Tag: Health and safety

The reality of life for far too many people and families in England is that they are judged negatively and even actively discriminated against because they rent their home from a social landlord. “Sink estates”, “underclass”, “work-shy”, “uneducated”, “lacking in aspiration”, “zones of criminality”, “benefit scroungers”, “drug-infested”, “getting something for nothing ” are just some of the phrases that have commonly been used to describe social housing estates and their tenants.

The Grenfell Tower tragedy in 2017, in which 72 people died brought to the fore of public consciousness, the stigma experienced by social housing tenants as well as the ineffective and discriminatory complaint procedures in social housing. This led on to the Social Housing Green Paper, published by the Government in the summer of 2018, which highlighted stigma in social housing as a significant issue which needed to be addressed. 

While the Grenfell fire and the White Paper cast some light on stigma as an issue, little was known about the nature of social housing stigma. Why should people have to face this type of stigmatisation just because they live in social housing? What is the impact of this type of stigma on the lives of social housing tenants? How is it challenged?

Seeking answers to these questions led us on a journey – meeting with residents, speaking with housing associations and landlords, advocacy agencies and government officials, and reviewing how the media typically treats this issue. This resulted in our report titled “Stigma and Social Housing in England” which we published in July 2021. The report highlighted the complexity of social housing stigma as it intersects with other stigmas such as poverty, mental health, race, drugs and crime stigmas. It also highlighted how stigma is driven by political rhetoric, housing policy which residualises social housing and promotes home ownership while depleting social housing stock through the right to buy and a lack of investment in social housing as well as the absence of a strong tenant voice to advocate for the rights and interests of tenants.

Following the publication of this report, we opened up a sector-wide consultation on a number of issues which we felt were central to addressing stigma. The questions focused on the status of housing as a right, challenging and changing negative rhetoric on social housing from politicians and the media; creating a strong tenant voice and empowering tenants, changing the power imbalance between landlords and tenants and making landlords more accountable to tenants. In September 2022 we published our analysis of the consultation responses in a report titled “Stigma and Social Housing in England: feedback on the consultation responses” as well as a policy briefing, titled “Reducing social housing stigma in England: recommendations for the housing sector”.

In this blog, we highlight a few of the key issues from our report and their implications for housing policy.

Housing should be viewed as a right… 

In “Stigma and Social Housing in England: feedback on the consultation responses”, our respondents specifically noted that there needs to be a radical shift from housing being seen as a symbol of wealth to one in which adequate housing is considered a basic and fundamental human right. Taking seriously the idea of housing as a fundamental human right would entail a complete rethink of the purpose of social housing and more particularly it would mean:

1. Moving away from policies of residualisation of social housing and the promotion of home ownership as a more superior tenure than renting.
2. Placing a responsibility on government to provide adequate housing for everyone. This would need significant investment in social housing as well as the halting of policies such as the right to buy which deplete social housing stock.
3. Social housing should be available to all households including all those squeezed into the private rental sectors. 
4. Recognise the intersection of social housing stigma with other stigmas and develop policy measures that adopt a holistic approach to challenge the stigma in social housing.

Affordability of housing should be at the core of government housing policies to ensure the provision of social homes that meet the needs of a diverse set of people.

Political rhetoric…

In both “Stigma and Social Housing in England” and “Stigma and Social Housing in England: feedback on the consultation responses”, our responders overwhelmingly pointed out that politicians primarily drove the intensification of stigma in social housing in two ways. First, is that politicians use stigmatising language to justify their housing, particularly to residualise social housing and to project homeownership as a viable tenure to desire. Secondly, our responders argued that politicians stigmatise social housing residents in a bid to justify welfare reforms. They agreed that the stigmatising narrative from politicians and policymakers is a key driver of the negative media narrative on social housing, and this needs to change to build a sustainable and inclusive housing system. To address this, a few things need to happen

1. Political will and policy need to be directed towards tackling stigma. This implies that policymakers need to be held accountable when found to have directly stigmatised social housing and its occupants.
2. Politicians need to set the right tone to shape the societal perception of social housing and the media stereotyping narrative of social housing.
3. To tackle stigma, policymakers need to adopt a collaborative approach to understand who lives in social housing and their everyday realities to inform housing policies. Indeed, given the intersectionality and complexity of stigma, unless there is a joined up approach to tackling stigma which involves tackling other associated stigmas it is unlikely that much progress will be made.

Accountability to Tenants…

The power imbalance between landlords and tenants is not new, and has previously been highlighted in the social housing green paper and in our initial report “Stigma and Social Housing in England”. This imbalance is driven in part by the nature of regulation of social housing. The weak regulation of the consumer standards and the marginalization of tenants in the co-regulatory arrangements in the sector has meant that power is placed in the hands of the landlords and a space is created in which landlords can deliver poor services and stigmatise tenants with impunity. To address this, a few things need to happen:

1. Refocusing social housing regulation to reflect the interests of the tenants.
2. Involve tenants in the co-regulation of the sector. Particularly, tenants have to be involved in the setting of service standards and the assessment of performance in relation to those standards.

