A new dawn for consumer regulation
Are the new consumer standards for social housing in England a brave new world or business as usual? The truth lies somewhere in between
REGULATION
Image: Istock
A new dawn for consumer regulation
Are the new consumer standards for social housing in England a brave new world or business as usual? The truth lies somewhere in between
REGULATION
Image: Istock
Ceri Victory-Rowe
Director, Campbell Tickell
Ceri Victory-Rowe
Director, Campbell Tickell
Issue 69 | December 2023
The Social Housing (Regulation) Act 2023 will drive some considerable change in regulation from April 2024, but it isn’t wholesale change. So what do housing providers need to know?
Economic regulation
Let’s start by being clear: there’s very little change as far as economic regulation goes. The Regulator of Social Housing (RSH) remains concerned to ensure that Registered Providers (RPs) comply with the governance and financial viability, value for money and rent standards (where applicable) and will continue to regulate against these standards in much the same way as at present. We’ll see some changes to what it can do if RPs don’t comply, such as the ability to require performance improvement plans, and an enhanced ability to issue fines. But for the most part, we anticipate that economic regulation is going to feel pretty similar to what’s gone before.
Consumer regulation
It’s a different story when it comes to consumer regulation. The origins of the Act lie, after all, in an understanding that legislating for a somewhat hands-off approach to regulating the quality of homes and services may have played a part in failing to prevent the tragedies at Grenfell Tower and the death of Awaab Ishak in Rochdale.
So, it is unsurprising that there is to be a whole new approach to consumer regulation. This includes the advent of inspections, which it seems will be closely modelled on the current approach to In-Depth Assessments (IDAs), but will now cover consumer regulation and extend to local authorities and arm’s-length management organisations (ALMOs) for the first time.
New-style consumer regulation will be underpinned by a new set of regulatory standards, on which consultation closed earlier this month. There are undoubtedly some important changes to these:
- The introduction of distinct requirements in relation to domestic abuse, for example
- Raised expectations about how data on homes and tenants should be used to inform investment and service delivery
- More emphasis on diversity than previously
Consultation response
In CT’s own response to the consumer standards consultation, we welcomed the changes. We drew attention, too, to areas where we thought the drafting could potentially have gone further, reaching for more substantial change. For example, in relation to sustainability and environmental considerations; to safeguarding; and to tenant involvement.
We questioned why there should be no specific expectations in relation to fairness and respect, given their pivotal significance. And we suggested that the standards are rather quiet about the problems caused to tenants by nuisance, where it stops short of posing a safety risk, but nonetheless impacts significantly on quality of life.
Raising the bar
But we know that the consumer standards represent a set of high-level outcomes which can’t possibly cover everything, and are intended to represent fundamental, baseline expectations of what a social housing provider should deliver. And while understanding of what represents good practice evolves over time, the outcomes social housing is intended to achieve arguably haven’t changed that much.
So, it shouldn’t be a surprise that for the most part, the content of the new standards is familiar, drawing heavily on the previous set, albeit the bar has been raised where this was felt incontrovertibly necessary.
Serious significance
But in any case, if reshaping of regulation is going to drive changes in the sector in the way that politicians have intended, it probably isn’t going to be through the standards themselves (although the changes will doubtlessly focus attention in a helpful way).
Rather, it is the removal of the ‘serious detriment’ bar (which limited the extent to which the regulator could get involved unless there was a serious risk to tenants), the introduction of inspection and the advent of a grading for consumer standard compliance. These changes are much more likely to make housing providers sit up and take notice.
When this is coupled to the associated depth and rigour with which providers will be expected to assure themselves – and the regulator – that they comply with, and even go beyond, the standards, that is when the brave new world of regulation will begin to take shape.
“The removal of the ‘serious detriment’ bar, the introduction of inspection and the advent of a grading for consumer standard compliance. These changes are much more likely to make housing providers sit up and take notice.”
