Issuu

ISSUE 26: JULY 2026

ISSN 2976-7962 (Online)

I nside the C1 club Exclusive access to the top performers ‘Double discrimination’ Hannah Fearn interviews Saba Salman n answer to the allocations crisis? A Why landlords are looking at ‘rightsizing’

‘THERE’S STILL A JOB TO BE DONE’ Why Andy Roe is on a mission to prevent another Grenfell

CONTENTS

July 2026

Features 10 Interview: Lord Andy Roe

HQM talks to the chair of the Building Safety Regulator

16 Inside the C1 club

Probing the top-graded housing providers

22 Interview: Saba Salman

The social affairs journalist talks to Hannah Fearn

26 An answer to the allocations crisis?

Investigating innovative approaches to ‘rightsizing’

30 Talking heads

Awaab’s Law phase 2: the sector speaks

34 Housing’s Next Generation

Get the rundown on the final four

update The latest research and analysis – in plain English

Bringing you the latest housing research from across academia and practice. In this edition of Evidence, we explore a variety of pressing topics addressing today’s housing challenges.

News insights

Views

Spotlight

3 4 6 8

50 Opinion: Rob Gershon 51 Opinion: Susan Pinkney 52 Opinion: Henry Smith 53 Opinion: David Joyce 54 Opinion: Triya Maicha 55 Opinion: Fuad Mahamed 56 Opinion: Dominic Bradley

58 A life in 15 questions 60 CEO spotlight 63 The last word

Welcome From the Chief Executive Behind the headlines News digest

Published by HQN Rockingham House St Maurice’s Road York YO31 7JA

Editorial: Alistair McIntosh Jon Land Gareth Young Max Salsbury

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Design: Sam Wiggle All enquiries to: jon.land@hqnetwork.co.uk Tel: 07740 740417

NEWS INSIGHTS

Editor’s welcome Of all the interviews I’ve done for this magazine in recent times, the one with former London Fire Brigade commissioner and Building Safety Regulator chair Lord Andy Roe in our current edition is without doubt one of the most sobering and insightful. Nine years on from the Grenfell Tower fire, it’s quite alarming – but also refreshingly honest – to hear him talk so candidly about the “very real” risk that a Grenfell-like tragedy could happen again. The mitigation he points to is that progress has been made and regulation of building safety and social housing has improved significantly since the “reckless abandonment” of it in the years before the disaster. But, as he notes, there are still “thousands of un-remediated buildings out there in the high-rise and mediumrise environment” – and that while improvements have been made, there’s still “a job to be done”. And he should know. As someone who saw first-hand the devastating impact that years of austerity and “reckless abandonment of regulation” could have on human life as incident commander on the night of the Grenfell fire, he’s made it a personal mission to make the country a safer place to live. Through the transformation of the London Fire Brigade in the aftermath of the fire to his current role at the Building Safety Regulator, there’s a real desire – almost a sense of public duty – to make things right for the Grenfell community and other residents of social housing and high-rise buildings. And that can only be applauded. Elsewhere in this edition, you may notice a couple of new features. In the first of a series of interviews, Hannah Fearn talks to her friend and fellow social affairs journalist Saba Salman about the very personal experiences behind her new book, Double Discrimination. And we also launch our new ‘CEO Spotlight’, where we ask housing chief execs to reflect on their careers and the current state of the sector.

Jon Land Editor, HQM

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NEWS INSIGHTS

From the Chief Executive... Remembrance of things past I’d never seen so many sequins and pink cowboy hats in my life. Yes, I was heading for Wembley at the same time as the wonderful Shania Twain and some bloke called Harry Styles were playing. You might have heard of them. Why was I there? I was enroute to HQN’s Housing’s Next Generation competition at the offices of Sovereign Network Group. Many thanks for the use of the facilities. All of the contestants were great. Sorry, I make a useless judge because I can’t split them. The first exercise was to explain what you’d put in a time capsule setting out your vision for the sector in 30 years’ time. When a candidate started talking about her hopes for homelessness in Brent that sparked a Proustian rush. The past came flooding back. About 40 years ago I cycled from Clapton to Wembley and all around Brent each and every day trying to lease homes to get folk out of so-called bed and breakfasts. Hundreds of miles, week in and week out. God alone knows how many pairs of BHS chinos and inner tubes I wore through. And in all weathers, too. My new glasses slipped off in the rain and shattered under the tyres of a Cortina estate. Coming back from Rayners Lane in the snow once I was so cold I couldn’t open the front door. In the end my employers took pity and issued me with a splendid motor car, which I promptly crashed. It was time to move! Never in my worst nightmares did I think we’d still have a huge homeless problem. Yet the misery continues. You could even say it’s getting worse with so many children’s deaths linked to being in temporary accommodation. I hope the next generation do much better than my lot at sorting out homelessness. That’s not been my only trip through the past darkly. We recently worked with a council and its ALMO near Manchester. They deservedly received a C1 from the regulator, just like they hit three stars in the old days. But you can only get so far with good management. It’s as plain as the nose on your face that estates I’ve been visiting here for a long time need money spent on them. Three stars used to trigger a release of cash – why not do the same with C1? There’s a lot of silly nonsense talked about Manchester v

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London. Coming South, after you’ve pocketed the delayrepay cash from Avanti, leave Euston on the Drummond Street side, plough through the HS2 devastation but don’t go quite as far as Mandelson’s house. You’ll see Camden’s Regent’s Park Estate – it, too, is crying out for investment. This is madness. It allows people like Sebastian Milbank to launch a campaign in the Telegraph to get rid of social housing in London. He says it’s crumbling and very few people can access it. So, what’s the point of social housing? To him, and countless acolytes on social media, it looks moribund. We need to be proud of every social home in every area to truly combat stigma. I get the impression some folks think we’re only one press release away from conquering stigma. It’s not true. If we don’t love our estates, others will step in to take advantage. Please open the chequebook, Mr Burnham. In the end everyone will be grateful if he does this. My friend, Kiran Duggal, is also on the Telegraph. She writes about the great contribution tenants make to life in the capital. They’ve fought campaigns to keep the best pubs open. The word young Master Milbank is looking for is ‘thanks’. We’d be pleased to welcome a man of his erudition, too, so he can explain many of the items on the new gastro menu to us. WTF is aioli? Due to the regulator forcing all social landlords to survey their homes we know how much it costs to fix them. Do it. If we continue to look like a declining sector we’re a sitting duck for extreme right-wing wonks. If we don’t watch out the tide might turn in their favour. They’re well funded. Unless we build many more homes then children will die in temporary accommodation. That’s on us. The agenda for Andy Burnham on social housing could not be clearer. Use it or lose it. If you leave it as it is, private equity will have a field day.

Alistair McIntosh, Chief Executive, HQN

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NEWS INSIGHTS

Behind the headlines By Lara Oyedele, CEO, Black on Board Ltd and past President, Chartered Institute of Housing

Nigel Farage’s recent proposal to evict foreign nationals from social housing isn’t a serious housing policy. It’s a political dog whistle built on racism, xenophobia and the politics of division. It’s designed to provoke, divide and dominate the news agenda. On that measure, it’s succeeded spectacularly. I simply don’t believe the Reform UK leader is unaware of how social housing allocations work. He has access to advisers, researchers, lawyers and housing experts. He knows access to social housing is tightly controlled by legislation. He knows many people with insecure immigration status are already excluded. He knows housing associations cannot simply choose who they house. He knows removing existing tenants would require parliament to change the law and would almost certainly face significant legal challenge. The technical arguments explaining why his proposal wouldn’t work have already been well rehearsed elsewhere. More importantly, Farage knows evicting foreign nationals won’t solve Britain’s housing crisis. It’d create a much larger homelessness crisis, place enormous pressure on local authorities, create chaos for social landlords and leave families facing uncertainty and distress.

