How Will New Social Housing Standards Protect Tenants?

The Regulator of Social Housing (RSH) has this week proposed new standards designed to protect social housing tenants and improve the service they receive.

Prior to the launch of this consultation, social landlords were already required to comply with RSH standards, and action could be taken where they failed to do so.

Now, stronger requirements have been put forward, which grants greater powers to tenants, enabling them to hold their landlord to account.

The proposed standards will:

• Protect tenants by strengthening the safety requirements that all social landlords need to meet
• Require landlords to know more about the condition of their tenants’ homes and the individual needs of the people living in them – landlords will need to use this evidence to provide safe and decent homes with good-quality landlord services
• Make sure landlords listen to tenants’ complaints and respond quickly when they need to put things right
• Require landlords to be open and accountable to their tenants, and treat them with fairness and respect

The consultation will allow tenants to have a say on the proposed standards

Since proposing these new standards, the RSH are seeking opinions by speaking to tenants and encouraging their involvement in the consultation.

It will run for a total of 12 weeks, coming to an end on Tuesday 17 October 2023, during which time the RSH website will allow individuals to have their say.

This consultation is part of a wider, positive change to social housing, which will also see the RSH granted stronger powers by the government and come into effect in April 2024.

These enhanced powers will allow the RSH to conduct regular inspections of landlords to assess whether they meet the new regulation. They will also have new powers to take action where they don’t.

Fiona MacGregor, Chief Executive of the Regulator of Social Housing, said: “All social housing tenants deserve to live in safe and decent homes, and receive good-quality services from their landlords.

“We’re proposing new requirements to make sure this happens. We encourage tenants, landlords and others in the sector to have their say through our consultation.

“We’re gearing up for the biggest change to social housing regulation for a decade. This will include our landlord inspections from next April, as well as stronger powers to make landlords put things right when they breach our standards.”