About the Social Housing (Regulation) Act
The new act will set new expectations about the services that landlords provide for their residents and involve a new proactive approach to ensuring that landlords are meeting those standards.
This will involve the Regulator of Social Housing focusing on the following issues to regulating the updated consumer standards which come into force from April 2024. These are the issues that have been identified as being most important to residents:
- Safety, so that residents feel protected in their homes;
- Transparency, so that residents know what their landlord is doing to resolve their issues and can hold their landlord to account;
- Quality accommodation and services, which landlords are expected to provide; and
- Complaint handling, so that residents are listened to and their concerns are effectively addressed.
The Act introduces powers for the Regulator to set a competency and conduct standard for housing employees (clause 21) relating to skills, competency, and conduct. This has been further strengthened by setting mandatory requirements for executive and senior employees to have qualifications at certain levels.
Another amendment (known as Awaab’s Law) will require social landlords to fix damp and mould issues within strict timeframes.
The Act provides a strong legislative framework to ensure the resident and landlord relationship is strengthened, with increased accountability to residents backed by a proactive consumer standard and powers for the Regulator, and an active role for the Housing Ombudsman to provide guidance on good practice.
If you are interested in contributing to the consultation, email the Strategic Operations Team