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So, why say it? Because this was never really about housing. It’s about creating an enemy. It’s about encouraging people to look sideways at their neighbours instead of upwards at decades of political failure to build enough genuinely affordable homes. It’s about feeding resentment, attracting attention and keeping us arguing about immigration instead of housing supply. The housing crisis wasn’t caused by the Ghanaian nurse, the Polish engineer or the Indian doctor living next door. It was caused by successive governments failing to build enough homes. But why let the truth get in the way of rabble rousing? What frightens me isn’t simply the political statement. It’s what happens next. The words of political leaders’ matter. When senior politicians repeatedly suggest that foreign nationals are taking homes that should belong to someone else, some people will inevitably conclude that the law is moving too slowly and decide to take it into their own hands. We’ve already seen what happens when inflammatory rhetoric collides with prejudice. Only recently, racist attacks in Northern Ireland saw Black families targeted, with homes

NEWS INSIGHTS

vandalised and burned. Two years ago, violent mobs attacked accommodation housing people seeking asylum. Those responsible didn’t stop to ask, or care, whether the people inside were refugees, British citizens, nurses, students or taxpayers. They didn’t ask to see passports or check immigration status. They simply decided that anyone who looked or sounded different didn’t belong. That’s why this scares me. As a Black British woman, I know that those intent on hatred don’t distinguish between a migrant and a British citizen. They don’t know whether I was born in London, Lisbon or Lagos. They see skin colour, a headscarf, an accent or a foreign sounding surname. For some, that’s enough. Perhaps most worrying is the normalisation of racist rhetoric. It begins as supposedly respectable political debate. It ends with some people feeling entitled to dispense their own version of justice against anyone they perceive to be foreign. The housing sector also has a responsibility. Our professional bodies should be brave enough to stand up to Nigel Farage and call this what it is: a racist dog whistle. We

“The housing crisis wasn’t caused by the Ghanaian nurse, the Polish engineer or the Indian doctor living next door. It was caused by successive governments failing to build enough homes” cannot hide behind technical explanations while ignoring the damage this rhetoric does to communities. Those communities include our tenants, residents, colleagues, board members, contractors and consultants. Nigel Farage has succeeded in setting the agenda once again. Don’t mistake this for a genuine proposal to solve the housing crisis. Britain’s housing crisis won’t be solved by scapegoating migrants. It’ll be solved by building more genuinely affordable homes and finding effective solutions to the homelessness emergency. Everything else is little more than a distraction.

Nigel Farage: rabble-rousing

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NEWS INSIGHTS

News digest Max Salsbury takes a look at some recent housing headlines

Gathering the guilty As the ninth anniversary of the Grenfell Tower catastrophe passes, the likelihood of prosecution for those responsible looms larger. With a vast array of individuals from different institutions and companies seemingly culpable for the disaster that led to the wholly avoidable deaths of 72 people, families of the victims are hopeful that justice might be done. In May, the police finally sent files to the Crown Prosecution Service, recommending charges against 77 individuals and organisations for their roles in the disaster – though the decision on whether charges will actually be brought isn’t expected until June 2027, with potential trials unlikely to begin until 2029. According to Garry Moncrieff, from the Metropolitan Police, they have “gathered strong evidence,” adding that it’s “important that we do it once and do it right”. Indeed. Let’s hope that this interminable delay has all been worth it.

A quarter in numbers…

32,243 homes designated as affordable or social housing completed in England in the financial year to March 2026

Just over years that Matthew Pennycook has been housing minister, the longest anyone has had the role since Grant Shapps (May 2010 – September 2012)

1,977 of buildings in England identified as having an external wall system-related life critical fire safety defect as of June 2026

100% of the people he doesn’t like Nigel Farage wants excluded from social housing 1,000

Over monthly determinations made by the Housing Ombudsman

Rapid reformulation The completely sane Reform party has shown some signs of discord. Appearing on Sky, Tory turncoat Robert Jenrick was asked if the far-right party he currently represents would deport a legally resident foreign person if they happened to live in social housing. The faded Dracula-looking former immigration minister explained that there’s more to it than that – they’d have to fail Reform’s “criteria”: not being in work, not bringing in enough money, talking with an accent etc. And if that’s the case, out they go. However, this, likely protean, policy position didn’t chime with the party’s home affairs spokesman, Zia Yusuf, who utilised X – everyone’s favourite Nazi propaganda and fake sexualised image-creating nightmare network – to state: “Robert’s answer is not Reform policy. As the person responsible for our deportation plan I want [to] ensure people know where we stand: If a foreign national lives in social housing at taxpayer expense, they automatically fail our economic test and will be deported.” Dracula famously slept through the day and worked at night, so could his decrepit contemporary look-a-like, Jenrick, be showing signs of another kind of woke – offering potential dispensation for ‘hard-working undesirables’? The plot thickens. As does the blood.

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NEWS INSIGHTS

Houses for spouses Southwark Council has grown weary of housing the spouses of presidents, it appears: first out is Fatima Jabbe-Bio, wife of Sierra Leone’s president, Julius Maada Bio. The first lady took up residence in Walworth in 2007 but has spent increasingly more time in Sierra Leone since her husband’s ascendancy in 2018 – which didn’t sit well with the council. The rules insist that council properties should be a tenant’s main residence – spending most of your time swanning about in a presidential lodge thousands of miles away is right out. The flat has now been relet to Taku Yamamoto, husband of the Japanese premier, Sanae Takaichi. Not really. Obviously. Actually, I haven’t checked. It’s possible. Around 18,000 households are currently sitting on Southwark’s housing waiting list, many of whom have barely dated any presidents, let alone married any. Are you currently housing any conjugal partners of esteemed world leaders? Please let us know by visiting our Ceefax page, 329.

Weighty waits Talking of waiting lists, new analysis has revealed that housing everybody on them in England would take 119 years at current speeds – nearly as long as any criminal trials connected to Grenfell can be realistically expected to begin. Shelter’s poke around the government’s figures found that fewer than 10 new social homes were completed in 30% of local authority areas in the last two years, while 60 areas didn’t manage to pull together a single dwelling, not even a potting shed. The homelessness charity’s CEO, Sarah Elliott, said: “If the government continues to deliver social homes at a snail’s pace, none of us alive today will live to see the end of the housing emergency. Unless the scarcity of new social homes is addressed, communities will continue to be ripped apart, and children trapped in homelessness for generations to come.” If only new homes could be built out of announcements – by some estimates, the current Labour administration has managed 15 new towns-worth of them.

Committed committee The all-party Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee has been very active in recent months (they should probably be put in charge of housing development). While acknowledging the Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Bill is a nice bit of work, the group said the government needed to go “further and faster” to meet leaseholders’ expectations – and then provided a substantial list of demurs and suggestions. Following this barrage, the committee had a go at stamp duty, insisting it needs to be reformed to help first-time buyers afford a home, and then put out a new report that concluded that the, much-abused, term ‘affordable housing’ isn’t really of much use, as “so-called affordable housing [isn’t] truly affordable for many people”. Who knew? Rather sensibly, the report urges the government to “clearly and officially define affordable housing in a way that can be used for all relevant purposes, not just as part of the planning system”. And the busy committee isn’t exactly stoked by shared ownership, either, claiming that though it might be a “useful tool” for some, it’s “not a long-term affordable option for many of the buyers to whom it is marketed”. Again, who knew? Will any of these concerns be acted upon? Probably not – but it’s nice to know that at least some people in Westminster are trying to earn all that money we pay them.

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“THERE’S STILL A JOB TO BE DONE” As former commissioner of the London Fire Brigade and now as chair of the Building Safety Regulator, Lord Andy Roe is continuing a personal mission to make the country’s built environment as safe as possible. As incident commander on the night of the Grenfell Tower fire, he witnessed first hand the devastating impact that years of austerity and “reckless abandonment of regulation” could have on human life. In this exclusive interview, he talks to HQM editor Jon Land about the impact of Grenfell on the London Fire Brigade, the regulation of building safety and social housing, and why there remains a “very real” risk that such a disaster can happen today.

