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Editor’s comment


More than training is required to fi x the housing sector’s problems


Patrick Mooney, News Editor


I am not going to criticise the new requirement for housing management staff to undertake training to obtain professional qualifi cations, but I will challenge the notion that this is somehow going to magically improve the quality of housing accommodation and services delivered to millions of social housing tenants. T e award of a certifi cate simply indicates that a certain level of knowledge has been successfully acquired, understood and been re-used in answering some exam questions correctly. On its own training can achieve very little, except for more knowledgeable staff . For it to really make a diff erence those staff need to be given support, responsibilities, empowered to make decisions and the resources to make use of their newly acquired knowledge. T ere also needs to be a practical element so that people can demonstrate how they have used their knowledge productively and continue to do so.


Many of the social landlords who have been criticised by the Ombudsman, the Regulator and even the Secretary of State in the past couple of years are led by and employ many staff with professional qualifi cations. T is has not prevented their organisations making mistakes or letting down their tenants. All too oſt en housing management staff are expected to be gatekeepers of limited resources, whether that is in the allocation of new homes, investigating a transfer request due to overcrowding, tackling reports of antisocial behaviour, or signing off repairs and checking the quality of work undertaken. If this is to change for the better, then the culture within social landlords has to change. Boards and executive directors need to be fully engaged with the quality of day-to-day services, to be genuinely interested in performance, why complaints are being made and what is being done to resolve problems and ensure they are not repeated. For this to work properly there can be no tick box mentality and tenants need to be fully informed and involved in reviewing performance and decision making. Change of this sort does not come easily.


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What calls Mr Gove’s demand for professionalism into question is the fact he is limiting this to those who work directly for social landlords. Why is this requirement not being applied to all the consultants and agents who work with and for the sector and what about extending the requirement to the private rented sector? T ere can be no justifi cation for not extending it – aſt erall conditions in the private rented sector are not vastly superior and in many instances they are worse. It has taken over 20 years for the Government to decide to extend the decent housing standard to the private rented sector. Let’s hope it doesn’t take as long for this particular initiative to be standardised across both the social and private rental sectors. My other concern is that the professional training and qualifi cation requirement has not prevented mistakes in other areas of work, such as medicine, teaching and social services, so what else is Mr Gove prepared to do to drive up standards in social housing?


Collectively the sector has expressed its disappointment at a budget which was almost completely devoid of housing related announcements. T e biggest domestic issue for the past year has been the cost of energy and its impact on things like heating bills, as well as its impact on the lives of low income families. We also know that probably the single biggest positive step we could take as a nation would be to improve the insulation of our homes.


T is would deliver huge benefi ts to so many people, including the hundreds of thousands of people living in cold properties, many of who are also living with damp and mould. It would make our homes warmer places to live during the colder months of the year and cooller in the hotter months, while also costing us a lot less money in energy costs. Why the chancellor didn’t put all sorts of incentives in place for property owners and landlords to invest in better insulation is a mystery.


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A few months ago huge sums of money were set aside to stimulate the replacement of carbon guzzling domestic gas boilers with more modern heat pumps. T e programme is not going particularly well and is well behind schedule. But in order to get the full benefi t from new heat pumps, our houses and fl ats need to have better levels of insulation. T e BRE have analysed the EHS property condition data and identifi ed the correlation between hazards in our homes with the cost of needing medical treatment. T e costs for the NHS are amazing and on their own, they ought to be enough to demand that action is taken. When we see the number of properties in the private rented sector which suff er from Category 1 hazards, we should demand stronger and more decisive action is undertaken.


HOUSING MANAGEMENT


& MAINTENANCE APR/MAY 2023


Over 600k poor quality private rentals


Ombudsman rebukes social landlords


Asbestos company director imprisoned


25k housing staff require training


Gove urges tenants to complain


On the cover... Patrick Mooney


Subsidence – reducing costs and impact to tenants


Case Study by Geobear. Read the report on page 20.


HMM0405_2023 Covers.indd 1 25/04/2023 13:45


Photograph taken by a drone in Leicester, commissioned by contractor Geobear who were documenting the process to stabilise social housing properties aff ected by subsidence.


4 | HMM April/May 2023 | www.housingmmonline.co.uk


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