Quality of ARR Information Statement 2015/16

Performance Indicators for Registered Housing Associations in Northern Ireland

  1. Data – Community Regeneration & Housing within the Department for Communities (DfC) collects information on social housing stock owned by Housing Associations (HAs) registered with DfC.

Data Source – Data gathered from the HAs is used in the production of Performance Indicators. These indicators are used to assess and compare the performance across all HAs. Data is requested from each HA via an excel version of the (1) Annual Regulatory Return (ARR) and (2) the Annual Financial Return (AFR). In both cases returns are collated onto a single spreadsheet. Data is gathered under the following categories:

  • Summary Information about the Housing Association (Senior staff details) and the services provided by, for or shared with other bodies,
  • Housing Management (this includes voids and rental income),
  • Maintenance (repair response times),
  • Contextual Statistical Information (numbers and type of dwelling units and breakdown by District Council area),
  • Miscellaneous (number of evictions and abandonments) and
  • Additional Information (Board membership)
  • Financial Information including management and maintenance costs
  1. Data Validation – Information on the ARR is checked by staff in the Regulation Team in Community Regeneration & Housing. The checks carried out are to ensure that information supplied in various parts of the ARR tally and that anything that does not match is accounted for by way of written explanation. All discrepancies are followed up with the HAs. Similar procedures are applied to information on the Annual Financial return by staff in the Finance team in Housing Group.
  1. Data Extract - The statistics published relate to 31 March 2016. In order to ensure that the information provided by the HAs is accurate and is taken from their audited accounts the requested return date of the ARR to the Department was 30 September 2016.
  1. Quality Assurance – The Inspection Team within Community Regeneration & Housingtest the information supplied on the ARR and the AFR during the course of an inspection on the HA.
  1. User Needs – The primary users of the Performance Indicators are DfC Housing Group, Community Regeneration & Housing and the HAs. They are used as an information source and also to monitor the performance of the HAs. We welcome any user comments on the Performance Indicators, please send them to .
  1. Accessibility – The Performance Indicatorsare accessible on the DfC website on Microsoft Excel spreadsheets.
  1. Frequency of Publication – Information on social housing stock owned by the HAs is published yearly following completion and collation of the ARRs.