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Jon Land: We’ve just marked the 9th anniversary of Grenfell. What are your thoughts when you look back on that night and everything that has happened since? Andy Roe: When I look back on the night itself, I think it’s the most stark example of where our country had got to at that point in time. It spoke to years of austerity. It spoke to not putting the human being or the resident at the heart of decision-making. It spoke to a complete misunderstanding around what value really means. And I see it as kind of an apex failure in the post-war history of the UK. Because everyone failed. It was the private sector in the form of the constructors and the renovators and the manufacturers and the contractors. It was the public sector in the form of the emergency services and my own beloved London Fire Brigade (LFB). As an institution, we had let the community down. It was government in its reckless abandonment of regulation. It was the local authority and, importantly for this audience, it was the tenant management organisation who had badly let their residents down and put cost saving above the quality of their lives. It showed massive disrespect to this fantastic community of people who happen to live in social housing. JL: Where do you think we are today in terms of progress? Has the pace of change been rapid enough? AR: So, I think the progress has been too slow. There has been some demonstrative change in some places. I’m with the Building Safety Regulator now, and it’s obvious to me that change has happened. We’re seeing better designed buildings. We’re seeing the construction industry certainly shift its approach in the design and quality of builds. So, there’s been positive change in building safety and construction. But there’s more to do in occupation. I was with young people from the estates that surround Grenfell this week, and they still speak to a lack of standards in renovation and repair and maintenance of their homes. And I hear the same story from

On Grenfell: “…It’s the most stark example of where our country had got to at that point in time. It spoke to years of austerity. It spoke to not putting the human being or the resident at the heart of decision making. It spoke to a complete misunderstanding around what value really means” residents in lots of places in social housing. So, I think there’s some journey to go there. Obviously, we still haven’t seen proper accountability in the form of justice, although I do think that by the 10th anniversary, there will be and should be a charging decision. In my view it must demonstrate that if you hold senior responsibility in organisations, you should accept the accountability that comes with that. That absolutely needs to happen for people to have any sense of things really progressing. Too often as a country we view people in social housing as second-class citizens rather than the people I know them to be, which is hard working, decent people, often with a great sense of community. And I think we need to change the conversation we have with those who live in social housing and the way we view it as a country. JL: Can I focus on two of those sectors or areas that you’ve just mentioned – the fire service and social housing. Why did you feel change was needed at LFB? And obviously you led that transformation. What were the key areas that you felt needed to be focused on postGrenfell? AR: It was in many ways whole scale change because we’d seen, I think, an erosion of professional standards, firstly and foremost, over many years, often as a result of placing a value on cost efficiency rather than thinking about the kind of quality and longevity of training particularly. We’d let ourselves become

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professionally eroded. And I don’t think we’d fully understood the changing nature of risk in the environment we served. I also think in some spaces we’d become disconnected from the people we served. This is no reflection on rankand-file firefighters. These are excellent people, public servants, doing a really dangerous job. But our institution had become tired. It had stagnated, like many public sector organisations, across many years of austerity, actually. And I think, in the most terrible way, Grenfell exposed that. And it did so at the cost of the community and rank-and-file firefighters, both of whom deserve better. So, really, it was a process of absolute change around culture and leadership, system and operational delivery. And I want to thank on the record the men and women of the

LFB for delivering that change, because it wasn’t me. I didn’t change it. They just needed the space to be able to deliver the change that they knew was necessary and I think it’s to their credit they did. JL: We’re in a similar situation in the social housing sector where we’ve undergone major changes in regulation on the back of Grenfell. So, my question is, do you think the new era of regulation in social housing has gone far enough? AR: In some ways, yes. For example, the regulator I lead has certainly helped improve the environment in the context of refurbishment and renovation, although I do think that regime itself

“I’m afraid to say this as someone who has run so many major incidents, but what we should be doing across the built environment is looking at where the next possible tragedy could come, because it may well not be in a high-rise”

Grenfell Tower – “an apex failure in the post-war history of the UK”

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needs rationalising in terms of proportionality. I think the social housing regulator has begun to extend its role beyond that for which it was created, which was really about financial conduct and the management of social housing finance, and it’s certainly pushing further into matters of quality and the lived experience of people. I’d argue that it’s not necessarily about extending regulation further, but looking at where there are gaps and rationalising, because I think to be fair to those who manage buildings and those who construct buildings, the current landscape is very fragmented. Martin Moore-Bick points to that. He speaks to the fragmented and confusing nature of regulation. So, without doubt, there’s still a job to be done which I think will be helped by the coming of the single construction regulator and the review of social housing regulation. It’ll be interesting to see where there’s alignment and where’s there’s duplication, and where we could simplify things but still regulate with the same rigour. In some ways, what’s happened is that we’ve added rather than rationalised. Martin Moore-Bick reflects clearly on that because the second phase of that report came so many years later. So, I think there’s a responsibility in government to really look at the landscape of regulation across the built environment, from product manufacture right through construction and development, and then in occupation, and see whether things can be simplified. Because I do think in the map of regulation, we don’t quite see the gaps. And there’s still plenty of people who are experiencing a lack of quality and agency in the environment they live in.

AR: Well, it speaks to your previous question really, which is, I think, it’s a job unfinished. I’m not sure it’s a job that ever finishes. I think regulating and enabling and supporting the built environment is a job that’s never going to end in an economy as large and as complex as the UK. And there’s a constant balance to strike between safety and actually just enabling things to be built and occupied. And that’s got to be rational and proportionate. And it’s not easy or straightforward because you’ve got to find that space where people are being kept safe, but not to such an extent that it becomes a disincentive for anyone, either private or public sector, to build. The one thing I do know from my time in LFB is that not having a house doesn’t make me safer. In fact, not having a house and living in terrible temporary accommodation in crowded, unsuitable circumstances is really, frankly, very dangerous. So, there’s a real role for regulators to understand that whilst they must stop the worst practices and they must hold providers to account, it’s got to be done in a way that doesn’t stop the very thing they’re seeking to support, which is more housing. So, that does mean you have to recognise the industry. The big housing associations are doing a very important job in society, and need to be treated with respect and seen as partners that we work with to pull standards up rather than acting as a hard stop enforcer. My experience is change only happens when the people who are going to deliver the change welcome it, inform it and drive it forwards.

JL: Can I ask why you agreed to take on the role of chair of the Building Safety Regulator?

JL: Can you tell us a little bit about your remit with the Building Safety Regulator? What are your key aims and ambitions?

On regulation: “There’s a real role for regulators to understand that whilst they must stop the worst practices and they must hold providers to account, it’s got to be done in a way that doesn’t stop the very thing they’re seeking to support, which is more housing”

AR: I was asked to step in last year to help drive change because it was obvious that the Building Safety Act is unassailable morally and was needed. You look at many other systems across the world, in other highly developed economies, and you’ll see they have an enhanced layer of building control across more complex, larger high-rise residential schemes. So, there’s no issue with the act, nor its premise. It was more about the fact that it got set up at pace. And frankly, there were operational systems put in place that didn’t enable, but actually stopped, housing development. And in doing so, it not only didn’t make people safer, it became very difficult to navigate for everyone, whether they

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The Spectrum building fire in Dagenham in 2024 – an example of the “very real” risk that there could be another Grenfell-type disaster (Credit: London Fire Brigade)

were residents, developers, managing agents or landlords. So, the job is really to affect very quick operational change because of the profound and negative impact the act had on the housing market in London. We promised to clear a backlog of 33,000 homes that were stuck in the planning gateway system. We did that as planned on time and with an energy. And really the whole reason

“Too often as a country we view people in social housing as second-class citizens rather than the people I know them to be, which is hard working, decent people, often with a great sense of community. And I think we need to change the conversation we have with those who live in social housing and the way we view it as a country”

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for my role, I think, is to go back to that thing about organisational change. What I’m there for, with the new team we brought in, is to give the space for hundreds of top quality public servants to drive the change they know is necessary. And I think we’re seeing that. We’re seeing it in the constant improvement of approval figures and the rate at which it’s being delivered. We can see it in the standards of design being driven up. I think there’s more work to do on the occupation side and there are announcements coming on that. But really my brief was to come in and drive change. JL: My final question and I suppose the key one: As of June 2026, do you think a tragedy like Grenfell could happen again in this country? AR: I think it’s far less likely because of what’s happened in the regulation of the high-rise environment. But the risk is still there and very real. If we look at my last year and a bit in LFB, we had a terrible fire in Dagenham at the Spectrum building, which was very poorly converted from office to residential. It was extremely good fortune that we didn’t see mass casualties there. My former LFB colleagues have dealt with similarly

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“I was with young people from the estates that surround Grenfell this week, and they still speak to a lack of standards in renovation and repair and maintenance of their homes. And I hear the same story from residents in lots of places in social housing” difficult high-rise fires recently. So, although there’s been a massive change in operational procedure, certainly in London and across the country from fire services, and despite the fact we’ve done an awful lot to change the way we regulate and construct high-rise buildings, there are still thousands of un-remediated buildings out there in the high-rise and medium-rise environment. Until they’re cleared, that risk still endures. I’m afraid to say this as someone who has run so many major incidents, but what we should be doing across the built environment is looking at where the next possible tragedy could come, because it may well not be in a high-rise. It could be in a completely different environment and equally tragic. There’s a responsibility to learn from tragedies like Grenfell – you don’t just look back to learn the lessons; you should also be looking forward to see where there might be emerging risk.

