Every figure printed in the knowledge centre comes from this register. A claim is shown only after it has been read in its original source, never from a page that quotes it. The grade describes the evidence by its method, not by who published it.
43 checked claims by grade
Grade A20
Grade B9
Grade C12
Contested2
How to read the grades
Grade A. A meta-analysis or systematic review, a peer-reviewed empirical study, or an official body's own publication of what it measured.
Grade B. A named survey or study with its method and sample stated, whoever published it.
Grade C. An argued source: a book, a framework, an article that reasons rather than measures.
Contested. Widely repeated, but the trail leads to no evidence or to weaker evidence than the claim implies. Cited only to correct.
43 entries shown.
1
Companies deliver on average only 63% of the financial value their strategies promise.
Mankins, M. C. and Steele, R. (2005) Turning great strategy into great performance. Harvard Business Review, July–August 2005. Original source
Evidence
Grade B Survey of senior executives at large companies, run for the article by the authors' consultancy. HBR's own summary confirms the 63% figure; the sample description sits in the paywalled text and is not restated here until it has been read.
Published
July 2005
Applies to
Large companies; a 2005 finding to be paired with later evidence rather than used as today's benchmark.
Limits
Self-reported estimates of value promised against value delivered; consultancy-authored; a single survey with no follow-up series.
Last reviewed
2
Senior managers say they can rely on colleagues in other units to deliver less than 10% of the time, and only about a third can name their firm's top three priorities.
London Business School (2015) release on Sull, D., Homkes, R. and Sull, C., Why strategy execution unravels; the HBR article of March 2015 reports an earlier, smaller sample. Original source
Evidence
Grade B Survey of about 11,000 managers in more than 400 companies, reported in the school's release; the HBR article describes the earlier sample of nearly 8,000 managers in more than 250 companies.
Published
March 2015
Applies to
Large organisations with several business units or functions.
Limits
Self-report; the two samples differ, so an article must say which one its figure comes from.
Last reviewed
3
Execution fails between units more than within them; people keep their promises to their own boss and team far more reliably than to other functions.
Sull, D., Homkes, R. and Sull, C. (2015) Why strategy execution unravels, and what to do about it. Harvard Business Review, March 2015. Original source
Evidence
Grade B Survey of managers in large companies, with the article's own figures on cross-unit reliability.
Published
March 2015
Applies to
Cross-functional programmes and portfolios.
Limits
No figure is printed from this entry until the article's own numbers have been read in the original.
Last reviewed
4
Execution runs on promises between a customer and a provider, made in three phases: a meeting of minds, making it happen, and closing the loop, where the customer declares whether the work was delivered. Good promises are public, active, voluntary, explicit and mission based.
Sull, D. and Spinosa, C. (2007) Promise-based management, the essence of execution. Harvard Business Review, April 2007. Original source
Evidence
Grade C Argued article drawing on the authors' consulting and research; the three phases and five qualities are quoted from HBR's own summary of the article.
Published
April 2007
Applies to
Dependencies between teams and functions.
Limits
A framework, not a measurement.
Last reviewed
5
Fewer than a third of transformations succeed in improving performance and sustaining it; about 35% of the available value is lost during implementation and another 20% after it.
McKinsey & Company (2021) Losing from day one, why even successful transformations fall short. December 2021. Original source
Evidence
Grade B Survey of 1,034 participants who had been through a transformation, fielded May to June 2021.
Published
December 2021
Applies to
Organisation-wide transformations; less directly to single projects.
Limits
Self-reported outcomes; consultancy-published; value loss by phase is the respondents' estimate.
Last reviewed
6
There is no valid, reliable evidence that 70% of change initiatives fail.
Hughes, M. (2011) Do 70 per cent of all organizational change initiatives really fail? Journal of Change Management, 11(4), 451–464. Original source
Evidence
Grade A Peer-reviewed review tracing the published sources of the 70% figure back to their evidence.
Published
2011
Applies to
Any writing that quotes a change failure rate.
Limits
Shows the absence of evidence for the figure; it does not measure a failure rate of its own.
Last reviewed
7
The 70% figure entered circulation through Beer and Nohria's 2000 article, which states "The brutal fact is that about 70% of all change initiatives fail" and gives no source for it.
Beer, M. and Nohria, N. (2000) Cracking the code of change. Harvard Business Review, May–June 2000. Original source
Evidence
Contested Argued article; the figure appears as an assertion, with no study, survey or dataset cited.
Published
May 2000
Applies to
Correcting the 70% myth.
