Approved Housing Bodies Regulatory Authority releases Statement of Strategy

The Approved Housing Bodies Regulatory Authority (AHBRA) released its Statement of Strategy 2021–2024 in late October, laying out its intentions to deliver on its mandate in the newly regulated field.

The Housing (Regulation of Approved Housing Bodies) Act 2019 provides for the full statutory regulation of the AHB sector, which had previously been voluntarily regulated. It “seeks to support stronger governance, financial management and reporting, property and asset management, and tenancy management by AHBs, with a focus on safeguarding investment being made in the delivery of social housing by AHBs”. Key to this oversight and regulation is the establishment of the AHBRA.

The Statement of Strategy is the first by the AHBRA and it sets out how it plans to establish a regulatory framework “that will deliver effective oversight of all AHBs”. The sector had previously been regulated by the Voluntary Regulatory Code (VRC) for seven years.

In the last of its annual reports, the VRC reported that there were 285 AHBs in ownership of over 43,000 homes who had signed up to voluntary regulation. The sector is “comprised of many parish-based AHBs managing a small number of homes, AHBs whose primary focus is care and support, and a small number of large and growth AHBs”. The latter group, the large and growth AHBs, accounts for over 80 per cent of the housing in the AHB sector, with assets of over €4 billion and rental income of over €88 million annually.

The key functions of the AHBRA as set out in the Act are to:

• Establish and maintain a register of AHBs;
• Register persons as AHBs;
• Prepare draft standards for approval by the Minister for Housing, publishing the approved standards, and monitor and assess compliance with those standards by AHBs;
• Carry out investigations in accordance with the Act;
• Protect tenants and AHBs and cancel the registration of AHBs if necessary;
• Encourage and facilitate the better governance, administration and management of AHBs;
• Promote awareness and understanding, and make information about the legislation available to the public;
• Collate information concerning the performance and functioning of AHBs; and
• Publish such information as appropriate.

In the Statement of Strategy, the AHBRA pledges to establish and implement a regulator framework that includes “the registration of AHBs, the setting of standards, monitoring and assessing compliance with standards, and, as required, undertake investigations”. It says it will implement risk-based regulation, with a focus on “those AHBs which are identified as higher risk and/or cannot demonstrate or evidence compliance”. The authority pledges to introduce and embed a system for reporting, data collation and analysis over the course of the strategy.

The AHBRA states that the provision of “quality information” will be key to its governance and strategic statement, with its reporting of its findings through an annual report, financial statement and annual business plans to lay out its “key findings, regulatory outcomes and our objectives in a transparent manner”.

Speaking upon the publication of the strategy, Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage Darragh O’Brien TD said: “AHBRA will be an important element in support of our ambitious housing agenda, overseeing the effective governance, financial management and performance of all AHBs.”

As well as having won its long battle to secure a Government commitment to “work on a package of reforms with approved housing bodies, to ensure that they can access finance and move off the balance sheet”, and a subsequent Housing for All commitment to deploy the Department of Finance’s statistical unit to assess the likelihood of attaining such a classification, the AHB sector is now entering a new era of statutory regulation which will see it play a key part in the delivery of the Government’s Housing for All strategy. The role it will play in the delivery of 6,000 affordable homes to be made available for purchase or rent every year through AHBs, local government and the Land Development Agency is the headline from that strategy in the sector, but its delivery of social housing and Traveller-specific accommodation as outlined in the plan, along with its role in pilot schemes to house the homeless, will see the newly-regulated sector increase its already-large presence on the Irish housing scene.