CWAG

This Update includes the following

Consultation Outcome – Changes to RSH Fee Regime

The Regulator of Social Housing (RSH) has announced the outcome of its consultation on proposed changes to the charging regime for social landlords. The Decision Statement indicates that there was broad support for the new approach which will see fees paid by social landlords to cover the full cost of regulation in the sector.

For councils, this will mean a requirement to pay fees for the first time to cover the cost of the RSH’s more active regulation against the Consumer Standards, including the new the inspections regime. Councils owning over 1000 homes will be charged at a pro rata rate of £6.63 per property.

The new arrangements come into effect on 1 July 2024. Invoices will be sent out in June. For more details see the RSH Decision Statement

The Finances and Sustainability of the Social Housing Sector (LUHC  Committee) – Published 29^th April 2024

This report from the Levelling Up Housing and Communities Select Committee highlights the severe financial pressures currently facing the social housing sector.

Current issues have arisen because of repeated government-imposed rent caps coinciding with unprecedented costs for decarbonisation, fire safety and the regeneration of older homes. Whilst overall the sector is deemed to be generally resilient, the impact on social housing newbuild has been stark as providers retrench and focus on their existing stock.

Given the chronic shortage of social housing the Committee recommends that the Government should set and publish a target for the number of social homes it intends to build each year, prioritising grant funding for social housing rather than the current focus on affordable rent and shared ownership. The Government is also urged to use the planning system to support social housing build schemes using land value capture as a tool to ensure land price does not inhibit development of new social homes. Other proposals include greater flexibility in the net additionality guidelines used by Homes England as these are a barrier to regeneration schemes in many areas. The Government is also urged to fund fire safety works in the social housing sector on the same basis at currently available to the private sector.

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Rethinking Repairs and Maintenance : 12 Guiding Principles (Chartered Institute of Housing / National Housing Federation) – Published 9^th May 2024

This report relates to one of the action plan recommendations in the 2023 CIH / NHF ‘Better Social Housing Review’, namely ‘Housing associations should partner with residents, contractors and frontline staff to develop and apply new standards defining what an excellent maintenance and repairs process looks like.’

This guidance identifies twelve guiding principles for how social landlords should work with residents to improve the repairs and maintenance services. The 12 principles are grouped into themes which are intended to be addressed consecutively, starting with culture and resident engagement, tackling discrimination, and involving frontline colleagues to understand and improve performance.

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New Regulatory Regimes – LGA with the Housing Ombudsman and Regulator of Social Housing – Thursday 13^th June 2024 (3 pm. – 4 pm)

This Update includes the following

Consultation Response – Competence and Conduct Standard

The Competence and Conduct Standard Consultation sets out the implementation arrangements for the new regulatory standard requiring senior housing managers and executives within social housing to either have or be working towards a relevant professional qualification.

The CWAG response recognises the value of relevant professional qualifications in improving performance and driving up standards in the social rented sector. However, alongside this there are concerns around the tight implementation timescales and the potential for these to negatively impact staff recruitment and retention in the short-term. The proposed timescales do not offer sufficient time to implement the necessary organisational and training challenges alongside succession planning.

In addition, the costs associated with introducing these measures are likely to be significantly higher than estimated in the impact assessment. No additional resources have been identified to cover implementation and associated costs which will need to be funded from already stretched Housing Revenue Accounts.

Other issues highlighted include role descriptions that are a poor fit with ALMO clienting arrangements and potential problems for organisations using external contractors where roles are deemed in scope of the new regulations.

View consultation response

Good Practice Consultation – Housing Ombudsman

The Housing Ombudsman has launched a consultation for social housing landlords on a proposed new approach for issuing Good Practice. The proposals relate to new powers conferred on the Housing Ombudsman in the Social Housing (Regulation) Act 2023 to issue guidance on good practice in carrying out housing activities covered by the Ombudsman Scheme.

The consultation is about providing access to ‘good practice’ as opposed to ‘best practice’. As such, the proposed approach will encourage landlords to self-assess against a good practice template at the point an issue arises rather than wait for a complaint about the topic. In practice, there may be entirely justifiable reasons for the landlord’s response to differ from suggested good practice, however undertaking the self-assessment allows for the decision to be documented and scrutinised.