Limits
Cited only to correct. The authors attribute their explanation of failure to experience, not the figure to a study.
Last reviewed
8
Kotter's Leading Change is a qualitative account of eight errors drawn from watching more than 100 companies; it contains no failure percentage, describing most efforts as falling "somewhere in between" success and failure.
Kotter, J. P. (1995) Leading change, why transformation efforts fail. Harvard Business Review, March–April 1995. Original source
Evidence
Grade C Argued article based on the author's observation of more than 100 companies.
Published
March 1995
Applies to
Correcting the 70% myth; change leadership.
Limits
Observation, not measurement.
Last reviewed
9
The statement that 95% of employees do not understand their company's strategy is quoted from Kaplan and Norton (2005) but rests on unpublished consultancy research.
Kaplan, R. S. and Norton, D. P. (2005) The office of strategy management. Harvard Business Review, 83(10), October 2005. Original source
Evidence
Contested Argued article; the figure is attributed to the authors' consultancy's research, which was not published.
Published
October 2005
Applies to
Correcting the 95% myth.
Limits
Cited only with that caveat.
Last reviewed
10
Projects with excellent change management met or exceeded their objectives 88% of the time, against 13% for projects with poor change management, about seven times as often.
Anderson, S. (2023) The correlation between change management and project success. Prosci, from its Best Practices in Change Management research. Original source
Evidence
Grade B Practitioner benchmarking survey; Prosci says it asked more than 2,600 change practitioners in its most recent Best Practices in Change Management study, without naming the edition.
Published
June 2023
Applies to
Projects with a people change component.
Limits
Self-assessed change management quality and self-reported outcomes; the number of respondents in each group is not given; the publisher sells change management services.
Last reviewed
11
The share of employees willing to support enterprise change fell from 74% in 2016 to 38% in 2022.
Gartner (2023) The transformation deficit. Gartner Business Quarterly, Q1 2023. Original source
Evidence
Grade B Gartner employee survey figures, as Gartner itself reports them; the page does not state the survey's sample or method.
Published
2023
Applies to
Change saturation and readiness.
Limits
One firm's survey series with no published sample or method alongside the figures; a direction of travel, not a population measure. Earlier secondary reports (No Jitter, Accounting Times) give the same figures.
Last reviewed
12
ADKAR describes the sequence an individual goes through in change, awareness, desire, knowledge, ability and reinforcement.
Hiatt, J. M. (2006) ADKAR, a model for change in business, government and our community. Prosci. Original source
Evidence
Grade C Practitioner model built from the author's research programme.
Published
2006
Applies to
Individual change; portfolio-level change impact when applied across many changes.
Limits
A model, not an outcome measurement.
Last reviewed
13
Project appraisers are systematically over-optimistic about cost, time and benefit, and estimates should be adjusted using evidence from past projects.
HM Treasury (2013) Green Book supplementary guidance, optimism bias. Original source
Evidence
Grade A Official guidance with uplift percentages derived from the outturn of past public projects.
Published
2013
Applies to
Business cases and benefit forecasts, public and private.
Limits
The uplifts are UK public-sector figures; the principle travels, the percentages may not.
Last reviewed
14
Reference class forecasting takes an outside view: it estimates from the actual outcomes of a class of similar past projects rather than from the plan in front of you.
Flyvbjerg, B. (2006) From Nobel Prize to project management, getting risks right. Project Management Journal, 37(3), 5–15. Original source
Evidence
Grade A Peer-reviewed article setting out the method, its basis in Kahneman and Tversky's work, and its first applications.
Published
August 2006
Applies to
Forecasting cost, time and benefit for initiatives.
Limits
Needs a reference class of comparable past projects, which small organisations may not have.
Last reviewed
15
When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.
Strathern, M. (1997) Improving ratings, audit in the British university system. European Review, 5(3), 305–321, at 308. Original source
Evidence
Grade C Peer-reviewed essay; Strathern's general restatement of what Hoskin called Goodhart's law, after Goodhart's observation about monetary targets.
Published
1997
Applies to
Status reporting, KPIs and OKRs.
Limits
An argued point, widely confirmed by experience but not a measurement; the wording is Strathern's, not Goodhart's.
Last reviewed
16
People asked to explain an outcome presented as certain gave more reasons for it than people asked to explain the same outcome presented as uncertain: about 4.5 reasons against 3.3 in the first of two experiments and 4.6 against 3.3 in the second. Whether the event was set in the past or the future made no reliable difference.
