Housing associations in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales have been reclassified as public sector bodies by the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
The ONS said that housing associations in the rest of the UK outside England would be classed as “public non-financial corporations” for the purpose of national accounts, meaning their debt will go on to the UK government balance sheet. This follows the ONS’s decision last year to reclassify housing associations in England, prompting Westminster to announce a deregulatory package to reverse the decision.