Tougher housing regulation ‘will make some councils intensely uncomfortable’

Photo: Tina Miguel

The new regulatory regime for social housing will be more intrusive and is likely to make some councils “intensely uncomfortable”, the director of strategy for the Regulator of Social Housing (RSH) has warned.

Will Perry, speaking at the Housing151 conference, said that currently the RSH provides reactive regulation over local authorities in relation to “consumer” issues involving tenants, while regulating proactively with regard to rents. However, the Social Housing Regulation Bill will take away this distinction in favour of a generally proactive stance.

“[Local authorities] will be checked up on perhaps more intrusively than they have been at times. I am sure this will be a breeze for some and intensely uncomfortable for others. It is the latter that makes me get out of bed in the morning.”

Asked by Room151 how many councils were likely to be in the “uncomfortable” group, he said: “I genuinely don’t know”.

“We have limited experience of proactively assessing local authorities. We do know from our reactive assessments of local authorities that systems and procedures aren’t adequate – we just don’t know how widespread that is.”

Perry told delegates that the Social Housing Regulation Bill will remove the “serious detriment test”, which places a limit on when the regulator can use some of its enforcement powers.

“[The bill] will encourage us to be proactive in our regulation and give us some enhanced powers. It changes our fundamental objectives as well – we will have specific objectives around the safety, the quality of social housing and the transparency of social housing landlords towards their tenants.”

Local authorities will be checked up on perhaps more intrusively than they have been at times. I am sure this will be a breeze for some and intensely uncomfortable for others.

Data on the Decent Homes Standard

Perry said that additional requirements would also follow from the Levelling Up White Paper, which has called for non-compliance with the Decent Homes Standard to be reduced by 50% by 2030.

He emphasised the importance of local authorities having appropriate data to back up assertions about whether they are meeting the standard or the levels of tenant satisfaction.

“I know there are pressures there, I know it is expensive, I know that it is not necessarily the thing that you are going to get budget for upfront. But we are going to come, we are going to look, and it will be embarrassing if [the data] is not there.”

Perry was the opening speaker at the Housing151 conference. Other speakers included: Debbie Ward, director of the local government capacity centre for Homes England; Claire Kober, managing director for homes at Pinnacle Group; and Joanne Drew, housing and regeneration director for the London Borough of Enfield.

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