Chamber and committees

It might be that officials have an extra word to add here. I suspect that some of those questions should be put to the SHR. Parliament sets the legislation that sets out the duties of the independent regulator and the Government can propose changes to that legislation, but we do not instruct the SHR on how to perform its functions, or individual social landlords on how they should achieve the framework’s outcomes. Some questions might be more relevant to the SHR than they are to the Government.

Anne Cook might want to add something.

Obviously, there have been significant issues in the past couple of years, and we are aware that the timescales for repairs have suffered as a result of the pandemic. I think that most people would acknowledge that that has been for understandable practical reasons. As we recover from the pandemic, it will be important to ensure that social landlords do what they can not just to reduce those timescales but to address any backlog.

The regulator, which you will hear from later this month, collects information on timescales. I will be as interested as you are in the on-going reporting of the information that the regulator can present to ensure that we address those issues. However, as I said, it is for the regulator, which is independent of Government, to collect that information and for social landlords to address how they best achieve the outcomes that are set in the charter.

In isolation, that is a very fair point. There is huge value in the services that you are talking about, and I think that that is understood across the sector. One of the issues is that we want the charter to be a clear, comprehensible and easy-to-use document for tenants, not an incredibly high-level detailed policy document that only housing professionals can make use of.

Through the consultation, we were keen to understand what tenants want to see in the charter. A huge range of other options are not necessarily captured in the outcomes, including the services that you are talking about; the detail of how we provide welfare rights and money advice services to tenants; how social landlords who choose to can perform a wider role; and a great many other aspects of the detailed operation of social housing.

We wanted the outcomes and the charter to reflect the priorities of tenants and the document to be expressed in clear language so that it was easy for tenants to use. The absence of specific detail on a particular issue does not reflect its lack of importance but results from our ensuring that the way that we revise and express the charter reflects the priorities of tenants and that the document remains useful to them.

The first review after the charter’s creation was in 2017, and we anticipate another five-year review. I do not imagine that we would need to make any major or comprehensive changes before that review. However, as I have said in relation to several points that have come up, the situation is changing in relation to energy, the net zero targets, decarbonisation and the role of social landlords in achieving that, as well as in relation to the wider landscape of tenants’ rights and the approach to achieving tenure-neutral outcomes between the social and private rented sectors. There will be opportunities to continue to use the charter in that changing context. However, our expectation is to have a further review at the next natural five-year point rather than open it up at a deeper level much sooner than that.

The answer to that question will always be yes. Since its creation, through its review to now, the cohort of tenants will have changed—the people who engaged 10 years ago might not be the tenants who are there today—therefore, our intention is to repeat the approach that we took at the previous review point, in 2017. A series of events were held to promote the charter, which were judged to be quite successful and pretty popular. Our intention is to go through that process again and to develop a publicity strategy to ensure that as many tenants as possible are aware of the charter. That is not just about Government action; it also means encouraging landlords to promote the revised charter in their engagement activities with tenants and other customers.

The intention is that some hard copies will be made available to those who want them. However, over the past couple of years, social landlords—like the rest of us—have recognised that digital means of communication can be really effective. After an initial period of some uncertainty, many social landlords’ tenants found that it was something that they had taken to as well. Many of those digital means of communication will be used very effectively, too.

Yes. As I said, as well as the charter being available online, hard copies of it will be made available to those who need them. I expect the work of the Government, as well as that of individual social landlords, to involve a range of different methods and approaches. To be fair, since the charter was created, and again at its review point, many social landlords have shown a great deal of creativity in broadening engagement effectively in a range of different ways.

It is obviously a little difficult for me to answer a specific question about one social landlord in particular and the experience that a particular tenant has had. What you describe is not a picture that any of us would want to see as the experience that people have in the social rented sector or in any other part of our housing system in Scotland.

The charter, and the operation of the regulator in holding social landlords to account against the outcomes in the charter, is an effective way of ensuring that we continue to raise standards. That is not to say that everything is perfect or that any social landlord cannot continue to improve their practice. They can, and I think that the evidence has shown that they are continuing to do so. It would be wrong for us to rest on our laurels and think that every problem has been fixed and that every social landlord is perfect. The story is one of continuous improvement, and we are committed to ensuring that that continues.

I am not sure that the formal housing standard is provided and I am not sure that that high-level, detailed information would be the most effective information to give to tenants. However, it is reasonable to ask how we can ensure that the right kind of information is given to tenants about the standards that are expected. In many ways, that is the purpose of the charter—to convey in clear and comprehensible language, rather than the language of, as I said earlier, a housing policy professional, the standards and outcomes that people should be able to expect from their housing.

I am very committed to continually improving the tenant voice in both the social and the private rented sector. In the private rented sector, for example, there are countries where tenants unions are much more developed and are much more involved in playing a role within the housing system—including, in some cases, a statutory role in relation to decisions such as rent setting. In such situations, the power imbalance between landlords and tenants is not as stark as it is here, because the tenant voice is more powerful.

There is not necessarily a direct read-across—we cannot necessarily take a straightforward copy-and-paste approach of implementing here what some of those other European countries are doing, but there are important lessons to learn from the countries that have a stronger tenant voice across all tenures. We need to make sure that that power imbalance is not as stark.

I think that I have been fairly clear that the problem of power imbalance is more severe in the private rented sector than it is in the social rented sector, which has a regulator, a charter and standards, in relation to not only the building fabric but the service that tenants can receive from their landlords.

As well as closing the gap between the social and private rented sectors, we need to continue to do whatever we can to raise standards across the board.

That is very fair, convener. In relation to one part of my remit that we have not yet talked about, active travel is critical, too. We have a clear commitment to reduce car kilometres by 20 per cent by 2030. Investment in communities under a place-based approach will be critical to achieving that, ensuring that people can get to what they need sustainably and affordably within communities. As important players in the wider community, social landlords have a powerful, pivotal role to play in achieving that.

To be fair, among the social landlords that I have spoken to, there is some recognition that, even when tenant participation and engagement is good, it is much easier with a stable cohort of tenants. Social landlords face challenges to get beyond that. It is the same thing here in the Parliament when we talk about the usual suspects or the same committee witnesses coming along to talk about different issues or the same organisations that the Government finds it easier to consult. Participation and engagement is challenging and it is always difficult to get beyond a cohort of familiar people.

I would like to think that the Government and local authorities are now actively exploring more participative and deliberative forms of democracy, such as citizens juries and citizens assemblies. That kind of approach might also inspire social landlords to think about what they can learn from other ways of throwing open the doors to participation and, as I was saying to Meghan Gallacher, taking a wide range of different approaches rather than thinking that one solution is right for everybody.