Lord Roe – fact file Andy Roe is the former commissioner of London Fire Brigade (LFB) (2020-2025), where, in the aftermath of the Grenfell Tower tragedy and a highly critical statutory inspection, he led one of the world’s largest emergency services through a period of unprecedented transformation. He currently holds a number of national board appointments, including Chair of the Building Safety Regulator, and sits as a Labour Peer in the House of Lords. During his time as LFB commissioner, Andy implemented major reforms following the Grenfell inquiries, completing all 29 of the recommendations from the phase one inquiry. Alongside this, he worked to rebuild LFB’s relationship with members of the Grenfell community. As commissioner he led the LFB through the pandemic, where firefighters took on additional roles to support the wider pandemic response. This included firefighters being seconded to the London Ambulance Service to act as drivers, and crews helping make protective personal equipment for key workers. Following an independent review of the LFB’s culture following the death of firefighter Jaden Matthew Francois Esprit, Andy implemented many changes to improve the Brigade’s culture, which included creating the first professional standards unit for a fire and rescue service in the UK. He was awarded the King’s Fire Service Medal in the 2024 New Year Honours and was created Baron Roe of West Wickham in January 2026.

Andy Roe during his time as commissioner of the London Fire Brigade

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INSIDE THE C1 CLUB:

HOW SOCIAL HOUSING’S TOP PERFORMERS MADE THE GRADE While more and more housing providers are joining the regulator’s exclusive C1 club, it can be hard to understand the reasons why from the short and succinct judgement reports. As part of HQN’s wider inspection work, we asked Keith Cooper to get under the bonnet of some of the top performing landlords. This is what he found.

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The Regulator of Social Housing (RSH) dishes out praise in stock phrases when awarding its top ratings for consumer standards. Repairs services are “effective and efficient” in these high-scoring landlords, its reports say. Their approach to damp and mould, “proactive”. Evidence of a “respectful, fair and positive culture towards tenants” is another common assessment in these most positive of reports. But beneath these official expressions of regulatory satisfaction often lies a huge effort by the landlords which have attained the C1 grade. To find out how they’ve been achieved, HQM is quizzing some of these top performers. Our initial four case studies include the specialist social landlord Golden Lane Housing, the West Midlands association Citizen Housing, Stockport Council, whose homes are managed by its arm’s length management organisation (ALMO), Stockport Homes and Guildford Council.

The road to C1 This piece zooms in on different aspects of each of their journeys to C1. Citizen Housing highlights the importance of evidence in every step of the inspection process, encapsulated in its own motto: “If it’s not written down, we haven’t done it.” For Golden Lane Housing, its commitment to supporting residents with learning disabilities to take part in the inspection process stands out. Stockport Homes shows how fire safety failings, when quickly tackled, don’t always push a C1 out of reach. And, finally, we examine how Guildford moved up from a C3 and how it tailored its ambition to the very practical limitations of its capacity to improve. To date, some 70 registered providers have been given this top score, about a third of those inspected so far. This figure includes 50 housing associations, eight for-profit providers and a dozen local authorities. With so many landlords now hitting the C1 grade, and after more than two years of consumer regulation, the route toward it is now a “well-trodden path”, says HQN chief executive Alistair McIntosh. “The rules are crystal clear. People know what they’ve got to do on governance, asset management, on safety and tenant engagement,” he adds. “We’re also beginning to see that organisations with a C2 or a C3 can move up to C1 through engaging with the regulator and following the requirements. If a landlord wants it, it’s now a question of ‘when’ and not ‘if’.” HQN director Damian Roche says the key to

securing a C1 is a “laser focus” on improvement which continues long after inspectors have left, a “rigorous” approach to data and a positive culture. “While this latter quality of an organisation might seem intangible, it can be seen in how it recruits and treats tenants and staff,” he says. “You can see it in their ethos in terms of recruitment, training and development,” he says. “Who do you ask when you’re recruiting the right people? Do you have tenants on panels for most senior or customer-facing roles?” What seems clear from these case studies and the numbers of landlords hitting the C1 bar is that these qualities exist in many social landlords – and can be fixed in those where they don’t.

“Our work over the last three years to prepare for the consumer standards has had hearing the voice of tenants at its heart. This gave us confidence that we knew our properties, our tenants, and we also knew where we needed to make improvements” John Verge, chief executive, Golden Lane Housing

Golden Lane: Get on the front foot and take the regulator with you Golden Lane Housing’s journey towards its top-notch consumer rating began six years ago in 2020, according to its chief executive John Verge. Back then it agreed to fully demerge from Mencap, the charity which founded this specialist housing provider for people with learning disabilities. “We did a huge amount of work to ensure we were on a strong footing when we did finally demerge in April 2022,” he told HQM. The Manchester-based association built on this foundation with a governance structure which includes its main board, a 12-strong tenant group, and a board and tenant group working together, made up of a mix of members from each one. “Our work over the last three years to prepare for the consumer standards has had hearing the voice of tenants at its heart,” Mr Verge says. “This gave us confidence that we knew our properties, our tenants, and we also knew where we needed to make improvements,” he adds. A further crucial step in its journey was a mock inspection, run by HQN. HOUSING QUALITY MAGAZINE JULY 2026

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One of the biggest benefits of the mock was demystifying the process for staff, says Emma Midgley, Golden Lane Housing’s director of business services. “In previous inspections in other organisations I’ve worked for inspections were something very secret. Everyone just got in a room and you didn’t see them for months,” she adds. “But we did an awful lot of colleague awareness and engagement for the mock inspection. We were really open about what the inspection was, how it was assessed, what it would involve, and what it meant for us and our tenants,” she adds. Ms Midgley says the mock also helped confirm the association’s strengths and weak spots, and validated the improvement plans it had in place to address them. “We’re going through a huge period of change and have got an awful lot of projects underway for improvements. Some are at the very start of the journey but we could show where we were and where we were going. We had a great story to tell.” Golden Lane Housing approached its actual inspection as a way of helping the RSH understand its business. “We didn’t want to just throw 200 documents at the regulator,” says Ms Midgley. “We spent a lot of time preparing overviews of everything that we provided and how it supported the evidence they were after,” she adds. “The inspection team were also really engaging. They talked to us about how it was going to work, where they were going to focus, and gave us an opportunity to ask questions. This meant that we were able to plan and everybody knew what their role was.” Its next shrewd move was its handling of an assurance gap meeting with the RSH, where it gathers the information which its inspectors have not yet seen. Golden Lane Housing’s “top tip” for these meetings is to “take the lead” in them. “People might think, this is a regulator meeting, they’re going to lead it. But we took the opposite approach,” says Ms Midgley. “We thought, hang on, they’ve sent us a letter with a couple of queries, we’ll present to them and that’s what we did,” she adds. “We got minimal questions off the back of that presentation. We did a great job of being able to tell the story.”

Mr Verge’s advice to other associations after Golden Lane Housing’s experience of inspection is to “get on the front foot” and “don’t be defensive”. “The RSH was very clear that one of their roles is to support providers to get the evidence,” he says. “If you can’t provide it or can’t provide assurance that clearly won’t land well in terms of your rating, but they’re not there to trip you over.” Golden Lane Housing even found the RSH was willing to learn a thing or two about the inspection process from them. “Normally, when inspectors talk to engaged tenants they won’t give them any advanced notification of what they’re going to talk about,” says Paul Knight, director of housing and tenant experience at the association. “We told them, okay, that’s fine but we need to facilitate that. If they wanted to get the best out of our tenants they needed to work with us, give them advanced sight of the questions, so we could present them in an easyto-read format, give them an opportunity to think about them, and then contribute in a more meaningful way.”

