Despite a challenging external environment and pressure on costs, housing associations’ financial and operational performance remains robust. The sector is responding to the call from the Government to invest in building new homes, delivering one quarter of all the houses built in England last year. They are committed to being responsible landlords and protecting the safety of residents, which has led to greater investment in fire safety measures and other risk mitigation techniques.

It is vital that the sector continues to measure what is important to boards, executive teams and tenants, as well as the Regulator. The fact that the Sector Scorecard is owned and led by the sector allows us to do this.

Key messages

Broad coverage of the sector:

• Participation: 329 housing associations
• Stock: 2.3 million properties – around 80% of UK housing association stock
• Geography: from the Channel Islands to northern Scotland, East Anglia to Northern Ireland
• Size: under £250k turnover to over £800m

Business health

Housing associations are financially robust and efficient organisations, with margins of over 20% for three out of four organisations, with a median result of 27.89%. This has fallen slightly since the 2017 pilot, which could be a result of the ongoing rent reduction and greater pressures on costs.

Development

Sector Scorecard participants completed 44,642 new dwellings in 2017/18. In England, this accounts for one in four completions. Non-social development is concentrated in London and the South of England.

Outcomes delivered

Between eight and nine tenants out of ten are satisfied with the service provided by their housing association landlord. Sector Scorecard participants are reinvesting the equivalent of 5.8% of their assets’ value in new and existing homes. And on average, participating landlords spent £58 per property on community investment – with Scottish landlords recording the highest rates.

Effective asset management

Housing associations continue to be prudent asset managers. While the rent cut in England has affected year-on year performance, the overall picture is one of realistic maintenance programmes producing a reasonable return on assets.

Operating efficiencies

Rent collection levels have held up with rises across the sector. Cost per unit figures have risen at above inflation rates since the 2017 pilot. While there has been a slight change in the definition between years, it is also likely that landlords are needing to put more resources into operational services to deal with external factors such as welfare reform and fire prevention.

Overall

No organisation or group of organisations consistently achieved upper quartile performance in all areas of the Scorecard, illustrating the diversity of the measures and of participants. No organisation achieved more than seven results in the upper quartile. Typically, an organisation had 2-3 measures in the top quartile.

• Download the Sector Scorecard analysis report [pdf]

The provider level data is now also available to download

• Sector Scorecard 2018 Underlying Data [Excel]
  

The Regulator of Social Housing also publishes the Value for Money metrics for the providers it regulates as part of its annual Global Accounts publication.