CWAG Newsletter – October 2023

CWAG Annual General Meeting

This year’s AGM focussed on preparing councils for the regulatory and professionalisation changes introduced by the Social Housing Regulation Act.

Lydia Dlaboha from the Housing Quality Network introduced the session with a topical discussion on ‘Getting ready for inspection and the new regime’

Whilst preparations for most councils are well under way it was useful to discuss some of the issues and challenges specific to councils with ALMOs. With a much greater spotlight on the council as landlord and on elected members, new arrangements need to be put in place whilst not undermining the work of ALMO Boards.

Councils will need to be able to have assurance that they are complying with the consumer standards. This requires that councils have good data on their homes and the tenants who live in them as well as ensuring that services are developed with the input of tenants.

Tenant Satisfaction Measures (TSMs) are a key tool in the new arrangements and landlords need to drill down into the ‘how’ and ‘why’ of what TSMs are telling them – in particular identifying whether there are specific concerns in certain communities and demographics. The Regulator will be keen to understand how landlords are using TSM data and what plans they have for improvement.

The discussion also picked up the potential for tensions where councillors make decisions based on wider objectives that are not necessarily aligned with the interests specific to social tenants. In these circumstances much will depend on the narrative and how the council presents its case.

Our second speaker Charlotte Hilliard from the Department of Levelling Up Housing and Communities (DLUHC) spoke on the topic Driving Professionalism in social housing: Implementing the Conduct and Competence Standards.  This set out the background to the current professionalisation agenda alongside current thinking around what the new regulations are likely to mean in practice.

The Social Housing Regulation Bill was amended at a late stage to introduce measures to enable the Regulator of Social Housing to introduce new Competence and Conduct Standards, which will require landlords to ensure that all staff have the appropriate behaviours, skills, knowledge, and experience. Linked to this senior housing managers and senior housing executives (defined in the Act) will be required to have, or be working towards, a suitable housing management qualification.

The key criteria determining which job roles will be deemed to be in covered by the legislation are that:

• The post is concerned with managing a service in a customer facing role
• The subject properties are regulated by the RSH

Relevant staff who are not already qualified will be required to enrol on and complete an appropriate qualification within specified timescales, which will be set out following consultation.

The discussion at the AGM highlighted differences in the way people are currently interpreting the legislation with implications for exactly which posts are likely to fall within the scope of the legislation. These issues will need to be further explored and clarified as detail arrangements are worked up. A two-stage consultation process will take place prior to the arrangements coming into force:

• Stage 1 – Statutory consultation on a draft Direction to the Regulator – this will take place over the next few months,
• Stage 2 – Once formally directed the Regulator will consult on its approach to setting the requirements within the standards.

The Regulator of Social Housing (RSH) has announced that it plans to carry out a National Tenant Survey to better understand how satisfied social housing tenants are with their landlord’s service.

The move coincides with work all social landlords are currently undertaking to collect Tenant Satisfaction Measures (TSMs) from their tenants. The RSH’s one-off tenant survey will be in addition to landlords’ TSM surveys and will use the same questions.

The aim is to provide the RSH with a robust and independent benchmark when reviewing TSM results submitted by individual landlords. The survey will also provide information about levels of satisfaction among different groups of tenants.

It is hoped that the RSH National Tenants Survey will provide deeper understanding and additional insights on tenant satisfaction levels throughout the sector.

Consultation – Awaab’s Law – Direction to the Social Housing Regulator

This autumn sees a series of consultations linked to implementing measures in the Social Housing Regulation Act. The latest relates to the section of the legislation known as Awaab’s Law which introduced new requirements around the information social landlords will be required to provide to their tenants.

As a first stage the government is consulting on a new Direction requiring the Social Housing Regulator to set standards for the provision of information to tenants in the following areas:

• making complaints
• tenants’ rights
• relevant regulatory requirements

The government has carried out an initial assessment of the likely costs involved which are estimated at around £1.8m per year for local authority landlords. The consultation indicates that new burdens funding will be available to local authorities to cover this. This is an 8-week consultation ending on 22^nd November 2023.

Following this consultation, the Regulator will formally consult on its proposals for implementing the Direction.The government is also planning to consult in the near future on directions relating to the quality of accommodation, access to information, tenure and competency and conduct.

Tenant Satisfaction Measures – Frequently asked questions – September 2023

This document brings together examples of specific recurring queries sent to the Regulator as providers begin to collect their first set of TSM data for 2023/24. It is a fairly technical document intended for practitioners involved interpreting the guidance and collecting the data.  Download document 

New Fire Safety Guidance

New fire safety laws came into force on 1st October 2023 and the home office has published new fire safety guidance as follows:

• People with duties under fire safety laws (29th September 2023) is intended to assist those with duties under fire safety legislation in England to comply with the legislation.
• Fire Safety Order: enforcement and sanctions for non-compliance (29th September 2023) explains how the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 (as amended) is enforced and advises of the sanctions that are available to Enforcing Authorities in the case of compliance failures.

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