Stockport Council: Turning bad news into good Stockport Council and its ALMO Stockport Homes had begun preparing for the consumer standards months before their introduction in April 2024. But then they hit a snag. That December, the ALMO had to refer itself to the RSH after uncovering some overdue fire safety remedial actions. But this didn’t stop the Greater Manchester landlord from getting a C1. In fact, the RSH judgement praised it for acting quickly to mitigate risks and put “clear plans” in place for the completion of the works. “The response we had was in line with the behaviour of a C1 landlord – to be honest, transparent and put in place mitigation measures as soon as possible,” says Stockport Homes chief executive Carmel Chambers. “The introduction of the new consumer standards was a welcome process, and an opportunity to build upon the strengths already in place, whilst acknowledging

“Everything has to be evidence based…I was sent pictures of smoke detectors on ceilings, which was meant to be demonstrating compliance. But there’s no way I’m sending those to the regulator because it doesn’t tell me anything. It could be a picture of my ceiling for all they know” Katie Finch, director of assurance and business services, Citizen Housing

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there’s always room for improvement,” she told HQM. Its preparation for the consumer standards had begun the previous summer. “We created a specific project team when the draft consumer standards were released…and undertook a gap analysis,” Ms Chambers adds. “This identified areas for improvement, and an action plan.” This team reported to a regulation project board which met regularly to ensure the standards were met and it had evidence to prove it. Its progress was reported back to Stockport Homes executive, board and the authority. The authority and ALMO also kept itself up to speed on the development of consumer regulation by scouring any new judgement and arranged a mock inspection by HQN. Stockport thought it was on track for a C2 “as a minimum” but knew the diversity of an ageing stock, which includes 25 high-rises, would make assurances on safety a particular challenge. The inspection, however, found that all of its buildings had up-to-date fire risk assessments and that it was managing the risks within its tall buildings with remedial work and “appropriate remediations”. Despite being “incredibly proud” of its top

rating, Stockport Homes and its parent authority doesn’t see its C1 rating as meaning it’s achieved “perfection”. “It means that, overall, we’re delivering the outcomes of the consumer standards, but we never stand still,” says Ms Chambers. “We have a detailed improvement plan following the inspection, which includes, amongst other things, ensuring the unfiltered customer voice is heard, and that our systems and data journey remains focussed,” she adds. “We know that some customers aren’t satisfied with what we are delivering often because they’re living in a home that no longer meets their needs.” With more than 700 staff, Stockport Homes is also ensuring that their competence and conduct is at the heart of it service delivery and that “all of our staff understand the expectation of excellent customer services and accountability,” Ms Chambers says.

Evidencing excellence: The Citizen Housing experience It’s not good enough to just be a great landlord if you want to secure the top rung consumer

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rating. You must also prove it. This is the key lesson from West Midlands association Citizen Housing, which was awarded a C1 in 2025. And this kind of proof doesn’t come easy, its director of assurance and business services, Katie Finch, told HQM. “I liken the process to a big sausage machine – everything gets fed into it. It was huge… trying to get hundreds of documents read, understood, signed off and then over to the regulator is quite a feat in itself,” Ms Finch adds.

“The rules are crystal clear. People know what they’ve got to do on governance, asset management, on safety and tenant engagement. We’re also beginning to see that organisations with a C2 or a C3 can move up to C1 through engaging with the regulator and following the requirements” Alistair McIntosh, chief executive, HQN

Like other providers we spoke to, the volume of documents required by the regulator is substantial. Citizen had sent more than 300 documents to the RSH by the end of its inspection process. As many landlords will know, the generation of detailed and convincing evidence for a regulatory requirement is hugely time intensive. “Everything has to be evidencebased,” says Ms Finch. “It’s all well and good saying we’ve done that but if you can’t pull a piece of paper out to evidence it, it’s not really worth anything. It became a kind of motto: “If it’s not written down, we haven’t done it.” The quality of the evidence was also crucial, says Ms Finch. “This can be a bit painful at times. For example, I was sent pictures of smoke detectors on ceilings, which was meant to be demonstrating compliance. But there’s no way I’m sending those to the regulator because it doesn’t tell me anything. It could be a picture of my ceiling for all they know.”

From serious failings to top rating: Guildford’s road back Guildford Council is the only authority to climb to the highest consumer rating after being found

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to have “serious failings” by the RSH. The Surrey authority was upgraded to a C1 in March after major shortcomings were found in its repairs services, compliance with the health and safety standard, and its tenant satisfaction measures in 2024. So, just how did the authority turn itself around? Annalisa Howson, Guildford and Waverley’s assistant director of housing, admits the service was at a “low point” and had a “lot of holes” when she joined it in the months before the initial inspection. One of its first steps to recovery was the creation of a housing improvement plan, a document familiar to many social landlords in a similarly non-compliant position. “This aimed to address the weaknesses [we] had identified and the failings that had been identified in the regulatory judgement,” Ms Howson told HQN’s ‘From C3 to C1: A journey of change, challenge and pride’ event last month. “One of the main aims of the improvement plan was to build trust, pride and excellence. We really needed to build trust not only with our tenants, but with our members and our staff as well.” Such plans can be crucial to the recovery of a landlord from regulatory failure. At Guildford, it was treated as “dynamic” and changed as its investigations uncovered other shortfalls but remained realistic as the scale of its problems emerged. “You don’t have to stick diligently to the plan,” Ms Howson says. “You need to let it evolve and flex as different priorities and different situations occur. There’s no point in having something that’s overly ambitious.” Like many councils which have been subject to years of cost cutting, Guildford has lost many of the staff in its housing services which supported improvement. Julian Higson, strategic director of housing, communities and environment at Waverley and Guildford Council, said it was also important for everyone to work from a single unified plan instead of multiple ones for each service area. “I’ve worked for some organisations who seem to have an awful lot of improvement plans. This isn’t a good thing,” he adds. “How on earth do you manage to keep track of them all?” he asked the HQN event. “How on earth are you going to do the governance around them? You need one clear plan.” Another crucial element in its recovery was the use of external advice, initially from the Society of Local Authority Chief Executives (SOLACE), and later, HQN. “I’ve seen other organisations who say, it’s okay. We’ll do our own self-assessments,” Mr Higson says. “It’s very difficult to be self-critical of your colleagues and self-critical of yourself.”

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“WE BRING DIFFERENT RULES AND JUDGEMENTS TO PEOPLE LIKE MY SISTER – BECAUSE OF HER SKIN COLOUR AND BECAUSE OF HER DISABILITY” In the first of a new series of interviews for HQM, Hannah Fearn sits down with fellow social affairs journalist Saba Salman to discuss the very personal issues explored in her revealing new book, Double Discrimination.

