Industry Viewfinder: Revisiting the approach to Fire Safety in Social Housing


worsened, 1% worsened, and none vastly worsened. And lastly, the robustness of legislation was seen as having vastly improved by 14%, where 37% said it had improved, 43% slightly improved, 5% slightly worsened, 1% worsened, and none vastly worsened. Another additional question introduced this year, Housing Management


& Maintenance asked respondents what percentage of the housing they have worked on in the last six months they estimate has unsafe cladding still installed. While 81% have worked on no housing with unsafe cladding on in the last five months, 12% said between 10-30% still retained such cladding, with 4% between 40-60%, and another 4% between 70-80% – meaning that one in five respondents are still working on properties with unsafe cladding.


THE BARRIERS TO ADOPTION Tough some areas have seen improvement, the sector clearly has a long way to go. As such, there must be major barriers present which were preventing the adoption of fire safety measures. In this section, Housing Management & Maintenance looks at some of the


most significant barriers still present, and if this has remained consistent with our previous results, or if new barriers have been encountered. When asked what the main reasons are that fire risk remains present in their


properties, for example, as ever costs came front and centre, with 60% citing costs as a major reason (+7%), 30% a minor reason (+12%), and 10% being unsure (-19%). Following this however, the remaining reasons given fluctuated a little


from the last results. Tis year, the second most common barrier was listed as uninformed tenants (up from eighth last year). Next was lack of government support, retaining its position in third place. Cheap products was next at fourth (up from seventh), followed by ‘malicious tenants’ fiſth (up from ninth), poorly maintained stock sixth (down from fiſth), barriers to reporting issues in seventh (up from twelſth), landlord malpractice eighth (up from tenth), and poor legislation at ninth, retaining its place from the last study. Among the less popular options were poor tradespeople at tenth (up from


eleventh), untrustworthy manufacturers (up from thirteenth), a lack of sprinklers at eleventh (up from fourth), a lack of council funding at twelſth (up from sixth) and flammable products at thirteenth (down dramatically from second). Another barrier highlighted in our study was a lack of clarity around who is ultimately responsible for fire safety in rented social housing. While the majority


How often on average would you say these assessments pass?


(57%) believed landlords are ultimately responsible (+6% from our last study), another 27% believed building owners to have the main culpability (-13%), 9% tenants (+7%), local council 3% (-2%), 1% builders (-1%) and 10% ‘other’ (+10%) – including a range of answers, from ‘everybody’ to property managers. Another barrier shown in the survey results was around reporting issues.


Tough this statistic would be unlikely to change drastically over the last two years, the relative consistency in numbers of those saying they have recently, or have ever been in a position where they felt uncomfortable or lacked the ability to report issues of fire safety or malpractice again highlights the persistent reality that there are still many housing professionals who are confronted with this problem. Tis year, while 83% reported that they have never been in such a position


(-1% from the last study), 17% either know someone that has been (3%; -7% from last year), have previously been in such a position (7%; -4%) or are still in such a position (7%; +3%) – meaning that again, almost one in five housing professionals have seen pressure exerted to prevent them reporting vital safety issues.


In the last year, how has your trust in product manufacturers been affected?


30 | HMMAugust/September 2023 | www.housingmmonline.co.uk


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