Mitchell, D. J., Russo, J. E. and Pennington, N. (1989) Back to the future, temporal perspective in the explanation of events. Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, 2(1), 25–38; applied by Klein, G. (2007) Performing a project premortem. Harvard Business Review, September 2007. Original source
Evidence
Grade A Two experiments, read in the original: 4.50 against 3.30 reasons in the first and 4.60 against 3.28 in the second. Klein's premortem article applies the finding as the reason to imagine that a plan has already failed.
Published
1989
Applies to
Premortems, risk identification and decision records.
Limits
Laboratory experiments that counted reasons and did not judge whether they were right. The widely quoted "30% better at identifying reasons" does not appear in the paper, and the effect came from certainty, not from looking back from the future.
Last reviewed
17
Bad strategy is a list of goals or a statement of ambition with no diagnosis and no coherent action.
Rumelt, R. (2011) Good strategy, bad strategy. Profile Books; and The perils of bad strategy, McKinsey Quarterly, June 2011. Original source
Evidence
Grade C Argued book and article.
Published
2011
Applies to
Recognising whether a strategy can be executed at all.
Limits
A definition, not a measurement.
Last reviewed
18
Business and IT alignment can be assessed as a maturity level across six areas and improved deliberately.
Luftman, J. (2000) Assessing business-IT alignment maturity. Communications of the Association for Information Systems, 4(14). Original source
Evidence
Grade A Peer-reviewed model with an assessment instrument.
Published
2000
Applies to
IT functions and CIOs.
Limits
A maturity model from 2000; the areas hold, the technology examples date.
Last reviewed
19
Capability-based planning describes an organisation by what it can do, independent of its current structure, and plans change against the capabilities that have gaps.
The Open Group, TOGAF Series Guide, Business Capability Planning (TOGAF Standard, 10th Edition). Original source
Evidence
Grade B Industry standard guidance; defines a business capability as "an ability that an organization possesses" and the capability catalogue as "independent of the current organizational structure".
Published
2022
Applies to
Capability maturity and the Function level of a plan.
Limits
Standards describe the method; they do not measure its effect.
Last reviewed
20
Objectives are outcomes and key results are measurable; status comes from measurement, not assertion.
Doerr, J. (2018) Measure what matters. Portfolio Penguin. Original source
Evidence
Grade C Argued book with case studies.
Published
2018
Applies to
OKRs and KPI status.
Limits
Practitioner account; the straight-line status calculation waytrk uses is waytrk's method, not Doerr's finding.
Last reviewed
21
Strategy maps and the balanced scorecard link objectives in cause-and-effect chains and were offered as the cure for strategies that never reached operations.
Kaplan, R. S. and Norton, D. P. (1992) The balanced scorecard, measures that drive performance. Harvard Business Review, January–February 1992; and (2004) Strategy maps. Harvard Business School Press. Original source
Evidence
Grade C Argued articles and book from consulting practice.
Published
1992
Applies to
Linking objectives to work.
Limits
A method, not an outcome measurement.
Last reviewed
22
Hoshin Kanri sets a few breakthrough objectives, cascades and negotiates them level by level, and reviews them on a fixed rhythm.
Akao, Y. (1991) Hoshin kanri, policy deployment for successful TQM. Productivity Press. Original source
Evidence
Grade C Method text from Japanese quality practice.
Published
1991
Applies to
Strategy reviews and cascading objectives.
Limits
A method, not an outcome measurement.
Last reviewed
23
Since 1 April 2024 social landlords in England are regulated against consumer standards with proactive inspections; a C3 grade means serious failings needing significant improvement.
Regulator of Social Housing (2025) press release, 30 July 2025; and Regulating the standards. Original source
Evidence
Grade A Regulator's own publications.
Published
July 2025
Applies to
Social housing in England.
Limits
The full C1 to C4 scale should be quoted from Regulating the Standards, not from a release.
Last reviewed
24
Organisations that undervalue project management as a strategic competency report an average of 50% more of their projects failing outright, and 9.9% of every dollar invested is wasted through poor project performance.
Project Management Institute (2018) Pulse of the Profession 2018, success in disruptive times. Original source
Evidence
Grade B Annual global survey of project management practitioners, senior executives and PMO directors (the report lists 4,455 practitioners, 447 senior executives and 800 PMO directors), with supplementary interviews.
Published
February 2018
Applies to
Portfolio delivery.
Limits
Self-report by project professionals; the publisher certifies project managers; the 2020 edition puts waste at 11.4%, so cite the year with the figure.
