UK Government's Social Housing Reforms: What You Need to Know
Introduction
In June 2017, the Grenfell Tower tragedy prompted the UK government to engage in a consultation exercise on social housing, hearing from almost 1,000 social housing residents and 7,000 online contributors.
In August 2018, the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government published a green paper titled "A new deal for social housing," outlining five principles to create a new, fairer deal for social housing residents. The government's response to the call for evidence highlighted concerns about safety and quality, poor handling of complaints, and tenants feeling unheard. The government published a social housing white paper on 17 November 2020, which set out measures to reinforce the regulator's objectives, empower residents, and encourage investment in neighbourhoods. Although the white paper was generally well received, stakeholders expressed concerns over the pace of the proposed reforms, tenants' representation, and resource implications for social housing providers.
The government subsequently confirmed its intent to introduce a Social Housing Regulation Bill to strengthen the rights of tenants and ensure better quality, safer homes. The bill will enable the regulator to intervene with landlords who are performing poorly on consumer issues and create new tenant satisfaction measures. It will also allow tenants to request information from their landlord and provide powers for the regulator to arrange emergency repairs of tenants' homes.
The proposed bill includes several clauses related to the regulation of social housing in the UK, focusing on the regulator's objectives and powers, registration of providers, duties on registered providers, and moratorium processes for land disposal, insolvency procedures, and notification requirements for registered providers undergoing changes. Overall, the bill seeks to improve transparency, accountability, and safety in social housing in the UK.
What does this mean?
The white paper on social housing introduced a new charter for residents, highlighting their expectations for safety, landlord performance transparency, fair and prompt complaint handling, respectful treatment, voice acknowledgment, and good home/neighbourhood quality. The paper proposed measures to reinforce safety objectives, increase transparency and tenant satisfaction reporting, expedite complaint resolution, transform social housing regulation, empower residents to hold landlords accountable, and encourage neighbourhood investment. The government plans to introduce primary legislation for some of these measures, subject to parliamentary availability.
Ensure safety in homes: Reinforce the Regulator of Social Housing's objective to include safety and mandate landlords to appoint a person responsible for health and safety compliance.
Increase transparency: Develop tenant satisfaction measures for social landlords to report against and improve visibility of their decision-making.
Speed up complaint resolution: Build on changes agreed with the Housing Ombudsman Service to improve its performance and reduce decision times.
Transform regulation: Create a new proactive consumer regulation regime to oversee all social landlords, establishing a new arm of the Regulator of Social Housing for this purpose.
Empower residents: Require landlords to improve tenant engagement and provide support programs for social housing residents to hold landlords accountable.
Encourage investment: Review the decent homes standard, support the quality of and access to green spaces, and tackle anti-social behaviour by enabling tenants to know who is responsible for action and who can support and assist them.
The UK government's social housing white paper, published in November 2020, received positive feedback from tenants, social landlords, and housing sector stakeholders. However, concerns were raised regarding the proposed reforms' pace, tenants' lack of a nationally representative voice, and the potential resource implications for social housing providers.
Tenant organisations welcomed the proposed improvements to engagement between landlords and tenants but expressed disappointment about the absence of any reference to the role of tenants' and residents' associations in giving tenants a voice. Certain proposals were noted to have administrative resource implications for both private providers and local authorities.
The Regulator of Social Housing welcomed the white paper and looked forward to collaborating with tenants, landlords, and other stakeholders to implement the proposed changes to the consumer regulation framework. The housing and homelessness charity Shelter regarded the white paper as a positive step forward.
But what is it?
The UK government plans to introduce the Social Housing Regulation Bill as a follow-up to the social housing white paper. The bill aims to improve tenants' rights and safety in their homes by enabling the regulator to intervene with underperforming landlords on consumer issues such as complaints handling and housing quality. It will also create new tenant satisfaction measures, allow housing association tenants to request information from their landlord, and provide powers for emergency repairs of tenants' homes.
The government has also launched a consultation on electrical safety in social housing and created a "social housing quality" hub webpage. The Social Housing (Regulation) Bill was introduced in the House of Lords in June 2022, with the objective of reforming the regulatory regime for social housing to focus on tenants' needs and ensuring accountability for landlords' performance.
The bill seeks to achieve this through a new proactive consumer regulation regime, refining the existing economic regulatory regime, and strengthening the Regulator for Social Housing's enforcement powers to encourage compliance with standards.
