Risk & Advisory

Assurance and advisory services to the UK social housing sector

Risk and Advisory Services UK provides assurance and advisory services to the social housing sector. We have a wealth of experience working with organisations of all sizes and structures throughout the UK, offering strategic advice and support across all areas of their business.

Assurance Services

Regulation

RiskandAdvisory undertakes reviews for social housing providers against all areas of the Regulatory Standards, providing assurance you are compliant.

Where Regulatory issues do occur, RiskandAdvisory can help you navigate your journey with the Regulator.

Internal Audit

Internal audit provides valuable, independent assurance to management and boards that an organisation’s risk management, governance and internal control processes are operating effectively. RiskandAdvisory is experienced in undertaking internal audits across all areas of a social housing providers’ business.

Special investigations

Special investigations are one off reviews undertaken when unexpected risks materialise, identifying and helping you to correct the root causes, and advising you on your future assurance requirements.

Data Governance

Data quality is a key risk for social housing providers. RiskandAdvisory can review all areas of your organisational data for integrity issues, supporting you in achieving a ‘single version of the truth’.

Landlord Health and Safety

RiskandAdvisory can work with you to ensure health and safety data is accurate, your systems and processes are fit-for-purpose, and transparent reporting is in place, making sure your Board is positioned well to meet its regulatory duties.

Risk Maturity

A risk maturity assessment considers the degree to which risk management is embedded throughout your organisation, and how effective your existing processes of risk management are. Once this is understood a roadmap for improvement can be defined.

External Quality Assessment

It is a key requirement of the Institute for Internal Auditors’ International Professional Practices Framework that internal audit departments have an independent external quality assessment every five years. RiskandAdvisory can meet your requirements for external assessment.

Advisory Services

Business Process Reviews

Business process reviews take a fresh look at individual areas of your business operations and identify ways to make them more effective and efficient. RiskandAdvisory will map out your current processes, analyse their effectiveness, and assist you in the process of implementing improvements.

Policy & Procedure

Having robust policies and procedures in place is vital to ensure risks are managed, and knowledge is retained in your business when staff move on. RiskandAdvisory will work with you to map out and document your business processes.

Training

RiskandAdvisory provides bespoke training for management teams and boards on all areas of risk management and sector risks.

Risk Workshops

Your risk management processes can only be effective if you have robust methods of continually identifying and assessing risk. RiskandAdvisory runs workshops for management teams and boards on the identification of risks, controls and assurance, helping to you to update and improve your risk maps.

Merlin Consultancy

Technological change and deep transformations present new and unknown risks, but also new opportunities to create value. In today’s volatile and ever more complex business environment, companies need to have confidence in their governance, risk management and internal control processes. In this context, Risk and Advisory Services UK are delighted to partner with business transformation and performance improvement specialists at Merlin Consultancy. Our combined capabilities represent a strong blend of assurance and advisory solutions to add value to our client organisations.

Find out more about Merlin

DATA MANAGEMENT IN THE SOCIAL HOUSING SECTOR

Feb 19, 2021

Over recent years, awareness within the social housing sector of the importance of good data, and the risks associated with poor data has intensified. Regulatory judgements continually cite poor data management as a contributory factor to failings in areas such as...

2020 Governance downgrades: What went wrong?

Jan 13, 2021

The Regulator of Social Housing issued a number of governance downgrades during 2020. Below we provide a brief analysis of the themes and trends identified within these: ANALYSIS OF KEY THEMES AND TRENDS Whilst numerous issues are identified within the regulatory...

Guidance Note: The Draft Building Safety Bill

Dec 15, 2020

For anyone in the social housing sector that has not yet found time to read the Draft Building Safety Bill, I hope this short guidance note is of interest. The Bill has recently come under scrutiny by the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee. Read their...

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Matthew Byers

Risk and Advisory Services UK’s founder, Matthew has been providing assurance and advisory services to a wide range of public and third sector organisations since 2007, with a primary focus on the social housing sector. Previously a Director in a top 10 professional services firm, Matthew has worked with a large portfolio of over a hundred social housing clients. His services included both the delivery of internal audit programmes, and also non-assurance work such as consultancy and advisory projects, special investigations, assisting clients with difficult regulatory issues, and helping organisations to develop and enhance their risk management frameworks.

With over a decade working in social housing Matthew has a deep understanding of the sector and its risks. He can work with you to identify and correct the root causes of issues before these become a burden to your organisation, designing new frameworks of risk management and control in the process, and helping you avoid issues of regulatory non-compliance.