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Governance and Legal Structures
In recent years the nature of organisations within the affordable housing and regeneration sectors has changed significantly. Organisations have: grown in size; extended their remits in the communities they serve; merged to form larger organisations; and developed legal binding partnerships with a diverse range of public and private bodies. We advise charity clients on governance, the statutory duties of trustees and taxation and group structure issues.
· Group Structures: TC Young has been involved in a number of significant charity and social housing group structures established in Scotland, both for wholly Scottish organisations and organisations involving parent bodies registered in England. We are able to assist clients on the various regulatory issues flowing from establishing a group structure including: advising on regulatory guidance, charity law issues, tax and employment law implications.
· Service Level Agreements: Clients often require to be party to service level agreements of various types including those used within group structures or consortiums or “partnering” arrangements. In addition organisations are progressively entering into more service level agreements with other bodies. We have also been involved in developing various consortiums and joint venture vehicles involving the participation of private and public sector bodies.
· Partnership and Strategic Alliances: Organisations increasingly work alongside other bodies and TC Young frequently assists to develop appropriate arrangements for such work. Depending on the specific circumstances, this might involve a transfer of engagements. TC Young has been involved in many housing association transfers of engagements and was the lead advisor in taking forward the rationalisation of Scottish Abbeyfield societies (a transfer process involving the individual transfers of engagements of over 30 separate societies). We have also been involved in developing various consortiums and joint venture vehicles involving the participation of both private and public sector bodies. Such consortiums and joint vehicles have involved a diverse range of activities including computer software products, local authority stock transfer and property development. We have experience in advising clients in relation to the multitude of regulatory, governance and commercial issues flowing from such “partnering” arrangements.
· Schedule 7: We understand the importance of Schedule 7 issues to Registered Social Landlords (RSLs) and have unmatched experience in interpreting the relevant legislation and guidance for our clients. The firm participated in the SFHA Good Governance project which amongst other things was involved in considering issues flowing from Schedule 7; conflicts of interest and committee codes of conduct.
· Model Rules: TC Young has substantial experience in working with social housing clients on issues relating to their rules. In its work with the Scottish Federation of Housing Associations (SFHA) we have been involved in a number of updates of model rules and developed, together with SFHA and the Scottish Housing Regulator, the new model rules (2009).
· Regulatory Compliance: in particular, compliance with governance expectations of housing and charity regulators on such matters as probity and diversification of activities, and compliance with the various Codes of Conduct or Practice which apply in each sector.
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Key Contacts
Briefing Notes
