Chamber and committees

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.

I hope that it is well recognised that we talk about the right to adequate housing as a human rights issue pretty consistently. We are moving the debate on to recognise that that point needs to be expressed and experienced across the tenures. The right to adequate housing includes affordability and issues around personal control and dignity, which is why we are talking about changes in the private rented sector in relation to things such as personalising a home—it is hugely important to recognise that a rented home is somebody’s home, not just a property with a tenancy.

In relation to choice, there are many reasons in different sectors why somebody might feel that they do not have the ability to make choices about where they live or the kind of property that they have. In relation to the PRS, it might simply be a matter of price. We are very aware of the particular challenges of rent increases over recent years, especially in cities such as Glasgow and Edinburgh, which is why we are committed to introducing proposals on rent controls. The social rented sector already has regulation of rent and requirements on landlords to consult, so the choice that people have there is not necessarily the same as in the private rented sector.

I hope that those issues will come out in the current consultation, and we will obviously take account of the committee’s particular views on how we can express those matters better.

Thank you, convener. This is my first time back physically in a Parliament committee room for quite a while and it is a great pleasure to be here.

The Scottish social housing charter has been in place since 2012, as you said in your opening remarks. It was reviewed in 2017 and has now been further reviewed in 2021. It describes what tenants and other customers of social landlords can expect from their landlord by stating in clear and plain language the outcomes and standards that all social landlords should achieve when providing housing services. In doing that, the charter helps tenants and other customers to hold landlords to account.

During 2021, to help us to prepare the revised version of the charter, we asked tenants, social landlords, the Scottish Housing Regulator and other stakeholders for their views on the charter and the impact that it is having on services for tenants and other customers. Our review of the charter involved a series of virtual consultation events alongside a formal consultation.

The strong message from across the sector is that the charter continues to be of value and relevance. It is working well, is key to improving the landlord-tenant relationship, is being used by landlords and tenants to compare and monitor performance and is encouraging landlords to deliver improved services for their tenants and other customers.

The Scottish Housing Regulator reports annually on landlord performance against the charter and those reports confirm that year-on-year improvements continue to be made across most of the charter outcomes and standards. The independent analysis of the feedback from the virtual events and the formal consultation clearly showed that the charter has a positive impact; that the outcomes and standards should remain largely the same; and that it continues to be of relevance and value and supports improvements in service delivery.

We have carefully considered all the consultation analysis and made some minor changes to the outcomes, standards and supporting descriptions. We have confined changes to those few that stakeholders suggested would improve the quality of services that social landlords deliver and to reflect policy and practice developments.

Changes that we are putting forward include incorporating a reference to human rights and the right to housing for all individuals into the charter, recognition of the benefits of using a range of digital and non-digital communications, and recognising the changing landscape in the context of decarbonisation in relation to the quality of social housing.

We have also highlighted the range of actions that social landlords can take, on their own and in partnership with others, to support victim survivors of domestic abuse and placed an additional emphasis on the role of social landlords in preventing homelessness.

Those modest revisions have updated and future proofed the charter, reflecting developments in practice, policy and legislative requirements. The charter continues to provide an improvement framework and a statistical baseline for both tenants and landlords to assess and compare performance individually and across the sector. It encourages and supports landlords to continue building on improvements that they have already made in delivering the high-quality services that tenants and other customers want and expect.

I look forward to hearing the committee’s views and answering any questions that members may have on the charter. Subject to that, I hope that the committee will be content with the revised charter and that it will recommend that the Parliament should approve it.

The consultation on the charter revision has been extensive. The 12-week consultation was on the Scottish Government’s website and was widely publicised by the Government and other stakeholders. There were 12 virtual stakeholder consultation events for tenants, landlords and others with an interest in social housing. That process was facilitated by the Tenant Participation and Advisory Service and the Tenants Information Service. The range of issues that the convener mentioned—particularly in relation to the cost of living, including the affordability of energy and other costs—touch on some long-term challenges that the sector and the rest of our housing system will have to deal with. The current consultation and the new deal for tenants will also touch on those issues.

That is probably an area where some of the questions remain open, as we are currently consulting on the new deal for tenants rented sector strategy. We have clearly indicated some potential changes to the role of the regulator in relation to social housing. However, in the private rented sector, there is no charter equivalent nor is there a regulator at present, although we are proposing one.

The opportunities to close the gap in outcomes for housing across different sectors, the opportunities for social landlords to develop their wider role in the community in relation to energy systems, for example, and the opportunities to learn lessons from good practice—and from where practice has perhaps not been so good—in relation to tenant participation are all areas where there will be some interesting overlap and connection between the social and private rented sectors, although there might not necessarily be a direct read-across. The social rented sector has some innate advantages in relation to tenant participation in that, often, but not always, landlords tend to be bigger and have a geographically defined focus. Quite often, the social rented sector has a more stable and older tenant population. Some of those factors lend themselves to the ease with which good social landlords have improved their practice in relation to tenant participation. Often, those factors are absent in the private rented sector. Trying to achieve that level of participation and tenant voice will be a challenge. The current consultation is actively exploring that.