Last reviewed
25
Strategic planning has a positive, moderate and significant effect on organisational performance, a mean correlation of .229 across 87 correlations from 31 studies. The effect is strongest when performance is measured as effectiveness and weakest for efficiency, and it does not differ significantly between public and private organisations or between US and non-US studies.
George, B., Walker, R. M. and Monster, J. (2019) Does strategic planning improve organizational performance? A meta-analysis. Public Administration Review, 79(6), 810–819. Original source
Evidence
Grade A Meta-analysis of 31 empirical studies (87 correlations) indexed in the Social Sciences Citation Index to August 2017; random-effects model, 95% CI .186 to .271.
Published
2019
Applies to
Public and private organisations; formal planning rather than informal.
Limits
Publication bias could not be ruled out (Egger test significant); studies using a single data source report larger effects; the designs are correlational, so causation is not established. Participation in planning showed a smaller effect than formality.
Last reviewed
26
An earlier synthesis of 26 studies found strategic planning positively related to firm performance and attributed the contradictory earlier findings mostly to research methods rather than to planning itself.
Miller, C. C. and Cardinal, L. B. (1994) Strategic planning and firm performance, a synthesis of more than two decades of research. Academy of Management Journal, 37(6), 1649–1665. Original source
Evidence
Grade A Meta-analysis of 26 previously published studies.
Published
1994
Applies to
Firms, mainly US, studied between the 1970s and the early 1990s.
Limits
The studies are old and mostly from large firms; the paper reports the average, not the conditions.
Last reviewed
27
The case against, formal planning can crowd out strategic thinking and mistake analysis for strategy; planning is better at programming a strategy than at creating one.
Mintzberg, H. (1994) The rise and fall of strategic planning. Prentice Hall; and The fall and rise of strategic planning, Harvard Business Review, January–February 1994. Original source
Evidence
Grade C Argued book and article.
Published
1994
Applies to
Any organisation whose planning has become a calendar ritual.
Limits
A critique of practice, not a measurement; Mintzberg still gives planners a role in programming strategy.
Last reviewed
28
A review of 117 strategic planning studies published between 1980 and 2011 finds the evidence for a link between planning and firm performance inconclusive at the level of individual studies, with correlations ranging from −0.31 to 0.75 for revenue growth, attributes the inconsistency largely to methodology, and names the conditions under which planning helps as the field's open question.
Wolf, C. and Floyd, S. W. (2017) Strategic planning research, toward a theory-driven agenda. Journal of Management, 43(6), 1754–1788. First published online 2013. Original source
Evidence
Grade A Systematic review of 117 journal articles, 65 from 1980 to 1993 and 52 from 1994 to 2011.
Published
2017
Applies to
The planning-performance question and the conditions that moderate it.
Limits
Covers research to 2011 only; read from the authors' accepted manuscript, with the print citation as above.
Last reviewed
29
In small firms, business planning is positively associated with performance, with the strength of the relationship depending on context, notably how new the firm is and its cultural environment.
Brinckmann, J., Grichnik, D. and Kapsa, D. (2010) Should entrepreneurs plan or just storm the castle? A meta-analysis on contextual factors impacting the business planning-performance relationship in small firms. Journal of Business Venturing, 25(1), 24–40. Original source
Evidence
Grade A Meta-analysis of the business planning-performance relationship in small firms, with moderator analysis.
Published
2010
Applies to
Small and new organisations, including founders.
Limits
Checked from the published abstract; the number of studies and effect sizes are not printed until read in the full paper.
Last reviewed
30
A firm's resources can be a source of sustained competitive advantage when they are valuable, rare, hard to imitate and hard to substitute.
Barney, J. (1991) Firm resources and sustained competitive advantage. Journal of Management, 17(1), 99–120. Original source
Evidence
Grade C Peer-reviewed theoretical article; the four indicators are named in the article's own abstract.
Published
1991
Applies to
Why what an organisation can do matters more than what it is currently doing.
Limits
A theory, not a measurement; developed for firms competing in markets, and applied by analogy to public bodies.
Last reviewed
31
Dynamic capabilities are an organisation's ability to integrate, build and reconfigure internal and external competences to address rapidly changing environments; advantage rests on distinctive organisational processes rather than on products alone.
Teece, D. J., Pisano, G. and Shuen, A. (1997) Dynamic capabilities and strategic management. Strategic Management Journal, 18(7), 509–533. Original source
Evidence
Grade C Peer-reviewed theoretical article; the definition is quoted from the original.
