LGA response to the Provision of information to tenants: Direction to the Social Housing Regulator on tenants’ rights and complaints consultation

The LGA is the national membership body for local authorities and we work on behalf of our member councils to support, promote and improve local government.

We are a politically-led, cross-party organisation that works on behalf of councils to ensure local government has a strong, credible voice with national government. We aim to influence and set the political agenda on the issues that matter to councils so they are able to deliver local solutions to national problems.

• The LGA welcomes the opportunity to respond to the direction to the Social Housing Regulator on tenants’ rights and complaints consultation. We support the principle that all registered providers of social housing should ensure that their tenants are clearly informed about their rights as a tenant and also how they can make a complaint against their provider when necessary.
• The proposals in this consultation seek a proposed direction from the Secretary of State to the Regulator of Social Housing. The provision of information includes making complaints, tenant’s rights and relevant regulatory requirements. 
• The LGA proposes that an example tenants’ rights guide is drafted and distributed to registered providers. This would save registered providers preparation costs, particularly staff time, of composing information packs that is likely to contain similar content across all providers. This would also provide consistency of the information to be provided to tenants.  
• This provision of information to tenants in the way set out in the proposed direction is likely to place an additional burden on local authorities in their role as registered providers of social housing. The LGA has repeatedly made both the RSH and Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) aware of the significant financial income and expenditure pressures on individual Housing Revenue Accounts (HRAs) and the impact this is having on the ability to fund the vital investment needed to improve and regenerate existing stock and deliver effective social housing management services to tenants.
• The LGA welcomes the commitment that new burdens funding will be paid to local authority registered providers without a housing revenue account (HRA) but are concerned that those with a housing revenue account (the vast majority) will need to fund the additional costs out of the income from rents. 
• The LGA continues to urge DLUHC to urgently undertake an in-depth review of the future sustainability of HRAs given the cumulative impact of a wide range of competing income and expenditure pressures. 

Yes, we support the principle of these requirements. All tenants should have easy access to the information they need to raise a complaint about their landlord where necessary. That means that in cases where things do go wrong, there is a clear, simple and accessible process to follow so that landlords can be held accountable and in turn put things right.  

However, local authority registered providers must be equipped with the resources required to provide the tenants the information proposed in the draft direction. The provision of information to tenants in the way set out in the proposed direction is likely to place an additional burden on local authorities in their role as registered providers of social housing. The LGA has repeatedly made both the RSH and Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) aware of the significant financial income and expenditure pressures on individual Housing Revenue Accounts (HRAs) and the impact this is having on the ability to fund the vital investment needed to improve and regenerate existing stock and deliver effective social housing management services to tenants. 

We welcome the commitment that new burdens funding will be paid to local authority registered providers without a housing revenue account (HRA) but are concerned that those with a housing revenue account (the vast majority of local authority registered providers) will need to fund the additional costs out of the income from tenants rents. The government must also commit to funding new burdens falling on HRAs as well, in the same way as it has done for the new burdens relating to the collection of data for Tenant Satisfaction Measures (TSMs). 

We agree that landlords must have flexibility in determining the most appropriate way to communicate information to tenants, in a way that is accessible to all tenants.

We would welcome clarity on whether the Regulator is placing a duty or an expectation on registered providers to provide tenants with information on how to make a complaint about their landlord and about their landlord’s complaints policy and complaints handling process. 

We support the government’s ambitions to empower tenants and provide them with meaningful opportunities to hold their landlord to account for the quality of accommodation and the services they provide. 

We have concerns surrounding the government’s definition of ‘accessible information’ (paragraph 35). Paragraph 41 states that information must be given in a way in which ‘all tenants are able to access information about their rights in a way that they understand, without barriers to comprehension’ and we have concerns that the cost assessment does not account for the costs to ensure that all information is accessible to everyone - for instance the cost to translate information, and other ‘barriers to comprehension’. 

We would welcome greater clarification from the Regulator on what they consider will be required of registered providers to ensure that information to tenants is accessible and how this has been costed in the cost assessment outlined in the consultation.

We agree that the rights and regulatory requirements included in 3(2) of the draft direction are appropriate. We propose that an example tenants’ rights guide is drafted and distributed to registered providers to provide an understanding of the information that the regulator requires registered providers to provide to tenants. This would save registered providers preparation costs, particularly staff time, of composing information packs that is likely to contain similar content across all providers. This would also provide consistency particularly concerning the information highlighted in 3(2) of the draft direction. 

We also emphasise that the government should commit new burden funding to registered providers with an HRA (the vast majority of local authority registered providers) in the same way as it has done for the new burdens relating to the collection of data for Tenant Satisfaction Measures (TSMs).

We have concerns surrounding how often the regulator will require registered providers to provide information to tenants. The proposed cost assessment assumes that providers will not be obliged to write to the majority of their tenants every year on these requirements. This is because the government does not anticipate tenants’ rights or providers’ complaints processes to materially change year by year. However, this does not account for the incoming changes likely to be proposed in the Decent Homes Standard review or the Housing Health and Safety Rating System. We propose that the information provided to tenants is aligned with the publication of the Decent Homes Standard and any changes to the Housing Health and Safety Rating System to streamline communication to tenants and minimise additional costs.

To minimise additional costs for registered providers we would suggest that an example tenants’ rights guide is drafted and distributed to registered providers to provide an understanding of the information that the regulator requires registered providers to provide to tenants. This would save registered providers preparation costs, particularly staff time, of composing information packs that is likely to contain similar content across all providers. This would also provide consistency particularly concerning the information highlighted in 3(2) of the draft direction.