A major report on Scotland's housing and homelessness services has been published by the Scottish Housing Regulator.
'Social Landlords in Scotland: Shaping up for improvement' reviews the findings from the regulator's inspection work over the past five years and comments on the performance of Scotland's social landlords.
The report states that while 53 per cent of housing services inspected were good or excellent, just under half, serving 320,000 households, were either poor or adequate.
Scottish Housing Regulator Chief Executive Karen Watt said: "We recognise that there is much strength and good practice amongst Scotland's social landlords in providing affordable housing. However, over half of tenants are receiving services which are poor or only adequate. Many landlords need to do more to get the basics right and focus on improving services in the future.
"Our recent inspections have found that, overall, homeless people need better services, tenants require explicit standards setting out what they can expect, handling of complaints should improve, rent levels need to be consistent and coherent, and landlords need to base their decisions about improving and developing their housing stock on better information.
"Social landlords house one in four households in Scotland and as such are hugely important to the wellbeing of hundreds of thousands of individuals and communities across the country.
"Our report points to the challenges facing the sector, its contribution to Scotland's economy and what needs to make it fit for purpose and offer best value for the future."
The press release and the full report are available on the Scottish Housing Regulator website.
