Guidance

What the Regulator does

We set standards for landlords and seek assurance that they are being met.

Applies to England

We regulate for a viable, efficient, and well governed social housing sector able to deliver quality homes and services for current and future tenants.  Find out about our role and approach to regulation.

Our approach to regulation is driven by our fundamental objectives as set out in the Housing and Regeneration Act 2008. We also have a range of statutory duties that we must consider when doing our job.

Our regulatory standards

We set regulatory standards that define the outcomes that landlords must deliver. These include both the required outcomes and specific expectations we set within each standard.

For more information about these standards: Regulatory standards for landlords

We aim to work with landlords to address relevant failures so that they make self-improvements.  However, we have a range of powers available to us which we may decide it is appropriate to use. Details of these power can be found here.

Publications

The regulator regularly publishes statistics and analysis including the Quarterly survey, Sector Risk Profile, Global Accounts, and the Statistical Data Return. These can be found on the Sector reports page.

The annual Sector risk profile provides a detailed assessment of the current issues facing landlords. Many stakeholders including board members and investors find this document extremely helpful in understanding the operating environment and main risks facing the social housing sector.  

Around the end of year, we also publish the Global accounts of private registered providers and includes extracts of data from their long-term business plans. This publication is designed to give the reader a picture of how the sector is likely to develop over the coming 5 years. 

Unfortunately, from time to time, landlords do encounter problems and the regulator produces booklets that describe the issues and the solutions. The most recent issue was With the benefit of hindsight.

Accountability

While the Chair of the RSH Board is accountable to the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, the Chief Executive, as accounting officer, has a separate direct line of accountability to Parliament as well for the discharge of our fundamental objectives.

See our About us page to read more.

Further information

More information about the standards that landlords must meet, our approach to regulation and our publications can be found below.

Who is registered?

We update our list of landlords registered with us (including Local Authorities) on a monthly basis: Registered providers of social housing

Regulatory standards, procedures and guidance

To find out about what each grading means, what our Standards are, and how we regulate, see the How we regulate page. This includes how we scope and carry out our inspections in the Our approach to inspections.

Regulatory judgements

These can be found on the Regulatory judgements and notices, and gradings under review page.

Published 17 April 2024