Social Housing

IndustriesPublic & social sectorNot for Profit

Social Housing

With almost 40 years of experience partnering with more than 300 housing associations, we are a trusted provider in delivering expert services to the social housing sector.

Understanding the challenges

With the ongoing affordability crisis, rising homelessness, and increased scrutiny on tenant safety in the wake of the Grenfell Tower tragedy, social housing providers are under increased pressure to deliver affordable, safe, and high-quality housing solutions. The introduction of new Consumer Standards, alongside evolving ESG requirements, budget constraints, and regulatory complexities like the Social Housing Regulation Act 2023, have only heightened these challenges.

How we can help

At Forvis Mazars, we understand that these challenges demand more than just compliance - they require forward-thinking, strategic solutions for long-term resilience. Our dedicated social housing team is committed to staying at the forefront of the sector’s evolving needs. We maintain strong links with the Regulator of Social Housing (RSH) in England and the National Housing Federation, have excellent knowledge of regulatory standards and a proven track record of sharing our sector insights with our clients. We support a range of clients, including traditional housing associations, large scale voluntary transfers, arm’s length management organisations, for profit providers, and organisations with complex group structures, helping them to navigate regulatory changes, meet emerging challenges, and deliver high-quality, compliant housing solutions.

Our services

Compliance and regulation 

Building public trust through strong compliance and regulation is central to our mission at Forvis Mazars. We offer a range of audit and assurance work to deliver insight and promote transparency. Our Public Sector team, with more than 100 members, delivers comprehensive external audit and internal audit services tailored specifically to the social housing sector. In addition to internal and external audits, we provide a broad range of risk advisory, assurance, and consultancy services to our clients, including supporting the social housing sector with fraud investigations, compliance, and training to fit our clients’ specific needs.

Tax

Our dedicated team of tax specialists is dedicated to supporting social housing providers with their tax challenges and ensuring they stay up to date with changing legislation that may impact their position. With deep expertise in all areas of taxation, we offer specialist advice on corporate and employment tax, VAT and indirect tax, Construction Industry Scheme (CIS), Stamp Duty Land Tax, and national transactions for our social housing clients.

Sustainability and ESG

We work collaboratively with our clients to implement emissions reduction plans and quantify their sustainability reporting. We’ve worked with social housing providers to provide a number of sustainability services, which include specialist areas such as carbon footprinting.

Making the most of technology and AI

Our tech and AI offerings are designed to revolutionise the social housing sector. Our technology and digital consulting services help you harness the power of AI for enhanced decision-making and efficiency. Our data optimisation solutions ensure you get the most value from your data, whilst our cyber security and advisory services protect your organisation from potential threats data breaches that could compromise personal tenant information and financial records.

Operational resilience and efficiency transformation

We work with you to identify opportunities for operational and technological innovation to help improve service delivery for the benefit of society at large.

Get in touch

If you would like to speak with a member of our Social Housing team, please use this contact form or use the link below to submit a Request for proposal.

What are clients say about us 

Case study one: Penetration testing one social housing organisation’s controls

Our technology team supported one social housing organisation with their cyber security testing by performing an ethical hacking exercise (red team). The exercise sought to replicate the actions of a real-life attacker that may seek to cause malicious harm to systems and data, leveraging leading-edge cyber-attack capabilities utilised by our in-house ethical attackers. The exercise involved several simulations to both test the perimeter and internal network, including ‘phishing’, deployment of malware and leveraging harvested credentials. The exercise identified several opportunities to enhance both protective and detective controls that could potentially prevent a cyber-attack and/or enable a more effective response.

Case study two: Carbon footprint analysis of Wales’s largest social housing provider

We partnered with one of Wales’s largest social housing providers to conduct an extensive carbon footprint analysis for their 2021-22 and 2022-23 emissions. We worked with the client to analyse their carbon emissions using our in-house carbon footprinting tool, with the project focussing on calculating emissions across all three scopes to offer a holistic view of their environmental impact. This included:

  • Assessing emissions sources which were relevant for emissions reporting, aligning with the Greenhouse Gas Protocol.
  • Incorporating tenant energy consumption into the emission calculations.
  • Providing assurance on the accuracy and quality of the client’s carbon data.
  • Identifying and sharing improvements to enhance data granularity for future reporting years with the client.

The project identified opportunities for resource efficiency, stakeholder engagement, innovation, and continuous improvement.

Case study three: Implementing a Pension Salary Sacrifice scheme for a social housing provider

A social housing provider wanted to implement a Pension Salary Sacrifice scheme for approximately 300 employees. The primary challenge was to design and implement a scheme that complied with legal obligations around National Minimum Wage, protected employee entitlements to certain state benefits, and aligned with the client's organisational culture.

We undertook an eligibility analysis for the Employer to enable a salary ‘threshold’ to apply to employees entering the scheme, and organised a ‘key decisions’ meeting with key stakeholders from HR, Payroll, Finance and Legal to ensure the scheme was designed to fit within the culture and their requirements.

We prepared all the employee communication documents provided to employees to ensure the scheme was compliant from a HMRC perspective and delivered presentations to all employees to introduce the scheme and encourage uptake amongst the eligible employee population.

The successful implementation of the Pension Salary Sacrifice Scheme resulted in significant financial savings over a 12 month period of approximately:

  • £40,000 for the employees
  • £68,000 for the Social Housing provider

 

10 September 2024

Impact of STAIR consultation for social landlords

The social housing sector is constantly evolving driven by the need for increased transparency, accountability, and tenant empowerment. The proposed introduction of the new Social Tenant Access Information Requirements (STAIR) marks another step in this evolution.

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An image of man using a computer

Scenario based penetration testing

How easy is it for cyber criminals to get into your IT systems? A simple question, but the answer can often seem elusive. An alternative question to consider - How do you proportionately assess that your current cyber security controls will protect you against a cyber attack? This is particularly significant considering that the breadth and complexity of cyber attacks continue to grow and develop.

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