The Housing and Regeneration Act 2008 (Registration of Local Authorities) Order 2010 has just been laid before Parliament in draft form, to come into effect on April 1, 2010. A copy is available here.
In short, it makes it compulsory for local authorities which provide or intend to provide social housing to register with the TSA.
In addition, in what I can only presume is some misguided attempt to minimise Weaver, RSLs in England will now be known as “private registered providers” in contrast to “registered providers” as the 2008 Act originally provided.
Come on DCLG – if you want to get around Weaver you’ll have to do better than that!
There is a growing number of private organisations that have chosen to register as small housing associations over the last 5 years or so – a small but growing trend ostensibly due to the ‘direction of travel’ in social care away from residential to he supported living model (and to get funding on that convoluted basis for which being a ‘registered’ social landlord clearly helps.) The change of title may hold more implications that it appears!