SARs, STAIRs, FOI case management, discovery and redactions for social housing providers
For English, Scottish and Welsh Social Housing Providers.
Every request answered properly, on time, with your working shown.
Housing associations now answer four kinds of request under four different rulebooks.
Tenants send subject access requests, often mid-dispute, and every neighbour and operative named in the file has to come out.
Staff send them during grievances and tribunal claims.
From April 2027, English tenants can ask how homes and services are run under STAIRs, with the Housing Ombudsman publishing the outcomes.
Scottish associations answer FOI too.
Most hand all of it to one information governance officer working against a clock. We make an accurate answer quick to produce and automatically redacted, so you can say yes more often and prove it when you say no.
A full audit trail on every response is provided. This matters because the regulator, the Ombudsman and the court judge how you reached your answer rather than the answer itself, and without the record a reasonable decision looks like a guess and a gap looks like concealment.
One request, start to finish
A minute and a half on how Requests by Strata AI takes a tenant's subject access request through six steps, from the day it lands to the evidence pack. The video has sound and on-screen captions.
Four request types governed by four sets of regulations
Tenant subject access requests
One month. UK GDPR and the ICO. The hard part is everyone else in the file: neighbours in ASB cases, operatives in repairs notes, children in safeguarding records.
Staff subject access requests
Same law, different records. Grievances, disciplinaries and tribunal claims drive these, and the search runs through HR systems, manager inboxes and Teams.
STAIRs
From 1 April 2027, tenants of English providers can ask how their homes and services are managed. Thirty days, FOI exemptions, an 18 hour cost limit, and the Housing Ombudsman publishing its determinations.
FOI and EIR
Scottish associations answer freedom of information requests from anyone, in 20 working days, with quarterly reporting to the Commissioner. English and Welsh associations answer environmental information requests on estate and building matters.
One platform for every request type
A request arrives by email, letter, phone or web form. It goes on the register as the right type, with the right clock running, and routes to the right person. Identity, authority and scope are recorded on the case. The system searches your housing management system, your HR system, and your Microsoft 365 estate, marks what belongs to the requester and flags what belongs to anyone else. Your officer decides, item by item. The response pack, the covering letter and an evidence pack showing what was searched, found, decided and by whom go out together.
Nothing leaves without a person saying yes.
Built for housing associations
A tenant's file is never only about the tenant. Repairs notes name operatives. ASB files name neighbours and witnesses. Complaints name staff. Safeguarding notes name children. A general discovery or redaction tool sees text, but doesn’t understand the housing context. Requests by Strata AI knows your language, what a tenancy file looks like and who in it has a right to stay private.
Works with what you run
- Housing management: NEC Housing, Civica Cx, MRI Housing.
- HR and payroll: iTrent, Cascade, Ciphr, Sage People.
- Microsoft 365, including SharePoint, Exchange, OneDrive and Teams.
- Repairs, contractor and call recording platforms connected during onboarding.
Connectors read your data where it sits. Nothing is copied into a second system of record.
Don't see the products you use? Ask. We can connect securely to almost any third-party system you run.
Your data stays in your tenancy
Runs in your own Microsoft Azure environment, behind a private endpoint. Officers see the records. The data protection officer signs off. Every action is logged with a name and a time.
Free guides and tools
Use them whether or not you use us.
SAR deadline calculator
Due dates for SAR, FOI, EIR and STAIRs requests, with bank holidays for each UK nation.
Work out a date ChecklistSTAIRs readiness checklist
What English providers need in place for tenant requests from 1 April 2027.
Read the checklist Free toolSAR health check
Six questions, two minutes. See where your process is exposed and what to fix first.
Take the checkTry it on a real request
Pick one request. Run it through your current process and through ours. Compare the hours, the records found and the redactions caught. Then decide.