June 2023 - update on government’s work to improve the quality of social housing
The government has a programme of reform to improve the quality of social housing. Every month, progress on our commitments will be shared on these pages, as part of our commitment to respond to the tragic death of 2 year old Awaab Ishak.
Applies to England
The government is carrying out a programme of reform to improve the quality of social housing in England.
Every month, our progress will be shared on these pages, as part of our commitment to respond to the tragic death of 2-year-old Awaab Ishak.
We are ensuring that every tenant has a safe, secure and decent place to live.
Social Housing (Regulation) Bill
The Bill is completing its journey through Parliament to becoming law. On 27 June 2023, the Lords considered and approved the amendments made to the Bill by the government when it was at its Commons Report stage.
These were:
- Setting time limits for repairs, known as ‘Awaab’s Law’.
- New regulatory standards for landlords to let tenants know how to make complaints.
- Stronger powers for the Housing Ombudsman Service to issue good practice guidance to landlords, based on the findings from their investigations into tenants’ complaints.
- New qualification requirements for social housing managers.
We expect the Bill to receive Royal Assent by the end of this parliamentary session.
Decent Homes Standard Review
For over 20 years, the Decent Homes Standard has set mandatory minimum quality standards for social homes. However, in 2021/22, it was found that an unacceptable 10% of social homes fell short.
Therefore, in 2022, the Levelling Up White Paper set out the Government’s ambition to halve the number of non-decent rented homes by 2030, focusing on the lowest performing areas, to ensure all renters have good quality homes.
We have committed to review the Decent Homes Standard and to extend it to the private rented sector, and we are pleased to say that the review was launched last month. This will mean all renters will be secure in the knowledge that they are living in safe and decent homes.
The review will consider:
- An updated list of items which must be kept in a reasonable state of repair for a home to be considered ‘decent’.
- An updated list of services and facilities that every property must have to better reflect modern expectations for a ‘decent’ home.
- Whether the current Decent Homes Standard sets the right standard on damp and mould to keep residents safe.
- Updates to how the condition of building components - such as roofs and walls - are measured, to make sure that buildings which are not fit for use cannot pass the standard.
It is important that residents can contribute to the development of the new Standard. We have been working with a group of residents from both the social and private rented sectors as we consider how to modernise key areas of the Standard. The information gathered at this stage will inform a new draft Standard and we hope to launch a consultation later this year.
Awaab’s Law
The Coroner’s report into the tragic death of 2-year-old Awaab Ishak underlined the importance of setting clear expectations for a minimum standard of decency for all rented homes. In particular, it highlighted the need to remove pervasive damp and mould swiftly and effectively, to protect the health and wellbeing of tenants.
We continue to engage with the social housing sector, residents, building experts and other government departments. We will use evidence from this engagement to inform our upcoming consultation on ‘Awaab’s Law’, which will cover the time limits for landlords to investigate and remedy hazards, and how best to implement this new piece of legislation.
£15 million fund for damp and mould
Social housing providers in the Greater Manchester Combined Authority are now able to apply for funding to tackle damp and mould. The £15 million funding was first announced by Levelling Up Secretary Michael Gove at the Convention of the North in Manchester earlier this year. The West Midlands Combined Authority have also been allocated £15 million of funding.
The funding will be used to improve social homes with serious hazards (category 1) - including those where damp and mould are a threat to health.
See more details here: £15m fund to open for social housing improvements to tackle damp and mould - Greater Manchester Combined Authority (greatermanchester-ca.gov.uk).
Tenant involvement and mutual exchange
Between 16 February and 30 March 2023, we held a consultation on proposed updates to two directions from the Secretary of State to the Regulator of Social Housing. These related to tenant involvement, which ensures residents have a voice in the management of their social housing, and to mutual exchange, which helps tenants swap their homes, in line with certain rules and with their landlords’ permission.
We have now issued the government response and published the revised directions.
The new direction on tenant involvement will help social housing residents have more influence in the strategies, service delivery and management of their homes.
The updated mutual exchange direction will help tenants to easily access more details of potential home matches and help lead to more successful home exchanges.
Making sure tenants’ voices are heard
Resident Panel
The Social Housing Resident Panel continues to play an invaluable role in shaping important social housing policies. It brings together residents from across England so they can directly share their views with government on how to improve housing quality. The Panel has started a second wave of activities, which includes a focus group in July looking at the experiences of residents with disabilities. The focus group will improve our understanding of the needs of residents with disabilities and help us develop our future policies.
Professionalising the social housing sector
We are also talking to residents as we introduce the new Competence and Conduct Standards. These new regulatory Standards will help to professionalise the social housing sector and will require senior housing managers and executives to get qualifications. In June, we ran a webinar in collaboration with the TAROE Trust, a charity which works to improve services to tenants, to hear from tenants about the skills, behaviours and values they think their landlord’s staff need.
Four Million Homes
Our Four Million Homes programme provides free information, guidance and training on residents’ rights.
It helps residents to work with their landlords to make sure homes and neighbourhoods are well maintained, clean and safe. This programme will run until March 2025.
In June, eight face-to-face training sessions were held in Birmingham, Liverpool, Leeds and London. Further online training videos will be available on the Four Million Homes website from September 2023.
We also ran a free webinar in June, which is available to re-watch via the website. It covered our guidance Help with anti-social behaviour and government’s Anti-Social Behaviour Action Plan.
On 12 July, Four Million Homes will be holding a livestream event from the Tpas National Conference.
For full details of all the training events, webinars, and resources, visit Four Million Homes.
Consumer rights and regulation
Make Things Right Campaign
Since the last update in May, multilingual street ambassadors have visited local community spaces in Walworth and Sheffield.
The aim was to reach social housing tenants who may not access our Make Things Right campaign, including because of language barriers. The ambassadors shared information about how to make a complaint and what tenants should to do if they’re not happy with the response. We will use findings from the street ambassadors to inform future plans to support tenants in exercising their rights.
Further information and resources
More details on our reforms can be found on the Social Housing Quality page.
More information about how a Bill goes through Parliament is available on the Parliament website.