Five Questions Your Board Will Ask in 2026 (And How to Answer Them)
This year was always going to be a demanding one for social housing. What perhaps fewer people anticipated is quite how concentrated that demand would become.
Awaab’s Law Phase 2. The updated Decent Homes Standard. New Minimum Energy Efficiency Standards. A rolling RSH inspection programme that is naming names and issuing C4 grades. A 10-year rent settlement that offers certainty on one hand and intensifies pressure on the other. All of it arriving at once, against a backdrop of stretched finances and a sector the Regulator of Social Housing has described as resilient overall, but with less margin for error than in previous years.
For housing professionals who report to a board, the challenge is not just responding to these pressures. It is being able to demonstrate, clearly and with evidence, that the organisation has a credible grip on them.
Below are the five questions that are coming up in boardrooms across the sector right now. More importantly, here is what a strong answer to each of them actually looks like.
Do We Actually Know the Condition of Our Stock?
This sounds like a basic question. It is not.
Recent RSH inspection judgements have found providers with poor data on the quality of tenants’ homes, inaccurate recording of hazards, and insufficient assurance over repairs performance. In one case a C4 consumer grade was issued, making those failures a matter of public regulatory record.
Boards are no longer willing to accept vague assurances that stock condition data exists somewhere in the system. They want to know how current it is, how it informs investment decisions, and what happens when it flags something serious.
A strong answer demonstrates that social housing asset management is not a static exercise carried out every few years. It shows that data is live, that it drives prioritisation, and that the organisation can identify its highest-risk properties before a tenant makes a formal complaint or a regulator comes through the door.
Are We Getting Ahead of Damp and Mould, and Awaab’s Law?
Damp and mould has reshaped the regulatory and reputational landscape of the sector in a way that is not going to reverse. Phase 2 of Awaab’s Law, coming into force in October 2026, extends fixed-timeframe requirements to a wider range of hazards. More follow in 2027.
The Housing Ombudsman’s follow-up Spotlight report on damp and mould was written explicitly as a scrutiny tool for governing bodies, setting out ten factors that determine whether an action plan will actually work. Boards are reading it. They will want to know whether their organisation is ahead of the issue or chasing it.
Proactive damp and mould prevention is now the expectation, not the exception. That means identifying at-risk properties before complaints are raised, not after. It means connecting repairs history, property characteristics, and HHSRS risk into a coherent picture. And it means being able to show the data that underpins that identification, not just a list of actions taken in response to cases already escalated.
Reactive responses, however well-managed, are no longer enough to satisfy a board that understands what the Ombudsman is looking for.
How Are We Identifying and Supporting Financially Vulnerable Tenants?
Tenant financial resilience has become a board-level concern, and fuel poverty identification sits at the heart of it. But the question boards are increasingly asking goes beyond what support is being offered. It starts earlier than that.
How do you know which homes are experiencing fuel poverty now? Which households are at risk of crossing that threshold in the next 12 months? Is there a pattern in your repairs data or component replacement programme that shows certain homes are costing significantly more to run and maintain? Are those the homes being prioritised for retrofit?
The NHF continues to track the relationship between Universal Credit, rising costs, and rent arrears on a quarterly basis, and the picture it paints is not improving. Financial vulnerability does not sit in isolation. It intersects with property condition, energy performance, and tenant health in ways that create compound risk for landlords and residents alike.
A strong answer connects those dots. It shows that the organisation is using data to identify vulnerable households systematically, that it understands the link between financial fragility and property condition, and that its support offer is built around evidence rather than assumption.
Can Our Finances Absorb What Is Coming?
The 10-year rent settlement at CPI+1% from April 2026 is genuinely welcome. But boards know that income certainty does not resolve the underlying cost pressures bearing down on business plans.
Social housing retrofit funding is a case in point. The gap between what government grants will cover and what providers need to spend to meet the EPC Band C standard by 2030 is real and widening. For properties that cannot be easily upgraded, the question of regeneration versus technological workaround is one that boards will push hard on. And the LGA has already flagged that over a third of council Housing Revenue Accounts are in deficit in the current financial year, with the cumulative weight of regulatory change a significant contributing factor.
Boards will want the business plan stress-tested. They will want to understand what headroom the organisation actually has, not just what it projects. And they will want to see a plan for the stock that sits at EPC D and below, because leaving that question unanswered is not an option that survives scrutiny.
What Are Our Tenant Satisfaction Measures Actually Telling Us?
Tenant Satisfaction Measures have been through their second full reporting cycle and the data is now being used in ways that matter. RSH inspections have found providers with no evidence of analysis, learning, or actions taken from their TSM results, and inspectors are treating that as a serious failing.
The updated Decent Homes Standard is designed to prioritise safety, decency, and warmth, and TSM performance is being read alongside property condition data and complaints trends as part of a rounded regulatory picture. TSMs are no longer a reporting exercise. They are an intelligence tool, and boards are starting to treat them as one.
The question is not just what the scores are. It is what they mean, what has changed, and what the organisation is doing differently as a result. Providers who can triangulate TSM data with repairs performance, arrears trends, and tenancy intelligence are in a fundamentally stronger position than those who treat a satisfactory score as the end of the conversation.
The Common Thread
Across all five questions, there is a single constant: the quality and usefulness of the data underpinning the answers.
Boards in 2026 are not looking for reassurance. They are looking for evidence. Organisations that can demonstrate a clear line between their data, their decisions, and their outcomes will navigate these conversations with confidence. Those that cannot will find themselves on the back foot at precisely the moment the sector can least afford it.
At Mobysoft, we help social housing providers turn operational data into the kind of board-ready intelligence that moves conversations from risk management to confident, proactive strategy. Get in touch with our team to find out more.
Mobysoft AI-powered RentSense®, RepairSense®, and RiskSense® help landlords improve their income-collection processes and the productivity, quality, and sustainability of their repairs service for the benefit of all involved.