G15 publishes Living Will procedure guide

The G15 has brought together a new guide to support organisations with financial contingency planning.

The housing sector has been very robust, with those Registered Providers (RPs) that have needed rescuing having been saved by larger, well run organisations with the resources and capacity (both people and financial) to act.

Our residents rely on us continuing to provide safe homes and services. If an RP suffered a catastrophic shock and found itself at risk of not being able to continue to provide services there would be major implications both for our residents and our creditors.

The aim of establishing a 'Living Will' is to reduce the chances of an RP getting in to financial difficulty in the first place, and to ensure if this happened there would be a managed and orderly route to rescue.

This publication is intended to provide a guiding set of principles to help RPs draft their own living will. The approach is not intended to be prescriptive, noting the substantial differences in organisational structures, governance arrangements, financing and business models under which RPs operate.

The living will does not replace the assets and liabilities register, but provides an extension to the ‘where’ of the assets and liabilities register in answering the ‘how’ and ‘why’ questions around an organisation’s structure.

The Living Will procedure has been developed by the G15 Finance Director's sub-group in co-ordination with the Regulator of Social Housing.

Jonathan Walters, Deputy Chief Executive of the Regulator of Social Housing, commented:

"We welcome this publication from the G15. As Registered Providers have got more complex, it is important that they manage their risks to ensure that their social housing is protected even if the organisation itself experiences difficulty. The work on Living Wills builds on our regulatory requirements around asset and liability records and this will be useful reading for many in the sector”