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Photo by Rob Gould

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It was during the first Covid lockdown that the Salman is no stranger to the ways that hidden author and journalist Saba Salman realised her bias can rear its head unexpectedly. younger sister Raana was at very high risk of an While sitting at her desk early in her career, a untimely death. She wasn’t physically vulnerable white, male editor leaned over and asked her to the disease and carried no underlying why she wanted to be an Asian journalist. “I condition such as diabetes. She wasn’t taking had a split second to figure out how to reply,” immunosuppressants. But Raana, back then she says. “So, I smiled, told my boss that I was a young woman in her early 30s, lives with a an Asian journalist because being a Swedish one learning disability and is also of British Pakistani wasn’t possible and that I’d hit half my goal to be heritage. an Asian journalist simply by being born, so the Within weeks of the pandemic breaking out, rest was easy.” a grim statistic emerged: people with learning It was harder for Salman, in exploring this issue, disabilities were far more likely to perish from to shrug off the ways social discrimination had Covid than any other groups in society, and for conditioned her own thoughts and perspectives learning disabled people of colour the chance of on how to care best for her cherished sister, who death was more than 30 times higher. has Fragile X syndrome and will need lifelong Salman, an experienced social policy journalist, support. Until Covid, she said her family had started to ask searching questions about what always simply thought about her disability alone. was really happening to people like her sister. It’d never occurred to them to think that being What she found was disabled and a person chilling: during the of colour made pandemic healthcare “What kind of civilised Raana particularly leaders including vulnerable. society thinks it’s okay to the British Medical “All of the things assume that if my sister goes Association had to that reduce her life put out a warning chances are massively into hospital with Covid, to doctors not to increased because of she won’t want to survive? It automatically issue her race and it really a ‘do not resuscitate’ made me think about wasn’t just a threat, it was a order to learning that aspect of our very real danger” disabled patients lives,” she says. “If admitted to hospital. I’ve had to deal with “What kind of racism then she’s got civilised society thinks it’s okay to assume that that, which has always been going on for her, and if my sister goes into hospital with Covid, she now she’s got this [ableism] as well. What does won’t want to survive? It wasn’t just a threat, it that actually mean?” was a very real danger,” she says. “To read about politicians flouting lockdown rules and people moaning about restaurants being closed… well, Lack of progress you cannot see that and not want to dig into it deeper.” Her interrogation of the issue is timely. Not only is the country facing an insurgency of radical right wing political opinion, fuelled by hate mongers Personal journey such as the Great Yarmouth MP Rupert Lowe and his breakaway Restore party (Salman labels Salman’s enquiries took her on a personal this “racism being repackaged as patriotism”), journey that led to a re-evaluation of her own but the lack of progress on equality for learning experiences of racism, and the compounded disabled people stands in stark contrast to discrimination she realised that her sister had progress elsewhere. encountered all along. The result is her powerful We’ve enhanced parental rights, equality for new book, Double Discrimination, which explores women enshrined in law (if not always exercised the size of the crisis facing learning disabled in practice) and better access for disabled people people of colour but also offers profound hope in general. Yet 15 years on from the Winterbourne for a better, more inclusive future. View scandal, which exposed how profoundly The Salman family’s shared experiences frame neurodivergent and learning disabled people the story of a wider social failure in a way that were being routinely abused, there are still 2,000 makes even the knottiest policy implication people trapped in residential accommodation crystal clear. What matters, above all, is people without hope of escape. “This is so gripping,” being seen for exactly who they are. Having spent Salman says. “Nothing’s done, we just keep more than three decades in British newsrooms, churning out reports... just telling us what we HOUSING QUALITY MAGAZINE JULY 2026

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“I think housing providers are really put upon, and I know that there are some absolutely brilliant providers of care, especially the ones that work in collaboration with the social care plan”

Double Discrimination book cover

already know. “People are dying, and they’re dying earlier because they happen to have a learning disability and they’re not white people. They can’t get jobs, they can’t get housing to suit them and even when they do get it it’s restrictive: they’re told you’ve got to go to bed at 9pm, and they’re 45 years old. It may as well be an institution.”

Daily racism Salman and her two sisters grew up in a prosperous area of West Sussex where, as she describes, “there weren’t many people like me”. She faced down the daily racism that every British Asian of her generation struggled with at school (“the kind of bus conductor ‘bud bud ding ding’ comments, and being told by a really nice teacher I must be good at cricket”) but excelled academically and after entering journalism focused her reporting efforts around social justice. She spent a period as a local government correspondent at the Evening Standard before freelancing for a range of titles including The Guardian and The Independent. In the early 2010s, when she began unearthing stories that she believed deserved exposure yet couldn’t find an editor to support them – so, she created her own site, The Social Issue, to report freely. Her sister Raana has provided continued inspiration for her writing and reporting,

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including for her first book, Made Possible – a collection of inspirational essays by learning disabled people, curated and edited by Salman. Where Double Discrimination excels is in the way Salman brings to life her sister’s quirky and creative personality, humanising and bringing humour to the devastating wider story she has to tell. In one scene, Raana wittily examines a piece of fruit and declares herself to be “dancing to the tune of this orange”. Hearing her voice makes it impossible to dismiss the depth and profundity of Raana’s inner life. It’s a powerful moment. “My sister can be funny and sad within minutes, you know? She can be incredibly frustrating, but she can be really loving – just like all of us – and yet we don’t allow her to be,” she says. “We bring different rules and judgements to people like my sister, because of her skin colour and because of her disability. If you ignore these people, if you ignore these families, you’re missing out on a huge amount.” Today, only a small fraction (around 5%) of people with learning disabilities in the UK have a job, but it hasn’t always been like this. Salman describes how medieval communities gave every person a defined role; each had their strengths and their part to play – “it might be scaring crows, it might be taking bread to the market” – but then came industrialisation. Suddenly, there was no space for people with learning disabilities or neurodivergence or other differences, who were less efficient in a formalised economy which focused only on productivity. Separate living spaces and isolated communities were created. “There was that sense of people as a burden, a cost to us. We don’t see what they can do, we only see what they can’t. What the hell do we do with those people?” Salman writes.

“White people doing ‘good things’” For Salman the process, the separating, is reminiscent of colonisation. “The people bringing people out of these places into [dedicated] communities were effectively white people doing ‘good things’, which is what I’m sure was the approach with a lot of areas that were colonised: we’re coming in, we’re looking at these people, they’re uncivilised, they need control, they need

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Jesus – the whole idea of paternalistic approach.” No wonder the discrimination is doubled. Even within her own extended family, once Raana’s diagnosis was first confirmed her parents and siblings were encouraged to “keep it quiet”. “That was the phrase, but she’s possibly one of the loudest, quietest people I know. She makes her presence known. She’s such a character, and yet she’s also a woman of very few words. How can you keep that quiet?” Today, the legacy of a less inclusive era lives on. Within Double Discrimination, through a series of moving interviews, Salman describes the small acts of violence meted out upon the families supporting learning disabled people of colour. In one conversation, a father admits that he always dresses more smartly when attending a meeting about his daughter’s care, specifically because he’s a person of colour. “So many of the family carers I spoke to said the same thing, which is ‘I am fighting for the rights of my loved one to get the right support but I’m the victim of parent blame’. Legally they’re entitled to [support], it’s actually their human right, but you’re dismissed and ignored, and not taken seriously.” She recognises this from her own experience of supporting her mother to organise Raana’s care. When the family chose a specialist school during

Raana and Saba share a pot of tea. Photo by Rob Gould

her teen years, the SEND worker tasked with organising the placement questioned whether it would be right for them because it was a Christian institution. “She’d made an assumption that my family is Muslim and therefore we couldn’t possibly have my sister going into a community that wasn’t,” she remembers. “And that woman was lovely; she was really nice and she obviously thought ‘I’m being culturally aware’, but she made an assumption.” Salman says there’s a difference between cultural awareness and cultural competence, which shows genuine curiosity about other people and their needs.

Supported housing There’s an aspiration for better quality services for all learning disabled people, and most supported housing providers aren’t there yet. Scandals such as Winterbourne View happen (and could happen again) because we still simply don’t have enough quality housing provision for people who are learning disabled. “It’s a revolving door because there isn’t the right housing and support in people’s [local] areas. I think housing providers are really put upon, and I know that there are some absolutely brilliant providers of care, especially the ones that work in collaboration with the social care plan,” Salman says. But there are lessons on better practice from her careful inquiry into this complex form of compounded discrimination. There are questions that housing organisations can ensure they’re asking of their own work: is the whole family involved with a learning disabled person’s care? Are residents’ own personal desires being asked about and then acted upon? Are we really doing enough to share what’s working when things are going well for your learning disabled residents? Salman says there’s a dearth of positive stories from this part of the sector, which means nobody is learning from the best. “You hear about the bad stuff: the housing failures; the providers going bust; the contracts being returned. Housing officers are doing their damndest and still not being able to meet those people’s needs,” she says. “What you don’t hear about is the guys up in Bradford who had a learning disabled client who just wanted to make chapatis. The interview for the right support worker included a massive tub of atta, a traditional flour, and the people being interviewed for the job had to make a chapati.” “It’s such a lovely, tiny thing, but for me it’s so simple,” Salman says. “Cultural humility isn’t thinking ‘here’s what we can do for you’, but starting from a different point: what would you like us to do for you? What are your preferences?” HOUSING QUALITY MAGAZINE JULY 2026

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IS ‘RIGHTSIZING’ AN ANSWER TO THE ALLOCATIONS CRISIS? With social housing at a premium, landlords are finding innovative ways to make better use of their stock by encouraging tenants to move into homes more suitable for their needs and size of household. With ‘rightsizing’ moving up the sector’s list of priorities, Neil Merrick takes a look at some of the initiatives.