The consultation seeks feedback on the Ombudsman’s principles of good practice and proposed approach as well as suggestions for potential topics. The intention is to issue ‘good practice guidance on two topics per year. Initial suggested topics include:

• making an effective apology
• deciding on appropriate levels of compensation
• effective complaint handling during merger or stock transfer
• effective root cause analysis of complaints
• knowledge and information management

The consultation closes on 21^st May 2024

Good-Practice-consultation-26-March-2024.pdf (housing-ombudsman.org.uk)

Housing Outlook Report Q1 2024 Resolution Foundation (March 2024)

This review sets the UK housing market within the context of similar advance economies and examines whether the housing crisis in the UK, particularly affordability pressures and quality issues are specific to the UK. Homes in the UK are more cramped, poorer quality and more expensive relative to general price levels than in other OECD countries. The housing stock is also the oldest in Europe (4 in 10 homes were built before 1946) with consequent issues around damp and poor insulation. The report highlights why housing is likely to feature prominently in this year’s General Election.

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Follow-up report: Spotlight on Noise complaints – Time to be Heard – Housing Ombudsman (April 2024)

The Housing Ombudsman has published its evaluation into its Spotlight report on noise complaints. The report highlights several positive developments in this area including the following:

• Landlords responding more sensitively and being more open to potential contributing factors underlying noise complaints.
• Introducing timescales for responding to noise complaints.
• Triaging noise complaints to ascertain whether they fall under household noise or ASB..
• Focusing on preventative actions, such as using void improvements to help reduce noise concerns for incoming residents.
• Developing a less confrontational approach including changes to the language used e.g. no longer using terms such as ‘perpetrator’ and ‘incidents’.

Download report

Learning from Severe Maladministration – Housing Ombudsman (April 2024)

This new Housing Ombudsman report is intended to be first of a new series of reports looking in more detail at the learning from recent casework where there has been a finding of severe maladministration. This report highlights cases involving 8 landlords.

Learning from Severe Maladministration (housing-ombudsman.org.uk)

Shared Ownership Report – House of Commons Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Committee (March 2024)

This report looks in detail at the current problems with shared ownership including rapidly rising rents, uncapped service charges, liability for repairs and maintenance costs and complex leases which combined mean shared ownership has become an unbearable reality for many people seeking to become homeowners. The report makes a number of recommendations that are urgently required to improve shared ownership to address current weaknesses  undermining this ownership vehicle.

Download report

This Update includes the following

Final version of RSH consumer standards published.

On 29^th February the Regulator of Social Housing (RSH) published a series of documents setting out the final arrangements for Consumer Regulation which will come into effect on 1 April 2024. A detailed summary of the new approach to regulation is set out in the publication Reshaping Consumer Regulation – our new approach. Guidance explaining  how the new regulatory arrangements will operate, including inspections, is set out in a collection of documents available on the ‘How we regulate’ page on the Regulator’s website.

Recent Publications

The economic impact of building social housing – Report by  Centre for Economic and Building Research (CEBR)

This NHF and Shelter commissioned report sets out the arguments in favour of building social housing and forms part of the pre-election debate around housing policy. Based around scenario modelling the report tracks the economic, social and employment benefits of building 90,000 new social homes per year over a 10 year period. According to the researchers, significant benefits would accrue from the start of the programme with projections indicating that the programme would break even in the third year post construction achieving a net present value of £2.4 billion.  Download Executive Summary

Local Housing Allowance – What can Claimants Afford? – Savills Research

Research by Savills analysed over one million Zoopla asking rents in 2023 and concluded that only 8.5% of homes listed would have been affordable using the new uplifted LHA rates. From April LHA will increase on average by 17%, or £110 more per month, compared to when rates were last increased in April 2020. However, in the 4-year period private up to November 2023, private rents have grown on average by 29% across the UK suggesting that those reliant on housing benefit will continue to struggle. The report highlights the wider problem of affordability and high demand impacting all tenures emphasising the urgent need for delivery of more affordable homes to both rent and buy.