Stronger tenant voices…

In both “Stigma and Social Housing in England” and “Stigma and Social Housing in England: feedback on the consultation responses”, our responders agreed that there was a distinct lack of tenant voice at a local, regional and national levels. Tenants need to be placed at the centre of policies and practices that affects them and they should be given substantive opportunity to shape those policies and improve the services that affect them. To promote a culture of inclusivity and democratic accountability, effective tenant panels and associations should be encouraged by housing providers, professional and trade bodies, the regulators; and feedback from these groups should be taken seriously to improve services and tenants’ experiences. 

In addition, participants in this consultation noted that the lack of an effective voice means that tenants do not have the power, mechanisms, resources or structure to lobby, challenge or help steer housing policies and regulations at the regional and national levels. 

At the regional and national levels, tenants’ voice should be established for the tenants and with the tenants, with the operations independently managed by the tenants. This will ensure that power and voice are directly placed in the hands of the tenants and not in the hands of any third parties with limited power to advocate for them.

Mission Drift…

Finally, one of the issues which featured strongly in the consultation’s responses was the sense that social landlords had lost sight of their “social mission” and had become more focused on making profits than on challenging politicians and the government to improve the lived experiences of social housing residents. By putting profits before people, tenants felt, that had contributed to poor service delivery and the continued stigmatisation of tenants. There were clear indications that as social landlords became bigger, the mission drift became more pronounced. One thing that can be done here is to limit the size of social landlords to ensure that they remain rooted in the communities which there serve. This would include breaking up larger providers.

Concluding comments…

Building an inclusive and sustainable social housing system devoid of stigma should not be expected overnight because the shift requires needs to happen at both policy level as well as at organisational levels. Stigma in social housing has been perpetuated over decades, and its eradication will require a multifaceted approach with conscious, consistent, deliberate, collective and sustained long-term programmes, policies and partnerships to change people’s perception of social housing and its residents. For this to happen, meaningful actions must be taken by all stakeholders to tackle this deep-rooted problem that affects the everyday realities, the quality of life, and the life chances of social housing and its residents. Some of these actions include:

1. Adopting a rights based approach to housing
2. Investment to significantly increase the social housing stock as well as putting an end to the right to buy and other policies which deplete social housing stock
3. Expanding access to social housing
4. Stronger regulation focused on interests of tenants
5. Independent national, regional and local tenant voice organisations
6. Increased tenant involvement in governance structures of landlords
7. Placing a limit on the size of landlords to ensure that they remain rooted in the communities which they serve and focused on the interests of tenants and communities

About the authors:

Dr. Mercy Denedo is an Assistant Professor in Accounting at Durham University Business School.

Dr. Amanze Ejiogu is a Senior Lecturer in Accounting at the Newcastle University. 

Contact details:Enquiries can be sent to us via [email protected]

Unhealthy dwellings are not just uncomfortable, they can cause death.  On 15 November 2022, Coroner Joanne Kearsley held that 2 year old Awaab Ishak died as result of prolonged exposure to mould in his home.  This tragic death highlights the need for the application and enforcement of the Housing Health and Safety Rating System to be stepped up. But, here we report on proposals that would weaken the System not strengthen it.

In 2021 the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities (DLUCH) commissioned a revision and update of the Housing Health and Safety Rating System (the Rating System). The draft of the proposed new “revised” Guidance (which has not yet been published but was previously expected to be in place by the end of 2022) ignores the principle underlying the Rating System, hasn’t really been updated, will cause confusion, and will result in legal conflicts. If adopted, it will result in increased suffering for individuals, days off school and off work, and greater demands on the health and care sectors.

After 10 years’ development, the Rating System was adopted in 2006 and is the statutory method for assessing housing conditions in England and Wales. It focuses on identifying threats to health and/or safety arising from deficiencies in a dwelling – Hazards. The principle underlining the System is that “Any residential premises should provide a safe and healthy environment for any potential occupier or visitor.” 

The Rating System has been recognised internationally as a major shift in housing assessment.

The revision commissioned by DLUCH was supposed to achieve several objectives, including: 

• Reviewing and updating the current Guidance.

• Providing a simpler means of banding the results of an assessment to make them clearer to understand by landlords and tenants.
• Developing new standards to be incorporated into an assessment.
• Amalgamating and/or removing of some Hazards.

