About Us
Who we are
The Regulator of Social Housing regulates for a viable, efficient and well governed social housing sector, able to deliver good quality homes and services for current and future tenants.
We do this by setting standards and carrying out robust regulation, with a focus on driving improvement across social landlords, including local authorities and housing associations. Our role is to ensure providers are well governed, financially viable and delivering value for money, and to take proportionate action where outcomes fall short of the standards set.
From 1 April 2024, following an expansion of our powers, we have begun carrying out regulatory inspections of social landlords.
Our role and fundamental objectives
Our objectives are set out in the Housing and Regeneration Act 2008, which provides the framework for how we regulate social housing in England.
Social housing covers low cost rental and low cost home ownership, such as affordable rent and shared ownership. Registered providers span local authority landlords and private registered providers, including not for profit housing associations, co operatives and for profit organisations.
We regulate registered providers with a focus on governance, financial viability and value for money, supporting lender confidence and protecting the taxpayer. We also set and oversee standards covering neighbourhoods, safety, transparency, influence, accountability and tenancies, and act where there is a significant risk to tenants or potential tenants.
Consumer Objectives
Support the provision of social housing that is well managed, safe, energy efficient and of appropriate quality.
Provide tenants and prospective tenants of social housing with an appropriate degree of choice and protection.
Enable tenants of social housing to be involved in its management and to hold their landlords to account.
Require registered providers to act in a transparent manner in relation to their tenants of social housing.
Encourage registered providers to contribute to the environmental, social and economic well being of the areas in which the housing is situated.
Economic Objectives
Ensure that providers of social housing, who are registered with us, are financially viable and properly managed and perform their functions efficiently, effectively and economically.
Support provision of social housing sufficient to meet reasonable demands (including by encouraging and promoting private investment in social housing.
Ensure that value for money is obtained from public investment in housing.
Avoid the imposition of an unreasonable burden (directly or indirectly) on public funds.
Guard against the misuse of public funds.
Our strategic objectives
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Deliver improved outcomes for current and future tenants of social housing through our robust regulation of registered providers
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Maintain stakeholder and investor confidence in social housing by sharing our insight, research and analysis to enable landlords to respond appropriately to sector risks, challenges and opportunities and deliver more quality homes and landlord services
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Inform the development and delivery of effective social housing policy, by working with a range of stakeholders, including tenants and government
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Develop and maintain a diverse, skilled and engaged workforce, by creating an inclusive culture that enables continuous learning and having corporate functions and systems that support and enable effective regulation
Our statutory duty
As part of our role, which is set by Parliament, we have a statutory duty to carry out our work in a way that minimises interference and, as far as is possible, is proportionate, consistent, transparent and accountable. We must also operate within the provisions of the government’s Regulators’ Code.
Our accountability
While the Chair of the RSH Board is accountable to the Secretary of State for the Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government, the Chief Executive, as Accounting Officer, has a separate direct line of accountability to Parliament as well for the discharge of our fundamental objectives.
Our Values
We are professional and collaborative, working together to deliver our objectives
We embrace diversity and are inclusive and supportive in our interactions
We are confident in our roles, doing our job effectively and efficiently
We act with integrity to deliver high-quality work
We are agile and responsive to changes in direction, priorities and ways of working
Equality and Diversity
As a public sector body, RSH complies with certain duties under the Equality Act 2010. This includes the publication of relevant, proportionate equality information to demonstrate compliance with the Public Sector Equality Duty and to promote transparency and accountability in equality performance.
We are also committed to publishing both gender and ethnicity pay gap data alongside our equalities information reports.
The Act also requires all public bodies to publish equality objectives it thinks it should achieve to meet the general equality duty. The general equality duty says that public bodies must, in the exercise of their functions, have due regard to the need to:
eliminate discrimination, harassment, and victimisation
advance equality of opportunity between persons who share a relevant protected characteristic and persons who do not share it
foster good relations between persons who share a relevant protected characteristic and persons who do not share it.
Further to our 4-year review period, we keep the objectives under review if our role changes or if we identify further areas which would benefit from setting equality objectives. We report progress against our objectives annually in our Equality Information Report.
