Housing associations are the main providers of new social housing. There are over 2,000 housing associations in England, currently managing around 1.45 million homes. These have been set up to provide homes for people to rent at affordable rates. Increasingly, many housing associations are playing an important role in regenerating communities into better places to live. A feature of housing associations is that although the larger ones such as Three Rivers have employed staff, a committee or Board of Management has overall responsibility for the work of the organisation. Housing associations are run as businesses but do not trade for profit. Any surplus is ploughed back into the organisation to maintain existing homes and to help finance new ones. Registered Social Landlord (RSL) is a technical term for social landlords that are registered with the Housing Corporation - most are housing associations, but there are also trusts, co-operatives and companies. This means that RSLs such as Three Rivers have to comply with particular building and management standards.