We consider that the draft Guidance is badly written, confused and confusing, does not obviously update the existing Guidance, introduces arbitrary unexplained bandings, brings in so-called minimum standards, and mismatches and combines some Hazards. Not only that, it creates conflict with other legislation, and would fail to promote healthier housing if applied and enforced under Part 1 of the 2004 Housing Act.

There is no obvious updating of neither the statistical data behind the Rating System nor the evidence on housing and health. This leaves the important support for the Guidance nearly twenty years out of date.

The Rating System developed a method for putting a number against each identified Hazard (a Hazard Score). The legislation deems Hazard Scores above 1,000 as Category 1, and those less than 1,000 as Category 2, and places a duty on local housing authorities to take action to deal with Category 1 Hazards, and a power to do so for Category 2 Hazards. Local authorities can also deal with all Hazards, Category 2 as well as Category 1, at a dwelling. The proposed guidance creates three categories (with no explanation) dividing Category 2 Hazards into those with Scores of 101-999 and those of 100 or less. This implies Hazards Scoring 100 or less can be ignored (are “tolerable”), and if action is taken to deal with several such Hazards, or such a Hazard is included with a Category 1 Hazard. This adds a new ground for appeal.

As well as the proposed guidance suggesting that some Hazards are “tolerable”, it also introduces the idea of “normal behaviour” – two totally arbitrary concepts. While the current Guidance makes it clear that the Rating System does not include any potential hazard that is solely attributable to occupier behaviour, the revised version seems to imply some dwelling Hazards should be either “tolerated” or are made worse by the occupier, presumably, through “abnormal behaviour”. No guidance is given on what constitutes a “tolerable” Hazard, nor what is “normal behaviour”. These concepts will make it easier for landlords to argue that any Hazard is the fault of the tenant.

The objective to propose minimum standards has been taken to be a licence to introduce minimum standards for every Hazard.  The current Guidance avoids the pass/fail approach of a standard recognising three flaws with any standard. First, the line drawn tends to become the norm – Why should someone exceed the line? Second, it doesn’t give an indication of the severity of failure. Third, minimum standards encourage a check-list/tick-box approach to assessments – if the minimum is reached, then it is OK – it passes.

The minimum standards seem to be linked to a misconception that there are disconnections between the HHSRS and other legislative standards. It is difficult to find a disconnect when the current Guidance manages to avoid them stating that account should be taken of any relevant matter when assessing a Hazard. Meeting a standard does not mean there isn’t a Hazard. For example, the Electrical Safety Regulations set a standard that all electrical installations should be safe, but it does not state how many sockets should be provided to avoid the need for extensions leads (the wires of which could be a trip Hazard). Another example is that relating to smoke and CO alarms. 2015 Regulations (some nine years after the Rating System) requires such alarms to be fitted in rented dwellings and working at the start of the tenancy. The Rating System guidance advises that the lack of such alarms in any dwelling should be taken into account and that they should be working at the time of inspection.

The current Guidance applies to any structure used or intended to be used as a dwelling – the same assessment approach can be used to assess a house, a flat, a caravan, or a park home. This seems to be ignored by the proposed guidance and some so-called minimum standards are only geared toward houses.  (While the current Guidance gives clear definitions to avoid confusion, the proposed guidance does not.)

29 potential housing Hazards are given in the current Guidance, grouped to reflect the four basic health requirements in dwellings (as first set out by the American Public Health Association in the 1930s). The proposed guidance regroups the Hazard, without any rationale, ignoring the fact that the current Hazards are given in other legislation (such as the Homes (Fitness for Human Habitation) Act 2018).

The proposed guidance proposes combining some Hazards. These include a Hazard labelled “Domestic and Personal Hygiene” which brings together three Hazards in the current Guidance – “Domestic Hygiene, Pests and Refuse”, “Food Safety”, with “Personal Hygiene, Sanitation and Drainage”. Another combines “Fire” with Explosions”, and another “Biocides” with “Carbon Monoxide and Fuel Combustion Products”, “Uncombusted Fuel Gas”, and “Volatile Organic Compounds”. Aside from the incompatibility of these, it is difficult to understand why this has been attempted.

Other matters of concern suggest a lack of appreciation of the significance of a review of the HHSRS and a lack of understanding of the relationship between health and housing.

The concern is that the civil servants who commissioned the work will not appreciate the impact of the ill-thought-through proposals, and that the current political pressure could see this guidance adopted without challenge when tabled in both Houses.

What can be done? 

The guidance would have to be issued by the Secretary of State under s9 Housing Act 2004. If you agree with us that this would be against the interests of tenants and put their health at risk, do write to your MP and/or to the Secretary of State as soon as you can to argue for the draft guidance to be rewritten. 

This piece was prepared by David Ormandy, Steve Battersby, and Richard Turkington, members of the Academic-Practitioner Partnership for Healthier Housing. www.healthierhousing.co.uk