Social Housing Regulation

I will be delivering a training session in a couple of weeks for a group of local authority and housing association front-line officers. The course is aimed at providing a general overview of social housing, and includes some discussion and information on how social housing is regulated. Clearly, this presents something of a dilemma. I will obviously talk about the previous role of the Housing Corporation and how the Audit Commission, Government Offices and the Tenant Services Authority have operated. But they will want to know what the future will hold for regulation, and I will have to say that at the present time there is considerable uncertainty. I am sure that I will be able to get people discussing various options and possibilities on the day, but there is a wider issue here. How damaging is it to the social housing sector to have this lack of clarity regarding regulation? What could be the longer-term implications in terms of lenders (who also have their own regualtion issues to deal with)? And most important, what could be the impact on tenants? Despite some shortcomings and failures, the regulatory regime involving the HC, TSA and Audit Commission has put enough pressure on landlords to improve their services. Is there a risk that standards will now tend to fall as this pressure reduces?