Agenda item

To consider a report which summarises the changes and provides an update on Housing Services’ preparedness activities.

The Chair welcomed James Clark, Assistant Director of Housing to the meeting to present a report which summarised the changes to social housing and provided an update of the Housing Services preparedness activities.

The Assistant Director of Housing noted that the report summarised a number of changes that were happening to the way that social housing, including Rotherham’s 20,000 council properties, were regulated.  The changes largely stem from the Grenfell Tower fire and subsequent public inquiry but all other high-profile event including the death of Awaab Ishak a few years ago from damp and mould.  Those changes amounted to a significant reform to the way that social housing was regulated in England. 

He clarified the scope explaining it applied to the landlord services within the Council, so didn’t apply to what’s know as the Council’s strategic housing function, so homelessness for example and private rented sector enforcement and licensing, and some of the Council’s new build activity was not covered by the new regulatory framework.  It was about how the Council managed the properties that it owned, so relating to the Council as a landlord.

To provide further context housing was already regulated but this was largely a passive regulator at this stage so rarely were landlords investigated and even more rarely was there a regulatory judgement issued due to the thresholds that had to be met in order to trigger it.  All of that was being replaced with a proactive inspection regime which would feel similar to the way that schools or social services were regulated in other parts of the Council.

There would be a new set of twenty-two tenant satisfaction measures (TSMs).  Roughly half of the measures would be performance statistics that the Council would generate as a landlord with the remainder being information gathered through surveying tenants.  There was a defined list of questions that the regulator had published, and the Council had to collect that information by surveying its tenants and share the information with the regulator and published by June.  That work was currently underway in the borough.

The Council had communicated with Members on the changes and communicated with tenants via Home Matters.  Many tenants had received a call from the market research company being used and that would generate results that would enable the Council, tenants, and the regulator to compare its performance in the views of the tenants against other landlords across the country in a fair and transparent way.

A new consumer regulatory framework was another change.  He explained that the regulator of social housing closed its consultation in October 2023 on the proposed new standards and it was expected that they would be finalised imminently and would be in force from 1 April 2024.  The standards were broadly similar to the standards already in existence but there was more emphasis on tenant engagement and empowerment regarding the ability of tenants to hold their landlords to account.  As mentioned, there were stronger levers for the regulators to intervene if they felt regulations were not being complied with. 

There would be a new inspection regime, with the regulator indicating they intended to inspect large landlords, by which they meant more that 1,000 homes, roughly every four years but would be more often if there were issues.  He expected the inspections would be similar to those other areas were given and the Council would be given a number of weeks’ notice along with being asked to provide lots of evidence.  The inspection team would then attend, talk with the Council, staff, members, tenants, and partners and would make an assessment and would give a grading.  In terms of sanctions, the changes would mean that the Council or any landlord could be issued with an unlimited fine, if the regulator felt there had been serious detriment to tenants. 

Also, in future if tenants are not satisfied with the way the Council had dealt with a complaint they could go straight to the ombudsman.  The ombudsman would also be sharing information with the regulator, so the regulator would begin to build a much stronger picture based on the TSMs from inspections and on intelligence from complaints about how landlords were doing.  The regulator would use all of that information to determine when and how they inspect and what their key lines of enquiry would be. 

There would be a new requirement under the new framework for all housing managers to have a professional qualification.  Work was being undertaken to understand the scope of that and how it could be met.

The recent publication and consultation on what was known as ‘Awaab’s Law’ was not available in full at the time of the meeting so the report only references it.  It was a really important change that would introduce statutory timescales for landlords to respond to repairs where they constituted health and safety hazards, so damp and mould was the obvious example but there was a list of twenty-eight or twenty-nine different hazards that would be in scope.  The speed at which you had to respond would be determined by the type of hazard and the amount of risk and could range from twenty-four hours to a number of weeks.

