its objectives.

ISHA has strengthened its governance and has evidenced that its internal control processes are working more effectively to support the identification, management and mitigation of possible fraud activity. ISHA has made improvements to the oversight and management of fraud risks and the wider control environment, and we have seen evidence that these are effective. There is assurance that ISHA’s governance processes, including its board, provide sufficient oversight of its financial performance and delivery of its strategy.

Overall, we consider that ISHA has provided appropriate assurance that it has sufficiently addressed the governance weaknesses previously identified. Our judgement is that the landlord meets our governance requirements.

Viability – V2 – September 2024

Based on evidence gained from the 2024 stability check review, we have assurance that ISHA’s financial plans are consistent with, and support, its financial strategy.

ISHA has an adequately funded business plan, sufficient security in place, and is forecast to continue to meet its financial covenants. However, it is operating with a low level of financial headroom and is continuing investment in its existing homes including to meet building safety requirements. ISHA also has plans to increase debt to fund the on-going development of new homes. This will mean that ISHA has the capacity to respond to a reasonable range of adverse scenarios, but it will need to manage these material risks.

Background to the judgement

About the landlord

ISHA is an exempt charity registered under the Co-operative and Community Benefit Societies Act 2014. It is a non-profit registered provider of social housing.

ISHA is the only RSH registered entity in the group and has one unregistered subsidiary that is currently dormant. 

ISHA operates in north and east London. It owns and manages around 2,400 social housing homes, the majority are general needs properties, with the remainder including affordable rent, supported housing and Low Cost Home Ownership homes.

At 31 March 2025 ISHA employed 94 employees. ISHA’s turnover for the year to 31 March 2025 was £28.2m. ISHA plans to develop 115 homes between 2025 and 2028.

Our role and regulatory approach

We regulate for a viable, efficient, and well governed social housing sector able to deliver quality homes and services for current and future tenants.

We regulate at the landlord level to drive improvement in how landlords operate. By landlord we mean a registered provider of social housing. These can either be local authorities, or private registered providers (other organisations registered with us such as non-profit housing associations, co-operatives, or profit-making organisations).

We set standards which state outcomes that landlords must deliver. The outcomes of our standards include both the required outcomes and specific expectations we set. Where we find there are significant failures in landlords which we consider to be material to the landlord’s delivery of those outcomes, we hold them to account. Ultimately this provides protection for tenants’ homes and services and achieves better outcomes for current and future tenants. It also contributes to a sustainable sector which can attract strong investment.

We have a different role for regulating local authorities than for other landlords. This is because we have a narrower role for local authorities and the Governance and Financial Viability Standard, and Value for Money Standard do not apply. Further detail on which standards apply to different landlords can be found on our standards page.

We assess the performance of landlords through inspections and by reviewing data that landlords are required to submit to us. In Depth Assessments (IDAs) were one of our previous assessment processes, which are now replaced by our new inspections programme from 1 April 2024. We also respond where there is an issue or a potential issue that may be material to a landlord’s delivery of the outcomes of our standards. We publish regulatory judgements that describe our view of landlords’ performance with our standards. We also publish grades for landlords with more than 1,000 social housing homes.

The Housing Ombudsman deals with individual complaints. When individual complaints are referred to us, we investigate if we consider that the issue may be material to a landlord’s delivery of the outcomes of our standards.

For more information about our approach to regulation, please see Regulating the standards.

Further information

• Regulating the standards

• Regulatory standards for landlords