Social Housing Register

The National Register of Social Housing (NROSH) will be a property database containing a record of each individual unit of social housing in England. It will provide neighbourhood level information for the whole country which will be accessible by central, regional and local government and other interested parties, and reduce the burden of reporting on housing providers.

The purpose of the NROSH is to provide accurate, standardised and up to date information on living conditions at the most local geography possible.

Local Authorities currently provide a number of detailed annual returns to central government covering both social housing and private sector housing stock. These are aggregated to local authority level and cannot be broken down to neighbourhood level.

Housing Corporation has an ongoing need for an up to date record of the dwelling stock, which is owned and managed by Registered Social Landlords (RSLs). This is at present provided by time consuming annual returns from the RSLs in particular the Regulatory Statistical Return (RSR), and cannot be disaggregated to the neighbourhood level.

The Valuation Office Agency (VOA) is required to carry out a revaluation of every dwelling in England and Wales for council tax purposes. New council tax bandings will come into effect from April 2007 requiring completion of the revaluations by September 2006. The valuations will be based on records of dwelling attributes that need to be updated and validated. Electronic capture of the attributes of social housing would make an important contribution to this process.

The new Housing and Employment Mobility Scheme (HEMS) which aims to improve the ease of movement around the country for social housing tenants will also need to capture data from social housing landlords.

The first collection of social housing details (as at 1st April 2005) is due for return by 30th April 2005 The National Register of Social Housing (NROSH).