Published
1997
Applies to
Capability building as the work strategy creates; organisations in changing environments.
Limits
A framework, not a measurement; the construct has been debated and refined since.
Last reviewed
32
When people know how an event turned out, they usually cannot reproduce the judgements they would have made without that knowledge, and do not realise it. In the authors' experiment the effect almost disappeared when the outcome was put down to chance, and was sizable when it was put down to human skill or the lack of it.
Wasserman, D., Lempert, R. O. and Hastie, R. (1991) Hindsight and causality. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 17(1), 30–35. Original source
Evidence
Grade A Peer-reviewed experiment; the general hindsight finding and the effect of chance and skill are both stated in the article's own abstract.
Published
1991
Applies to
Decision records and reviews of past decisions.
Limits
The first sentence states the general hindsight finding from earlier research, which the abstract links to Fischhoff's work; the experiment itself tested what moderates it. Laboratory judgements, applied by analogy to organisational reviews.
Last reviewed
33
In Deloitte's 2018 global CIO survey, ongoing operations took about 56% of IT budgets; the authors note that only a few years earlier it was not unusual for them to take more than 70%.
Briggs, B., Lamar, K., Kark, K. and Shaikh, A. (2018) Manifesting legacy, looking beyond the digital era. 2018 global CIO survey. Deloitte Insights. Original source
Evidence
Grade B Survey of 1,437 technology and business leaders (1,116 CIOs and 321 other executives) in 71 countries and 23 industry segments, January to March 2018, with interviews of more than 100; budget shares are self-reported.
Published
2018
Applies to
How much of a technology budget goes on running what exists rather than changing it.
Limits
Technology budgets only, not a whole organisation's capacity; self-reported. The "more than 70%" is the authors' description of earlier years, not a figure from this survey. The publisher sells technology consulting.
Last reviewed
34
Adaptive systems that engage in exploitation to the exclusion of exploration are likely to find themselves trapped in suboptimal stable equilibria; those that explore to the exclusion of exploitation suffer the costs of experimentation without gaining many of its benefits. Maintaining an appropriate balance between the two is a primary factor in system survival and prosperity.
March, J. G. (1991) Exploration and exploitation in organizational learning. Organization Science, 2(1), 71–87. Original source
Evidence
Grade C Peer-reviewed theoretical article with simulation models of organisational learning; the quoted sentences are on its first page.
Published
1991
Applies to
Why running an organisation and changing it both need resources, and why the balance between them should be chosen deliberately.
Limits
A theory illustrated by simulation, not a measurement of organisations. Exploitation means refining and using what is already known, which is broader than routine or statutory work, so articles apply it by analogy.
Last reviewed
35
People's predictions of how long their own tasks will take are too optimistic: they focus on plans for the future rather than on relevant past experience. In one study the bias disappeared when people were asked to connect relevant past experience with their prediction.
Buehler, R., Griffin, D. and Ross, M. (1994) Exploring the "planning fallacy", why people underestimate their task completion times. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 67(3), 366–381. Original source
Evidence
Grade A Five peer-reviewed studies with university students (37 to 123 per study) predicting when they would finish academic and everyday tasks, with think-aloud and recall conditions; the findings are stated in the abstract.
Published
1994
Applies to
Time estimates for one's own work; why plans built from the plan alone underestimate how long work takes.
Limits
Students predicting their own tasks, applied by analogy to organisational plans. Observers overestimated how long others would take, so the bias concerns people's own work.
Last reviewed
36
The regulator grades a landlord C3 when there are "serious failings in the landlord delivering the outcomes of the consumer standards and significant improvement is needed", and expects a C3 landlord "to develop a plan that will drive significant change and to share that with tenants". C1 means the landlord is delivering the outcomes, and has shown it identifies when issues occur and puts plans in place to remedy them.
Regulator of Social Housing (2024, updated 2026) How we approach regulatory judgements and gradings. GOV.UK guidance. Original source
Evidence
Grade A The regulator's own published guidance on its grades, first published 29 February 2024.
Published
February 2024
Applies to
Registered providers of social housing in England, under consumer regulation since 1 April 2024.
Limits
Describes how the regulator grades, not how many landlords received each grade. The guidance has been revised since publication; re-read it before quoting.
Last reviewed
37
The regulator runs a programme of inspections of large landlords and aims to carry out a programmed inspection at least every four years. Inspectors look for documentary evidence that boards, councillors and senior officers are receiving the information they need, may use regulatory returns including the Tenant Satisfaction Measures, and look for evidence that the landlord collects and uses stock condition data.
