What changes has the Welsh Government introduced following accepting the research findings of Central Consultancy and Training, who focused on how the interests of all social housing tenants in Wales can be protected and promoted further with more consistency between regulatory and accountability regimes for local authorities and housing associations?
Research to inform the report in question was carried out in early 2020. The research was commissioned as a first step to explore how the regulatory and accountability regimes around tenant services for local authority and housing association regimes might be better aligned. It was intended to be a starting point for discussions with the various stakeholders and recognised that considerable further testing of the research conclusions, as well as policy development and consultation would be required to advance any proposals.
Although now in a different format, to assist tenants with accountability and scrutiny of their landlord’s performance, the publication of performance information to assist with accountability and scrutiny of their landlords has continued. For example, since 2021, the Welsh Government has annually published a Tenant Satisfaction Survey 2024 which provides tenants of local authorities and housing associations with comparable information, submitted from landlords’ own surveys, based on 12 standard questions. Data on the progress social landlords are making in achieving social housing standards (WHQS) is also published. To deliver further improvements, since 2022 the requirement for housing associations to make performance information available to their tenants was made explicit in the Regulatory Standards which all associations must comply with.