The Social Housing (Regulation) Bill proposes several amendments to the regulation of social housing providers in England. The bill seeks to prioritise safe housing and transparency with tenants as fundamental objectives of the Regulator of Social Housing. The establishment of an advisory panel comprising registered providers, local authorities, and social housing tenants is also required.
The bill aims to broaden the regulator's power to collect information and make it an offence to provide false or misleading information. It formalises the non-statutory arrangements between the regulator and Housing Ombudsman.
The bill requires registered providers of social housing to designate a "health and safety lead" to ensure compliance with relevant health and safety obligations towards tenants. It also seeks to amend the Housing and Planning Act 2016 to extend certain electrical safety duties to social housing landlords by regulations to be set by the secretary of state.
The regulator is granted power to set standards for registered providers on the provision of information and transparency for tenants and the regulator, including access to information and information on executive remuneration and income spending. The regulator is also empowered to use monitoring and enforcement powers for a registered provider's failure to meet a consumer standard without a serious detriment test.
The bill gives the regulator power to arrange property condition surveys more quickly, reduce notice periods, and enable entry with a warrant in necessary cases. The regulator is also enabled to require a registered provider to prepare and implement a performance improvement plan and arrange for an authorised person to take emergency remedial action to remedy imminent serious health and safety risks.
The Housing Ombudsman is empowered to issue a code of practice on complaint handling and issue orders to prevent the recurrence of identified issues. The bill also grants the secretary of state the power to make consequential provisions through regulations subject to either the negative or affirmative procedure.
Most provisions of the bill apply mainly in England, with certain provisions having UK-wide extent. A legislative consent motion from Senedd Cymru is sought to ensure regulatory coverage for providers registered in England with social housing stock in Wales.
What might it cost the sector?
The Social Housing (Regulation) Bill focuses on changing behaviours and does not impose direct expenses. Nonetheless, the government anticipates that social housing providers will incur a total expense of £173.9 million, adjusted for 2019 prices, over a decade. This expense includes a cost of £131.55 million for private registered providers (PRPs) and £42.36 million for local authorities.
The most substantial expense will result from the requirement for providers to conduct electrical safety checks every five years, which is estimated to cost a total of £56.04 million for PRPs and £31.37 million for local authorities. The remaining costs are associated with modifications to the proactive consumer regulation regime.
What are people saying?
Baroness Vere of Norbiton, the transport minister, supports the bill and believes that social tenants deserve better. The government is committed to providing it to them.
Kate Henderson, the chief executive of the National Housing Federation, also supports the bill.
Although government data indicates that social homes are generally of higher quality than other rented homes, some social housing tenants have been forced to live in substandard properties, making the bill essential.
While Shelter, the housing and homelessness charity, strongly supports the bill, it has observed that the bill does not include several "fundamentals promised by the government."
During a debate on social housing and building safety, then Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing, and Communities Michael Gove stated that the bill aims to ensure that tenants are secure in their homes, can hold their landlords accountable, and that complaints are addressed promptly.
The opposition welcomed the bill, shadow minister Matthew Pennycook expressed disappointment that the legislation was narrow and uncontroversial, given the time it took to materialise. The opposition will support the measures in the bill, but will push the government to further improve social housing standards and enable tenants to seek redress effectively.
In summary
The Social Housing (Regulation) Bill represents a significant step towards improving social housing quality, safety, and accountability. While it has received broad support, concerns have been raised about the bill's limitations and the need for additional measures to address ongoing issues in social housing.
As the bill progresses through Parliament, it will be essential to consider and address these concerns to ensure that social tenants have access to safe and high-quality homes.
The Social Housing (Regulation) Bill is an important step towards strengthening regulations for social housing and ensuring that tenants are safe in their homes. However, it is concerning that it took the tragic events of Grenfell Tower to bring about these changes, and there is a need for greater reflection on why this was the case.
The government and housing providers have a responsibility to ensure that social housing is of a high standard and that tenants are treated with respect and listened to when they have concerns.
This includes streamlining the complaint process and ensuring that tenants have effective channels for seeking redress. While some housing providers have already started to adopt the behaviour outlined in the bill, it is important to ensure that these changes are implemented across the board and that social housing tenants are not left behind.