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Mobility has never been more important in social housing – for both residents and landlords. Best case scenario, it allows older tenants to live more comfortably in a smaller home while a younger family facing homelessness moves into a property with more bedrooms. For the past nine months, tenants in Manchester have been offered £2,500 in cash to downsize and free up larger homes for people on the housing waiting list. The offer, available to council tenants and people renting from housing associations in the city, appears to be delivering results. Last year, 128 households moved into smaller homes compared with 67 in 2024/25. Along with other landlords, Manchester City Council doesn’t talk about downsizing, preferring to use the term ‘rightsizing’. Gavin White, its cabinet member for housing, says: “For some of our residents, it’s about getting them into the right home at the right stage in their lives. Rightsizing can be very positive as well as practical.” There’s little doubt that rightsizing has moved up the sector’s list of priorities. Twenty years ago, recalls Cllr White, the desks of housing officers were stuffed full of keys for homes that nobody seemed to want. “We couldn‘t give them away,” he says.

Shortages Twenty years on, the situation is very different, with shortages of not just family-size homes but, in many areas, a lack of one or two-bed properties as well. About 30% of council homes in Manchester are ‘underoccupied’. In many cases, tenants are couples or single people whose children have left home but are used to having spare bedrooms – something the controversial bedroom tax was designed to address. Many are reluctant to up sticks if it means moving to a different neighbourhood. “They want a smaller property that’s better for their health but still in the local community,” adds Cllr White. A few miles away, Stockport Homes has promoted rightsizing or mutual exchanges for more than a decade. Things have become more challenging due to the housing crisis, explains customer services manager Karen Pimlott, with the arm’s length management organisation (ALMO) recognising the need to make best possible use of each property. About 10% of the ALMO’s 12,000 homes are underoccupied by tenants aged 50 or older. “A lot of those people have more physical

“It has to fit the demographic needs and stock levels in your local authority area, but rightsizing is certainly on everyone’s radar” Karen Pimlott, customer services manager, Stockport Homes adaptation needs than when they first went into the property,” says Pimlott. “Not only do people sometimes struggle to get upstairs, they’re also often hesitant to reach out for support from their landlord. As a result, they can become very lonely and isolated,” she adds. In such cases, a neighbourhood officer explains how moving to a smaller home is an option they can pursue. Stockport Homes stresses, however, that nobody is under pressure to move. Nor does the ALMO offer cash incentives. Instead, it provides support to remove financial barriers to any move, including decorating, carpets and, where needed, packing up or clearing unwanted belongings from the house being vacated. During the past three years, 66 Stockport Homes tenants have moved to smaller homes, with each of the properties vacated offered to a homeless family that was in urgent need. “I firmly believe that providing robust, customer-focused support to remove financial and practical barriers is the key to future success,” says Pimlott.

What the Cambridge study tells us A study into under-occupancy by the Cambridge Centre for Housing and Planning Research (CCHPR), published earlier this year, warns social landlords against relying too heavily on financial incentives to encourage downsizing. Successful mobility schemes combine such incentives with practical support to overcome barriers that deter older tenants – and others – from moving. “Successful approaches integrate the right property offer, personalised support, and targeted financial payments,” says the report. The study also found evidence of local authorities offering grants to tenants wishing to move out of a council home and purchase a property. A pilot scheme launched this spring by Brighton and Hove Council offers tenants who are considering the right to buy a grant of up to £50,000 towards a deposit on a home, providing they abandon their RTB application.

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Ministers also want to encourage mobility, not only so homes are better suited to tenants, but so that assets built in whole or part with government money are used more efficiently.

Allocations review Earlier this year, as part of its ‘decade of renewal’ in social housing, the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) announced a review of how social landlords allocate and manage properties. The review is exploring ways to “reduce the time homes are left empty, encourage movement within the sector through mutual exchanges (particularly where homes are overcrowded and under-occupied) and support people to move into more suitable properties”, says the department.

“It’s not about pushing anyone to leave their home but about helping people make a move when it’s right for them” Mark Renders, deputy leader, West Devon Borough Council To coincide with the launch of the Social Housing Bill in May, housing minister Matthew Pennycook wrote to council leaders and housing associations, saying better use of stock would increase the likelihood of homes going to people in most need. Despite the cost of incentives running into thousands of pounds, councils say they save money in the long run by freeing up larger homes for families who otherwise face the prospect of long periods in temporary accommodation. Sums spent by English councils on bed and breakfast and other forms of temporary accommodation have more than doubled during the past five years, reaching £2.8bn in 2024/25. In Manchester, the city council funds the £2,500 incentives offered by local housing associations

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as well as those it pays its own tenants. It’s also brought 600 empty homes back into use during the past two years. According to Gavin White, the savings to the council are considerable, while tenants who downsize are likely to pay lower energy bills as well as live more safely in a smaller home. “It’s a win for the council in helping people who are experiencing homelessness and, if the move is done well, people should have fewer trips and falls,” he says.

Money talks Cash incentives appear to be catching on. Later this year, council tenants in Southampton will be offered up to £1,000 if they move to a home with one fewer bedroom, and £500 for each extra bedroom they free up. Families will also be able to claim up to £750 in removal costs. West Devon Borough Council, which doesn’t own its own homes, offers downsizers renting from local housing associations up to £5,000, including an additional £2,500 in ‘high priority’ areas. Associations must in return guarantee that nomination rights for any property vacated are passed to the council. Seven moves attracted financial support in 2025/26, with two of the homes vacated let to homeless households. “It’s not about pushing anyone to leave their home but about helping people make a move when it’s right for them,” says Mark Renders, the council’s deputy leader, who is also the postmaster in Princetown on Dartmoor. According to the CCHPR study, incentives across the sector may consist of lump-sum payments, a per-bedroom payment model, or a tiered model with payments increasing as more bedrooms are released. Notting Hill Genesis offers tenants up to £4,000 to downsize, including money for decoration and improvements. Households that are underoccupying by two or more bedrooms can move to a smaller home that still offers them one spare bedroom.

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“A pilot scheme launched by Brighton and Hove Council offers tenants who are considering the right to buy a grant of up to £50,000 towards a deposit on a home, providing they abandon their RTB application” Sovereign Network Group is in the throes of consolidating the rightsizing schemes run by its constituent associations prior to last year’s merger. Twenty-two households moved to smaller homes within SNG in 2025/26, while a further seven moved to other social landlords or found homes elsewhere. SNG, which spent a total of £40,000 on incentives in 2025/26, is also looking at other ways to encourage tenants to move out of homes with spare bedrooms. Reluctant movers are sometimes attracted by the prospect of living in a newly-built home, but this requires negotiations with councils over nomination rights, says Shannice James-Mcfee, SNG’s head of lettings. “We need to ask people what they actually want,” she says. “We want customers to be appropriately housed in a way they can sustain their tenancies with larger homes freed up for people on the housing register.”

