Governance

The Association is controlled by the communities it serves. The Management Committee sets the overall strategic direction of the Association and takes all the key decisions with regard to the Association.

The Management Committee is supported by two Neighbourhood Committees covering Halfway and Cardonald and Pollokshields and Shawlands neighbourhoods. The SFARS Board, Audit and Staffing sub-committees complete the five sub-committees of our main Management Committee and complete our governance structure.

All of our committees, sub-committees and boards are largely composed of local residents and service users who work to ensure that the Association is accountable and delivers services appropriate to the needs of our local communities.

Management Committee

Our Management Committee acts as our governing body and is responsible for setting our aims and objectives and monitoring our progress in achieving them. Management Committee members meet once a month, ten times a year to:

Set short and long terms objectives for the Association
Discuss the overall operation of the Association in its use of resources, achievement of aims and objectives, financial viability and service delivery for tenants and service users
Ensure that the Association meets its legal and regulatory obligations.

Our Management Committee:

Office Bearers

Chairperson: Margaret McIntyre

Margaret has been a member of Southside Housing Association’s board for almost 10 years, but has been active on local housing groups in the Cardonald area for almost 20 years. Margaret worked in the motor industry for a number of years and is a retired administrator with the N.H.S.

Margaret works a voluntary basis for the Royal Voluntary Service at the Southern General Hospital, Glasgow. Margaret was elected Chairperson in 2017.

Vice-Chairperson: Betty MacNeil

Betty became a Board member in 1995 and has served as Chairperson for two separate spells over nearly 10 years. Betty has also been Chair of Pollokshields Neighbourhood Committee. Betty is a retired Catering Manager and is active in a number of local community organisations.

Secretary: Iain Dyer

Iain is one of the 7 founder members of Southside Housing Association (previously Pollokshields H.A.), the second oldest HA in Glasgow. Iain served 20 years as Councillor for Pollokshields and registered the first 27 community based HAs in the city.

As an elected member Iain was heavily involved in establishing the City Council’s policy on housing co-operatives, and on the implementation of the Homeless Persons Act.

Along with Professor Duncan McLennan Iain set up the Glasgow University Diploma in Housing, a centre for excellence in housing training in Scotland some 30 years ago, which has trained hundreds of HA staff.

Iain served as a Scottish member of the UK wide Housing Corporation for a decade and is active in a host of community based groups.

Members

Alex Cameron

Jonah Chireka

Surjit Singh Chowdhary

Kenneth Ross

Bob Turnbull

Munir Choudry

Alison Devlin

Ruth McCluskey

Management Committee Meetings & Minutes

September 2019 Minutes

Committee Terms of Reference and Remit (Sept 2018)

Neighbourhood Committees

Our two neighbourhood committees meet bi-monthly and operate as sub-committees of the main Management Committee, membership of all the Association’s sub-committee is subject to approval of the Management Committee.

Halfway/Cardonald

Alison Devlin – Chairperson

May Ballantyne

Sam Brown

Margaret McIntyre

Pat Shields

Mary Ward

Brian Watson

Pollokshields

Parveen Mahmood – Chairperson

Farida Fahil

Abdul Ghani

Betty MacNeill

George Thomson

Sadie Swan

Dorothy Wason

SFARS Board

In 2005 the association established Southside Factoring and Related Services (SFARS), a wholly owned subsidiary, in order to deliver commercial activities which could not be provided by the Association as the charitable parent company.

SFARS main focus is on providing a property factor services, it has grown and developed and now incorporates two entities Southside Residential and Southside Letting which together provide the following commercial activities;

Board Members:

Alan Ferguson – Chairperson

Betty Macneill

Carol Wiseman

Lucy Gillie

Ruth McLuskey

Governance Documents

The Association is run according to our constitution and rules of association, here are some of our key governance documents:

The Association is made up of a shareholding membership who have voting rights at the Association’s Annual General Meeting, elect members to our Membership Committee and other rights in relation to the way the Association is managed. The Association encourages local residents and anyone else who shares the Association’s objectives to become a member. It’s a great way to ensure that you have a say and a stake in how we operate as a social landlord.

How to become a member of Southside Housing Association.

You can apply to become a member of the Association making a one off payment of £1.00. Anyone who lives in the areas which we operate in, or who shares the Association’s objectives set out in our Rules may apply to become a member. We want to promote as diverse a membership as possible and welcome applications from people from all backgrounds irrespective of their ethnicity, race, religious belief, sexual orientation or gender identity, or disability.

How We Are Regulated

As a registered social landlord, charity and company, the Association’s functions are closely regulated in a number of ways.

The Scottish Housing Regulator

Registered Social Landlords are regulated by the Scottish Housing Regulator (SHR). The SHR aims to safeguard and promote the interests of current and future tenants of social landlords and other people who use our services. The SHR closely assess the Association and other social landlords based on:

How we are performing in delivering our housing services
Our financial viability and well being, and;
How we are meeting the SHR’s standards of governance and financial management

The Scottish Housing Regulator has published a helpful guide ‘how we regulate: a guide for tenants and service users .’

The Association has a statutory duty to provide certain information to the SHR throughout the year, here are some of the key documents that the SHR produce in relation to the Association:

The Association has a Complaints Handling Procedure which you can use when you are dissatsified with an aspect of how we have delivered our services, or how that may have affected you.

When things go wrong that have a serious and adverse impact on a significant number of people, you can report these issues as a significant performance failure to the SHR who will investigate and take appropriate action to address your concerns.

The Care Inspectorate

The Care Inspectorate regulates cares services in Scotland. They support improvement in care services and work to ensure that quality of care in Scotland meets high standards.

The Association’s Saffron Project, which provides accomodation and a floating support service for young people from a Black and Minority Ethnic background is regulated by the Care Inspectorate. Each year The Association has to provide an annual return to the Care Inspectorate. The Care Inspectorate also cary out periodic inspection of the Saffron Project. Here are a copy of our annual returns and the most recent Care Inspectorate inspection reports:

Saffron Project Inspection Report 2017

Scottish Social Service Council

Our Saffron Project staff are also registered with the Scottish Social Services Council (SSSC), who are the body who regulate workers in care and social services in Scotland.

Find out more about how the SSSC reguate at: https://www.sssc.uk.com/

Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator

As a registered charity in Scotland, we are regulated by the Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator (OSCR) who monitor our complaince with our obligations in line with the provisions set out in the Charities and Trustee Investment (Scotland) Act 2005. The Association provides an annual return to OSCR every December.

SHA Return 2018

Financial Conduct Authority

The Association must also register with the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), and changes to Association Rules for example can only proceed with the consent of the FCA. We must also provide financial information annually to the FCA, you can find details of the Association’s annual returns below.

https://mutuals.fca.org.uk/SocietyDetails.aspx?Number=1694&Suffix=RS