Download report

Complaints Handling Failure Orders Report (October – December 2023) – Housing Ombudsman

This latest quarterly report highlights a significant reduction in the number of complaints failure orders issued in the final quarter of 2023 compared to the previous quarter. With the introduction of the new Statutory Complaint Handling Code from April the report provides several good practice compliance examples relating to accepting complaints, agreeing extensions and provision of evidence.

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The State of Local Government Finance in England 2024 Report – Local Government Information Unit

This annual survey of local government in England highlights the extreme and unprecedented financial pressures currently facing local authorities with 9% of councils indicating that they face bankruptcy in the next financial year and more than half warning they will be in a similar situation within the next 5 years if funding pressures are not addressed.

Download report

This Update includes the following

Policy Consultations

There are currently three Department for Levelling Up Housing and Communities open policy consultations impacting the the social housing sector.

The January Newsletter included an overview of proposals in the Awaab’s Law Consultation which includes strict time limits for social housing providers to address dangerous hazards in their properties. This consultation ends on 5th February 2024.

Consultation on reforms to social housing allocations

This consultation has been styled ‘British homes for British workers’ and proposes reform of the regulations governing new social housing allocations. The stated aim is to ‘crack down on rule breakers’ and ensure that ‘valuable and limited’ social housing is allocated fairly.

Most of these new tests apply to future applicants and people on waiting lists only; however, those relating to terrorism and anti- social behaviour aim to establish new grounds for evicting existing tenants in specific circumstances.

These proposals seek to ration available social housing by applying additional eligibility criteria but will do little to address the current housing shortage and the lack of new supply.

This consultation ends on 26th March 2024.

Download consultation document

New social housing eligibility tests proposed:

• UK connection test – A requirement for social housing applicants to demonstrate a connection to the UK for at least 10 years.
• Local connection test – Applicants must demonstrate a connection to a local area for at least two years before they can be allocated social housing.
• Income test – This would set out a maximum threshold for household income which if exceeded would exclude the household from applying for social housing. The consultation does not specify what this threshold level should be but seeks views on what would be appropriate.
• Anti-social behaviour test – People who have unspent convictions for certain criminal anti-social behaviour would be disqualified from social housing for a defined period of between 1 and 5 years. A ‘three strikes and you’re out’ policy would apply for existing tenants anti-social behaviour convictions.
• Terrorism test – Those with unspent convictions for terrorism offences could be disqualified from social housing eligibility.
• Fraudulent declaration test – This would introduce a period of disqualification for those ‘knowingly or recklessly’ making false statements when applying for social housing.

Consultation on Competence and Conduct Standard for social housing

As part of the Government’s post Grenfell drive to improve standards in the social housing sector, the government is consulting on a proposed new direction to the Regulator of Social Housing.

The measures set out aim to ensure that those in senior housing management positions in the sector have appropriate professional qualifications.

It has been estimated that around 25,000 housing management staff will fall within the scope of these measures who will be expected to secure new qualifications. The implementation of such an extensive sector wide training programme has raised questions around the capacity of the training sector to deliver within such constrained timescales as well as how the programme will be funded.

There are also concerns around organisational impacts if staff are absent from their job roles to undertake their studies or possible staff retention issues if staff are expected to undertake training in their own time.

The consultation raises a number of other potential issues including the implications for staff retention and recruitment with the prospect of staff shortages and increasing costs. It is feared that older experienced staff may opt not to undertake the required training. There are also queries around precisely which roles are in scope and whether the measures will be applied to external consultants and specialist repairs contractors.

This consultation ends on 2nd April 2024.

Download consultation document

Key proposals

• All senior housing managers and executives who spend a significant amount of their time on housing management (defined as 50% of their job role) will be required to have or be working towards an appropriate professional qualification.

• The new arrangements will commence from April 2025 with a two-year transition period, at the end of which all affected staff must be either qualified or have commenced studying for their qualification.

