Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:

To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they intend to take steps to require Homes England to publish clear governance standards for housing associations to enforce strong independent director representation and responsibilities in line with those applying to public companies.

Housing associations are independent organisations regulated by the independent Regulator of Social Housing and board members are responsible for ensuring that the provider’s business is effectively managed. The Regulator’s statutory objectives include ensuring that registered providers of social housing are financially viable and properly managed, and perform their functions efficiently and economically. The Government expects housing associations to take a responsible approach that delivers value for money for tenants and taxpayers.

To deliver its objective, the Regulator has published a Governance and Financial Viability Standard, which sets out a number of requirements on private registered providers (including housing associations). This includes a requirement that providers:

• comply with all relevant law, their governing documents and all regulatory requirements. This includes relevant legislation surrounding corporate governance on public companies, and the duties of board members
• adopt and comply with an appropriate code of governance, and explain any areas of non-compliance with that code. Private Registered providers are also required to certify compliance with the Governance and Financial Viability Standard in their annual accounts
• annually assess the effectiveness of their governance arrangements. Under the Regulator’s current approach the content of the annual report is a matter for individual boards of registered providers. This includes whether they wish to include director attendance at their meetings, within their annual reports.

The Regulator also has powers to direct private registered providers on the preparation of their annual accounts. Under this Direction, the accounts should contain information on board remuneration and the salary of the highest paid director and chief executive officer.

A list of all registered providers is available (attached) at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/current-registered-providers-of-social-housing. Information on Directors of companies is available from Companies House, and on the trustees of registered charities from the Charity Commission.

The Secretary of State is not able to direct the Regulator on the governance arrangements of housing associations, and the Regulator has no plans to change the current approach.