The regulator had given some assurance that Councils would not be inspected during local election cycles as they realised that would be challenging. No intelligence was available at this time as to when Rotherham may be inspected.  The main change was that the Council was going to have to report into a proactive regulator.  A lot of the work being done was around evidence gathering and being ready to meet with the regulator.  The new framework did have more emphasis on sharing information with tenants and giving tenants an opportunity to hold the Council to account.  The Council was considering with tenants how it could strengthen some of those mechanisms, how it could strengthen its scrutiny and its involvement mechanisms. The Council was looking at what performance information could be shared with tenants and members and was strengthening some of its central services, such a compliance assurance, IT and digital business improvements.

The HRA business plan noted the Council had earmarked significant funding for 100% stock condition surveys, which would be the first time the Council had done that, and it would enhance the Councils understanding of the quality of its stock and its future investment priorities.

In response to a query, he acknowledged that the rate at which the Council was conducting surveys with tenants was not fast enough in Rotherham.  The current expectation was to do a survey every five years and the Council was not achieving that.  The planned investment would enable the Council to catch up so he anticipated that over the course of two to three years the Council would get round to all of its properties.

A query was raised regarding the regulatory fees, the report mentioned they were around £7-£8 per unit, was that on an annual basis?  The Assistant Director of Housing explained the exact fee level was being consulted on but clarified it was annual and housing associated paid those fees now, but local authorities did not.  In future, local authorities would have to pay fees if they had more than 1,000 homes. He clarified that the Council had earmarked some of the budget to pay those fees although the exact amount was not yet known.

It was queried if the Council had considered if Rotherfed, who were representatives of tenants could do the market research or was it assumed there would be a conflict, and would it be something that Rotherfed could look to do in the future? The Assistant Director of Housing indicated he couldn’t comment on behalf of Rotherfed but from the Councils point of view there would be a conflict but the main reason the Council did not go to them was that it was a very specialist function, and a lot of people would be needed to carry out the surveys.

It was noted that inspections would be introduced for social landlords with more than a thousand properties and queried how many landlords were there in Rotherham excluding the Council have that had more than a thousand properties?  The Assistant Director of Housing explained that if a landlord had a thousand properties nationally then they would be inspected.  Most of the housing association landlords that members would be familiar with in the borough that had general needs stock would have more than a thousand properties.  A list of those organisations could be provided if requested.

In response to a query the Assistant Director of Housing explained that in terms of the consultation the company would take a representative sample of tenants and the information gained would start a wider conversation.  It may reveal some strengths but may reveal areas for improvement that provided the Council with a view on where further engagement was needed.  He provided assurance that there were lots of mechanisms to enable tenants engage with the Council.  He believed that there would be a specific standard in relation to the speediness of repairs for tenants and ‘Awaab’s Law’ could attach statutory timescales to some repairs.

It was acknowledged that it was important to try to reach all tenants as not everyone could travel to Council buildings to be involved in consultation events therefore some should be held in the locality.

It was noted that a lot of sanctions would be available for the inspectorate to choose from, such as they could look to stop local authorities applying for government grants, they could also look to intervene and geta repair completed and recharge the landlord for costs if they felt that was the right outcome.

In response to a query, he noted that the Council different to housing associations as the Council also had homelessness duties and the need to build more homes due to the size of the waiting list and it could not afford to stop investing in those functions.  Some housing associations for example could stop building if they wanted to focus on managing their stock.  The regulator would need to understand the additional requirements placed on Council and take that into account when considering possible sanctions.

The Assistant Director of Housing said he was really proud the Council had been able to introduce tenancy health checks and would aim to do them every four years.

It was noted that it would be a challenge to ensure the borough was ready for the new standards from April when the expectations had not yet been clarified by Government. 

The Assistant Director of Housing provided assurance that the rents were set in line with the Rent Standard, which was a deadlocked government function and not a regulator of social housing function.  There was no provision in the new framework, that he was aware of, for the regulator to increase rents.

Resolved: That the Improving Places Select Commission:

1.    Note the content of the report.

2.    Requested that further information on the impact of ‘Awaab’s Law’ be provided once available.

3.    Requested that a full list of the larger landlords who had stock within the borough of more than 1,000 properties nationally be provided.

4.    Requested information on the methods available on how tenants can engage with the Council outside of the meeting.