• Course content must be tailored towards social housing and include appropriate knowledge of law and policy, as well as practical service delivery and customer service skills.

• The consultation makes provision for an extended 4-year transition period for small organisations (with fewer than 50 units) and allows for some flexibility around issues such as maternity leave and staff on long-term sick leave.

CWAG is planning to respond to these consultations, please send any comments on the consultations to the Policy Officer. 

Recent Publications

Financial distress in local authorities LUHC Select Committee Report (published 29/01/24)

This report looks at why councils are facing financial distress and struggling to maintain services, with particular pressures in social care, children’s services and homelessness. It sets out the challenges facing the next Government, regardless of political persuasion. A fundamental review of local authority funding and taxation will be required. Download Report 

The Provision of Floor Coverings in Social Housing – Learning Report 3: Landlord Perspectives – Altair (published January 2024)

Altair research report exploring the costs and benefits of landlords providing floor coverings in social housing. Download Report

Relationship of Equals – Housing Ombudsman Spotlight Report (published January 2024)

The latest report in the Housing Ombudsman Spotlight series focusses on attitudes, respect and rights. It examines what it means to be vulnerable in social housing and how landlords can better respond to the needs of vulnerable residents. The report also calls for a Royal Commission to create a long-term plan for social housing as current approaches are not working for residents with a vulnerability. Download Report

Quarterly Home Office Fire Safety Reform Bulletin. No 4 – February 2024

This bulletin provides information on the latest fire safety developments and links to recently published and updated guides.

This Update includes the following

Awaab’s Law Consultation

The Social Housing Regulation Act 2023 included provisions for the introduction of Awaab’s Law which aims to protect residents from health and safety risks in their homes by requiring landlords to investigate and fix reported health hazards within specified timeframes. The consultation seeks views on how Awaab’s Law should be implemented, specifically regarding time scales for investigations and carrying out repairs.

The consultation proposes the introduction of a new legal obligation to investigate hazards within 14 calendar days with a requirement to start work on remedying identified hazards within 7 days. Where emergency works are identified, these must be actioned within 24 hours. If the property cannot be made safe within the specified timescales, the registered provider must offer to arrange for the occupant(s) to stay in suitable alternative accommodation until it is safe to return. These new rules will form part of a tenancy agreement, so that tenants can hold landlords to account by law if they fail to respond to issues and provide a decent home.

The consultation proposes that Awaab’s Law should take into account the 29 health and safety hazards set out in the Housing Health and Safety Rating System (HHSRS) but must additionally take into account the vulnerabilities of those living in the household.

Hazards in scope are those that pose a significant risk to the health or safety of the actual residents of the property, therefore, identifying whether a repair meets the threshold of Awaab’s Law will not necessarily match current routine or emergency repair definitions. Where residents have vulnerabilities, routine repairs will potentially fall within the scope of Awaab’s Law.

The consultation sets out new higher expectations in terms of record keeping around repairs. There is also a new requirement to provide residents with a written summary of findings within 48 hours of the investigation setting out if a hazard was found along with details of the follow up response and timescales as well as how to contact the landlord with any queries.

Cost Implications

The consultation makes an assessment of the cost implications for landlords of implementing Awaab’s Law. It is assumed that for the most part implementation costs will be relatively low as any works required are not a new burden but reflect existing landlord responsibilities and therefore shouldn’t cost more than under current arrangements. In practice, the introduction of tight timescales and increased demand for some specialist contractors are likely to increase costs in some areas.

It is estimated that the cost of preparing and sending written summaries to residents following property inspections will cost local authority registered providers around £5.1m annually, but the assumption is that automation will significantly reduce this figure over time. In addition, a small one-off element of transition costs is identified relating to staff training and familiarisation with the new arrangements (amounting to a total of a total of £513,000 across the local authority sector overall).

This is an 8-week consultation closing on 5^th March 2024.

This interim report considers the challenges involved in improving the lives of the poorest communities in the UK focussing on the root causes of poverty and the limitations of current social policy. It brings together evidence from over 250 frontline charities, social enterprises and local organisations working with people in the toughest situations.