Regulator of Social Housing (2024, updated 2026) Our approach to inspections. GOV.UK guidance. Original source
Evidence
Grade A The regulator's own published guidance on inspections, first published 29 February 2024.
Published
February 2024
Applies to
Large registered providers of social housing in England; smaller landlords can be inspected outside the programme.
Limits
Sets out what inspectors may look at, not a checklist every inspection follows. Local authority landlords are not assessed against the Governance and Financial Viability or Value for Money standards.
Last reviewed
38
Under the Safety and Quality Standard, registered providers "must have an accurate, up to date and evidenced understanding of the condition of their homes", and must provide an effective, efficient and timely repairs, maintenance and planned improvements service.
Regulator of Social Housing (2024) Safety and Quality Standard. GOV.UK. Original source
Evidence
Grade A The regulator's own standard, in force from 1 April 2024.
Published
April 2024
Applies to
Registered providers of social housing in England.
Limits
The standard sets required outcomes; how a landlord meets them, and the evidence it keeps, is for the landlord to decide.
Last reviewed
39
In its review of 2023 to 2024, the regulator reported that some landlords "did not have accurate, up-to-date and complete data on the condition of the homes", and some "did not have the data to be assured that homes were meeting the Decent Homes Standard". It received 986 referrals in the year and found 9 landlords not meeting the consumer standards with serious detriment.
Regulator of Social Housing (2024) Consumer regulation review 2023 to 2024. GOV.UK, 17 July 2024. Original source
Evidence
Grade A The regulator's own annual review of the cases it handled.
Published
July 2024
Applies to
The cases the regulator examined in the year before proactive consumer inspections began.
Limits
Covers referrals and cases the regulator looked at, not a survey of every landlord, and predates the April 2024 regime; all 9 landlords found in breach that year were local authorities.
Last reviewed
40
Awaab's Law came into force for the social rented sector on 27 October 2025. Landlords must investigate and make safe emergency hazards within 24 hours, and investigate significant damp and mould hazards within 10 working days, with a written summary to the tenant within 3 working days of the investigation and safety work within 5. Further hazards are added in 2026 and 2027.
Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (2025, updated 2026) Awaab's Law, guidance for social landlords, timeframes for repairs in the social rented sector. GOV.UK. Original source
Evidence
Grade A Government guidance on statutory requirements, first published 17 October 2025.
Published
October 2025
Applies to
Social landlords in England.
Limits
The timeframes summarised here are for the first phase; read the guidance for exceptions and the hazards added in later phases.
Last reviewed
41
From 1 October 2026 a revised Transparency, Influence and Accountability Standard and a new Competence and Conduct Standard apply to all registered providers. The Competence and Conduct Standard requires providers to secure that their relevant staff "have the necessary skills, knowledge and experience" and to develop or adopt an appropriate code of conduct for them.
Regulator of Social Housing (2026) Decision instrument RSH12, decision to revise consumer standards and requirements (9 July 2026); and Competence and Conduct Standard (1 October 2026). GOV.UK. Original source
Evidence
Grade A The regulator's own decision and standard.
Published
October 2026
Applies to
Registered providers of social housing in England.
Limits
The qualification requirements for senior housing staff sit in a separate Government Policy Statement that the standard refers to; they are not summarised here.
Last reviewed
42
The Governance and Financial Viability Standard requires registered providers to "ensure effective governance arrangements that deliver their aims, objectives and intended outcomes" for tenants and potential tenants, and to have a business planning, risk and control framework approved by the board and reviewed at least once a year.
Regulator of Social Housing (2015) Governance and Financial Viability Standard. GOV.UK. Original source
Evidence
Grade A The regulator's own standard, in force since 1 April 2015.
Published
March 2015
Applies to
Private registered providers of social housing in England, such as housing associations; not local authorities.
Limits
The standard sets outcomes for governance; it does not prescribe the form of a corporate plan.
Last reviewed
43
All registered providers of social housing must collect and report annually on a core set of Tenant Satisfaction Measures, in force since April 2023, which give tenants "greater transparency about their landlord's performance".
Regulator of Social Housing (2023, updated 2026) Transparency, influence and accountability, including Tenant Satisfaction Measures. GOV.UK collection. Original source
Evidence
Grade A The regulator's own collection page for the standard and the measures.
Published
April 2023
Applies to
Registered providers of social housing in England.
Limits
The measures were revised from 1 October 2026; the number and wording of the measures are in the regulator's own documents.
