A Standards Assessment is a statutory evaluation conducted by AHBRA to determine whether an AHB complies with the Regulatory Standards namely, Governance, Financial, Property & Asset Management and Tenancy Management. AHBRA’s assessment programme is conducted on a continuous basis throughout the year. Further information on assessment process here.

AHBRA operates a risk-based assessment framework and, when selecting AHBs for assessment, considers several factors, including:

• Risk profile of the AHB, including size and future growth plans.
• Notifiable events and/or concerns received.
• Information provided in the annual monitoring programme.
• Random sampling of AHBs.
• Information received from other sources.

At the end of a Standards Assessment, AHBRA issues a report to the AHB which contains findings, recommendations and its regulatory outcome. There are four regulatory Standards so each report generally contains an individual regulatory outcome by Standard as well as an overall outcome. The overall outcome generally reflects the lowest grading unless AHBRA determines that this would be disproportionate in the circumstances.

There are four potential regulatory outcomes as set out in the figure below:

AHBRA’s actions following a Standards Assessment are guided by the outcome as follows:

– Compliant outcomes– AHBRA will decide on what follow-up (if any), is required following input from the AHB.

– Compliant with Improvements outcomes– AHBRA will require updates on implementation of certain recommendations made as part of the Standards Assessment.

– Non-compliant Working Towards Compliance outcomes– an AHB receives this outcome when it is not meeting one or more of the regulatory Standards but is working to achieve compliance. Where an AHB receives this regulatory outcome, it will be required to proactively engage with AHBRA to ensure the areas of non-compliance are being adequately addressed within an agreed timeframe. A formal Compliance Plan is ordinarily not required unless further issues emerge. Through engagement with the AHB, AHBRA will establish a timeline for a follow-up Standards Assessment to re-evaluate the AHB’s progress towards full compliance. This outcome does NOT result in an entry on the AHB Register under Part 4 of the Housing (Regulation of Approved Housing Bodies) Act 2019 (“the Act”).

– Non-compliant Statutory Action Required outcomes- AHBRA has found that the AHB does not meet one or more of the Standards.  AHBRA will determine the appropriate regulatory or statutory action.  Typically, AHBRA’s initial regulatory action is to require the AHB to submit a Compliance Plan under Part 4 of the Act setting out corrective measures taken or proposed to be taken by the AHB to comply with the relevant Standard. There are a number of potential entries on the Register in relation to a Compliance Plan which will be reflected in the Assessment Outcomes published on this website page where relevant as outlined in the table below:

 

• Where an AHB either fails to submit a Compliance Plan, a Compliance Plan submission is rejected by AHBRA, or the AHB fails to implement the Compliance Plan, the AHB may submit a revised Compliance Plan or provide an update at any time which may result in changes to the Register or the Assessment Outcomes as published on the AHBRA website.

 

Below is the list of AHBs assessed by AHBRA, their regulatory outcomes (overall and by individual Standard), and any compliance actions that followed the Assessment.

Please note, the Standard Assessments have been carried out at a point in time based on the information available to AHBRA and the outcomes should not be relied upon as indicating that AHBs are compliant or otherwise at a future point in time.