The first release of the Statistical Data Return 2018-2019 published today (19 September 2019) by the Regulator of Social Housing reports a rise in social housing stock owned or managed by private registered providers of social housing in England.
This year's SDR results are being made available in three releases phased over the next few weeks. The changes follow a call for user views between May and July 2019 about proposals to make the publication of the data more timely and more accessible. The set of National Statistics includes a range of briefing notes, look-up tools and accompanying documents.
This first release, which is significantly earlier than the corresponding information released last year, focuses on the social housing stock at 31 March 2019, as well as examining changes to stock owned in the sector since 2012.
Key points include:
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Private registered providers of social housing reported owning 2,995,569 units/bedspaces on 31 March 2019 (including social and non-social tenures) - a 2% increase since 31 March 2018.
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85 % of stock owned by PRPs on 31 March 2019 was low cost rental stock (2,567,063 units/ bedspaces)
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There were 20,900 more low cost rental (including Affordable Rent) units/bedspaces on 31 March 2019 than on 31 March 2018 (a 1% increase since 2018). This overall increase was driven by an 11% increase in Affordable Rent units
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An additional 11,299 units/bedspaces of low cost home ownership were reported as owned by PRPs on 31 March 2019 compared to 2018 (an increase of 6%). The rate of increase in LCHO has been speeding up since 2017.
Fiona MacGregor, Chief Executive of RSH said:
The first release of this year's Statistical Data Return, demonstrates how the social housing sector continues to change and grow. We hope that the data, now in a new format, is more accessible and continues to support our stakeholders in understanding key trends in the sector. We welcome feedback on how we can make further improvements.
The SDR is collated from annual returns submitted by PRPs in England. The regulator collects data on stock type, size, rent and location of social housing stock at 31 March each year, and data on sales and acquisitions made between 1 April and 31 March. The information is used to inform its risk-based and proportionate approach to regulation and to help a range of stakeholders better understand the housing association market.
The first release of the SDR is now available on the RSH website.
The second release focusing on PRP rents will be published on 26 September 2019.
The final release providing all SDR data will be published on 10 October 2019 and will include look-up tools providing easy access to the SDR data at a PRP and local authority level.
