Statutory returns management overview
The Homes and Communities Agency is the national housing and regeneration agency in England, helping communities realise their aspirations for prosperity and to deliver high-quality housing that people can afford. They provide investment for new affordable housing and improvements to existing social housing, as well as for the regeneration of land. As the regulator for social housing providers, their focus is on governance, financial viability and financial value for money as the basis for robust economic regulation. The Continuous Recording of Lettings Sales in social housing provides valuable information about new social housing letting sales, tenants and buyers (referred to as CORE). This data collection is used by government bodies and national organisations to inform social housing funding, together with regulatory and housing policy decisions. CORE provides an invaluable source of information about new lets, sales and tenants e.g. household characteristics, economic status, ethnicity, primary reason for housing, source of referral and previous tenure of occupants. In addition, since information regarding housing costs is recorded, broad assessments of housing affordability are also possible through CORE. The electronic CORE form records a wide range of data on both the household and property each time a letting or sale is made. The resulting file can then be uploaded to the eCORE on-line data collection website, where additional validation is performed before publication, ready for benchmarking and comparative analysis. Similarly, SCORE (Scottish Continuous Recording system) collects information from Registered Social Landlords (RSLs) in Scotland about the new lets they are making in any given year.
Some key questions within the CORE / SCORE return forms include:
Separate help articles have been created for each key aspect of statutory returns management, including: