Consultations
Scottish Housing Regulator
The Scottish Housing Regulator wants to hear your views.Scotland has a new, independent housing regulator. From next April its role will be to safeguard and promote the interests of tenants and others who receive housing services from local authorities and housing associations. It will replace the existing regulator.
Before taking on its role, the new Scottish Housing Regulator is consulting on its approach. It wants to hear the views of tenants, landlords and others with an interest in social housing.
Please see the full consultation document HERE
Rent Increase 2011
Having considered feedback the Board have agreed to proceed with the proposed 3.3% rent increase.Whilst no one wants to pay more for services, we hope that you will agree this was a fair and reasonable increase - taking due account of the economy and constraints facing both tenants and the Company.
Below is a summary of the key issues influencing the Board's decision.
· In the consultation exercise few tenants confirmed they had issues with the proposed rent increase. Only 16 tenants expressed concern that the proposed rent increase was not reasonable, and only 9 tenants expressed concern that their rent did not represent value for money.
· Tenant feed back from the consultation exercise, and updates on the context for the proposed rent increase were considered in detail by both our Tenant Panel andour Customer Services Committee in mid January. Both recommended implementation of the proposed rent increase, and this was subsequently agreed by our Board meeting at the end of January.
· Inflation has continued to rise since our consultation and is expected to rise further. The government's target measure, CPI (Consumer Price Index) was only 3.2% in October, but has since risen to 4.0% in January. RPI (RetailPrice Index), another inflation measure, has increased from 4.5% to 5.1% over the same period. The Bank of England now expects inflation to peak at around 5% for much of this year.
· We have continued to maintain our commitment not to implement higher increases than we have consulted on, even if inflation increases further. OtherRegistered Social Landlords have not.
· Following consultation, other Registered Social Landlords are implementing higher increases for equivalent homes in East Lothian, ranging from 4.3% to 5.8% compared to our increase of only 3.3%.
· Our increase last year was actually lower than inflation, and this year's increase is again lower than inflation. Despite increasing VAT, service and supply costs, prudent financial planning has ensured that we have again been able to restrict rent increases to take account of the current squeeze on disposablei ncome for our tenants, whilst maintaining quality services, and setting sufficient funds aside to meet future planned maintenance costs.
· Last year's rent restructure ensured that our range of rents fall within the range charged by other Registered Social Landlords for equivalent homes in East Lothian. With our increase, the rent for your home will remain within that range. For our general tenancies, weekly rent increases forthis year will range from £1.27 to £2.72, with an average increase of £2.20.
· Unlike most other landlords, there are no service charges on top of Homes for Life rents.
· Independent analysis through SCORE returns continues to confirm the affordability of our rents for new tenants.
In 2009/10 tenants were consulted on a review of our Rent Policy, a Rent Restructure and a proposed 2% increase for April 2010.
For further information on rents please see -> Understanding Rents
