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Editor’s comment


Ombudsman sets out to raise housing standards


PatrickMooney, News Editor


TheOmbudsman has set social landlords a stiff challenge - to change their whole approach to a significant problem like the damp andmould that exists inmany of their tenanted properties AND to stop simply blaming the residents’ lifestyles for creating the problem through a build up of condensation. Given the high rate of complaints about damp properties that reach theOmbudsman and their high profile in the ITN news broadcasts on national television earlier this year, it is hardly surprising that theOmbudsman selected this issue for his first thematic and in depth investigation. Living a normal family life in the 2020s produces large quantities of water vapour, whether this is through cooking food, bathing/showering or washing and drying clothes. The properties we live in should have suitable ventilation facilities, as well as decent insulation and heating. If there is a problem due to damp in a property, then the first investigations and tests done by surveyors or repairs inspectors should be a comprehensive assessment to pinpoint the causes and possible solutions, rather than one which looks to pin the blame on the occupants and avoid spendingmoney on a lasting solution. In addition, problems in one property should not be seen in isolation. Staff should be asking themselves if it is likely the same problem exists now, or if they will in the future, in neighbouring properties of a similar design and construction. If properties have been built without adequatemeans of drying and ventilation, then who is really to blame – the designer and builder, or the customer who is given the choice of ‘take it, or leave it’? Of course it’s not a real choice because undermost letting systems, thosemost in need of housing will only get a single offer. At the same time we continue to build the smallest homes in Europe andmany properties lack the space for drying clothes so it really is no surprise that we have problems.


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I do however, have some sympathy for social landlords because they have been set a near impossible task.How do you improve your existing housing stock with fewer and fewer resources, while at the same time responding to the shortage of affordable housing? In the last 30 to 40 years or so, there has been a strong and growing emphasis on building new homes. This has been given evenmore emphasis by the loss of affordable housing through the Right to Buy, which has taken around 2 million homes ‘out of the system’. Promises that each sold property would be replaced by a new one have rung hollow as councils and housing associations have been denied the resources necessary to replace RTB sales on a one to one basis. The reality has beenmore like one new home for every seven sold. Instead the staff in council housing departments have (by default) ended up as the gatekeepers of diminishing resources, which they have struggled to do successfully. The Local Government Association is warningMinisters that council waiting lists currently have 1.2 million households on them and on average each household will have to wait 5 years before they are housed. That sounds terrible enough – but they have also warnedMinisters that due to pressures ‘in the system’, some of them related to Covid, they expect the combined waiting list tomushroomto 2.1 million households by next year. So it should not really come as a surprise that MPs on theHousing Select Committee have decided to launch an inquiry into how the social housing sector works and how it is regulated.


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Fire safety in residential multi-occupancy buildings is a key issue of our times. We spoke to Richard Izzard of AliDeck to find out more about successful fire safety remediation of balconies.


The current regulator of social housing is clearly not pro-active enough, its primary focus remains on financial viability and the governance of housing associations; the quality of customer services remains in a very distant third place and it has no real interest in council housing. There have been some recent high profile judgements of tenants’ health and wellbeing being put at risk by their landlords, but these are invariably the result of landlordsmaking self-referrals to the regulator. They have in effect blown the whistle on themselves, which is not the basis for a sustainable regulatory system that aims to guarantee a decent level of service. It remains to be seen if possible changes to the regulatory system will deliver the changes in culture and service outcomes which tenants deserve. The issues on which landlords have been reporting on themselves have been failings in not complying with legal and/or regulatory responsibilities for essential health and safety work. Four years on fromthe Grenfell Tower fire, it is unbelievable that fire risk assessments are still not being completed as required. Electrical safety tests are not being completed in all properties, checks for the existence of asbestos in tenants’ homes are not always reliable and the presence of legionella bacteria in water tanks is being missed. These gaps in health and safety work are happening right now and they are endangering countless numbers of lives. The regulatory system is broken and I wish Clive Betts, the chair of the Select Committee, all the best in coming up with a better and fairer system for delivering a decent, fair andmodern social housing sector that provides homes we would all be happy to live in.


Ombudsman demands zero tolerance of damp and mould


Private rents rising at 13-year high


New health & safety measures launched


Landlords breach Home Standard over H&S failings


DEC/JAN 2022


Tenants ‘need protection’ from illegal acts


On the cover... PatrickMooney


Fire safety in residentialmulti-occupancy buildings is a key issue of our times.We spoke to Richard Izzard of AliDeck to find out more about successful fire safety remediation of balconies.


See page 23 4 | HMMDecember/January 2022 | www.housingmmonline.co.uk


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