Openness and transparency | Islington and Shoreditch Housing Association (ISHA)

ISHA staff engaging with a resident at one of our events.

Accountability

We are committed to accounting for our actions and performance openly and transparently. This commitment applies to our customers, local communities, partners, regulators, and other stakeholders.

We publish information about how we perform, what we spend, and how we are governed so that anyone who has an interest in our work can learn about the services we provide and our effectiveness.

ISHA staff greet residents at a neighbourhood night.

Openness about what we do

We publish up-to-date details of the services we provide to customers and how to access them. We also publish key policies, including our policies on allocating housing, repairs, and complaints. Copies of all our policies are available on request. We consult with residents about new and revised policies through resident involvement and scrutiny.

We have adopted the National Housing Federation’s (NHF) Code of Governance 2020 . We undertake an annual review of compliance against our Code of Governance and publish a statement of compliance in our annual report and in our financial statements.

Chair of ISHA's Board presenting to residents at the AGM.

Openness about our priorities and performance

It is important that our residents and other stakeholders can openly access information on our priorities and review our performance.

We publish our five-year strategic plan (PDF, 1.6mb).
We publish our financial performance annually in our annual financial statements (PDF, 2.2mb).
We report annually to customers on our performance against regulatory standards within our annual report to residents.
We publish annual reports on our performance against key performance indicators set by the Board.

Collage of images extracted from our most recent Financial Statement.

Openness about what we spend

We publish a value for money statement in our financial statements (PDF, 2.2mb) and our Residents' Annual Report 2023-24 (pdf, 3.1mb). The financial statements outline a range of information, including:

operating cost per social housing unit
total operating cost per unit
operating surplus on social lettings
spend per unit on maintenance, management, services, new supply and overheads
arrears collection (and bad debt generally)
debt per unit. An alternative might be debt as a % of turnover or in addition to the average cost of debt.

We also publish details of spending over £500 on development schemes, which are funded through the Affordable Homes Programme .

The Regulator of Social Housing

As a housing association, we're regulated by the Regulator of Social Housing (RSH). The regulator's purpose is to promote a viable, efficient and well-governed social housing sector able to deliver homes that meet a range of needs.

It does this by setting regulatory standards and outcomes that registered social housing providers must achieve around governance, financial viability, value for money, safety and quality of homes, neighbourhoods and communities, tenancy matters and accountability and transparency with tenants.

Our current ratings

ISHA has a Governance rating of G2 and a Financial Viability rating of V2.