Nick Ramsay AM

National Assembly for Wales

Cardiff Bay

CF99 1NA

Dear Nick

Following the publication of the report this week by the Public Accounts Committee into the regulatory oversight of housing associations, I wanted to take this opportunity to thank you and the rest of the committee for your work as part of this inquiry.

As the membership body for housing associations, we found the inquiry to be a helpful and  robust consideration of the regulation of the housing association sector, which is both vital to the provision of public services in Wales and to the Welsh economy, and we welcome the recommendations the committee has put forward in its report.

We agree with the overall conclusion of the report that the latest regulatory framework and the new regulatory judgements are important steps in improving the openness and transparency of the regulation of housing associations and we will be working closely with our members on the recommendations the committee has made.

Our response to the committee’s report is available here: http://bit.ly/2uXUuTw and alongside our public response, I wanted to reassure you that we have already begun working on many of the areas the committee has highlighted.

In particular, we take very seriously the need to improve the accessibility of information for tenants. We have already discussed this issue at our member networks, and we will now look to work closely with Welsh Government to ensure that recommendation is taken forward in a meaningful way.

Alongside this, CHC will be reviewing our Code of Governance in the coming months to ensure it continues to be a robust and useful guide for housing associations in light of the committee’s findings and the Regulatory Board for Wales’ ongoing review of governance in the sector. We expect to launch the revised code in March 2018 at our Governance Conference and we will be happy to share the updated code with you at that stage.

In the meantime, I am happy to discuss any of these issues or the wider work of housing associations with you at any time. Please don’t hesitate to get in touch with any questions.

Kind regards

Stuart Ropke

Chief Executive