Collaboration Wider mobility across the sector not only depends on initiatives by individual social landlords but greater collaboration among councils and housing associations within a city or region, including agreement on nomination rights. Last year, Greater Manchester Combined Authority called social landlords together to investigate ways to promote rightsizing at the same time as offering older people more choice of housing. The shortage of one-bed homes for downsizers to move into is also an issue with demand for bungalows often outstripping supply, says Karen

Pimlott. Wider collaboration between social landlords, including pooling of smaller homes when they are empty, ultimately benefits everybody and enhances the appeal of schemes run by individual landlords. “It has to fit the demographic needs and stock levels in your local authority area, but rightsizing is certainly on everyone’s radar,” she says. South Essex Homes case study Since January, tenants in Southend-on-Sea who rent from South Essex Homes have been offered £1,000 for each bedroom they free up when they downsize. The payments, up from £500 prior to this year, are already achieving results, says Sarah Lander, the ALMO’s director of housing services. More tenants offered to move during the first half of this year than at the corresponding stage of 2025. “It’s looking encouraging,” she says. South Essex Homes has run a downsizing scheme for more than 20 years. Until this year, about 13 households moved to smaller properties annually. Up to £3,000 is available to individual households that free up three bedrooms, with the ALMO also covering removal costs. The council, she adds, recoups money spent on incentives by spending less on temporary accommodation for homeless families. The ALMO tries to offer tenants in larger homes a bespoke service. But some are keener to move than others, especially where it means breaking an emotional tie people have with their home. Others, however, are attracted by the idea of living in a smaller home with lower energy bills and smaller gardens. Those that agree to move get first pick of homes that are suitable for a household of their size and are given priority if newly-built properties are available. “We want the properties to be used in the best way possible as they’re a very limited resource,” says Lander.

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TALKING HEADS PREPARING FOR AWAAB’S LAW PHASE 2 With phase 2 of Awaab’s Law due to come into effect from October, we asked a selection of housing leaders and subject matter experts to tell us how their organisations are preparing for this important but resource-heavy legislation.

Aisha Akhtar, Head of Legal Services, The Guinness Partnership

James Bradbury, Chief Investment Officer, Stonewater

Phase 1 of Awaab’s Law, introduced on 27 October 2025, has increased accountability in the social housing sector while placing significant operational pressure on landlords. Implementation has been challenging due to tight scheduling requirements, difficulties accessing properties, and extensive documentation demands. Seasonal spikes in damp and mould cases, alongside challenges securing decant properties, have added to the strain. Larger housing associations are generally better equipped to manage these pressures, whereas local authorities often struggle with limited resources and outdated IT systems. From October 2026, phase 2 will extend statutory response deadlines to a broader range of hazards, including excess cold and heat, fire and electrical risks, falls, structural instability and hygiene-related issues, such as poor ventilation or pest infestations. These changes will strengthen tenant protections but significantly increase compliance obligations for landlords. Overheating is expected to be a key challenge, particularly in high-rise buildings with restricted ventilation and high solar gain. Persistent issues will require thorough investigation, mitigation and robust recordkeeping. Landlords should prepare by reviewing housing stock data, updating procedures in line with the Housing Ombudsman’s code, improving digital case management systems, and ensuring staff are trained to capture and respond effectively to tenantreported risks.

As providers prepare for phase 2 of Awaab’s Law, the conversation must move beyond damp and mould and towards the wider range of hazards landlords will need to manage. These changes represent a vital step in ensuring customers live in safe, wellmaintained homes, while challenging landlords to take a more proactive approach to identifying risks. At Stonewater, we started preparing well before the legislation came into force. We brought stock condition surveying inhouse, giving us a clearer understanding of our homes and enabling us to identify hazards earlier and respond more effectively. We also established a specialist damp and mould team ahead of implementation, helping us refine processes and strengthen our response capability. Technology, data and organisational culture will be equally important. As responsibility for a wider range of hazards grows, providers need systems that support faster responses, robust reporting and effective compliance monitoring. Frontline colleagues must also be equipped to recognise hazards and make every visit count. While phase 2 is a significant milestone, providers must also look ahead to phase 3 and the increasing focus on compliance and building safety. The organisations that succeed will be those that see this not simply as a compliance exercise, but as an opportunity to improve safety, strengthen trust and deliver better outcomes for customers.

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Nick Atkin, Chief Executive of Yorkshire Housing The death of Awaab Ishak was a tragedy that should never have happened and must never be repeated. It’s raised expectations across the sector beyond damp and mould, and rightly so. As we prepare for phase 2 of Awaab’s Law, the focus is rightly widening to cover a broader range of hazards. The real test now is how that shift translates into day-to-day practice. Getting ready for any legislative change is rarely straightforward, particularly for housing providers managing older homes within tight budgets. Notwithstanding this, the direction is clear: the safety and wellbeing of our customers must come first. One of the most important lessons from phase 1 is that no two situations are the same. A onesize-fits-all approach rarely works. We need to understand who’s living in each home, their health, their circumstances and how they engage with us, so we can respond in a way that truly works for them. This is where better use of data becomes critical. At Yorkshire Housing, we’re embracing data and AI to better understand the condition of our customers’ homes, so we can spot issues and act earlier. As a sector, we already hold a wealth of information about our homes and customers. Using that insight effectively will be essential to getting this right.

“To meet phase 2 effectively, landlords need to treat data governance as an operational priority. The strongest housing providers will be those able to connect property data, workflows and resident engagement in a single joinedup model” Cem Savas, chief executive, Plentific

Lysa Nicely, Head of Property and Building Safety, Hexagon Housing Association Our preparations for phase 2 of Awaab’s Law are focused on hazards: how they’re identified, recorded, escalated and resolved. Awaab’s Law isn’t just about meeting timescales – it’s about recognising hazards early, acting quickly and making safety everyone’s responsibility. We’re strengthening our core systems, so hazards are clearly recorded, categorised and visible across teams. Enhanced data quality, audit trails and alignment between housing, repairs and compliance systems will create a single version of the truth and support faster, more informed decision-making. To support consistent delivery, we’re embedding structured workflows within our systems for each hazard. These provide colleagues with clear prompts, defined actions and escalation routes from the point a concern is raised. Alongside this, we’re developing resident-facing literature and templates to ensure our approach is transparent, communication is consistent, and residents understand what to expect when they report a hazard. We’re also retraining colleagues to strengthen early identification, accurate logging and timely escalation. Hazards must be recognised and acted upon at the first point of contact, regardless of which team receives the report. Just as importantly, we’re reaffirming accountability. Hazard management cannot sit with one team alone; it must be embedded across the organisation to deliver safe homes and consistent outcomes.

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Matthew Voyle, Senior Business Development Manager, SFG20 (The Industry Standard for Building Maintenance) Phase 2 of Awaab’s Law, anticipated for October 2026, is likely to bring a far broader set of HHSRS hazards under statutory timescales and significant challenges for councils: excess cold and heat (which remain tied to tenant vulnerability), falls (one of the most common causes of home injuries), structural collapse, explosions, fire, electrical safety and hygiene risks. Crucially, these aren’t typical ‘repair desk’ issues. Rather, they’ll land with building safety, maintenance and compliance teams. Councils must consider the practical shift. The hazards detailed in phase 2 will no longer sit in a maintenance backlog. Each case could start a legal countdown for councils, with fixed windows to investigate and remedy the issue. The new phase could raise a few challenges for councils. First, compliance must be owned at the organisational level, with clear accountability for meeting all statutory deadlines and addressing hazards as soon as they’re reported. Second, asset registers must be accurate and up to date. Without reliable data, councils cannot prioritise risk or factor in tenant vulnerability. Lastly, evidence-gathering needs discipline. Every decision and remediation work must be documented to a standard that can withstand scrutiny from the tenant, the Housing Ombudsman and the regulator.

“One of the most important lessons from phase 1 is that no two situations are the same. A one size-fits-all approach rarely works. We need to understand who’s living in each home, their health, their circumstances and how they engage with us, so we can respond in a way that truly works for them” Nick Atkin, chief executive, Yorkshire Housing

Jesse Meek, Strategic Asset and Property Consultant, Red Kite Community Housing The first phase of Awaab’s Law focused the sector’s attention on damp, mould and condensation. Phase 2 and 3 demand something broader: a consistent, risk-based approach to identifying and resolving hazards across the full range of property safety issues. At Red Kite Community Housing, we’ve treated this expansion as a stress test for our wider property risk management – not simply a new compliance requirement. Over the past year, we’ve invested in systems, governance and operational processes that give us greater visibility of cases, clearer accountability and stronger assurance that issues are being managed effectively. The most important lesson from our preparation? Compliance cannot rely solely on systems or statutory timescales. Success depends on clear triage processes, understanding customer vulnerability, effective contractor relationships and the ability to intervene early – before issues escalate. As the scope broadens, data quality and operational readiness become critical. Landlords need confidence that hazards are being identified consistently, that risks are prioritised appropriately and that customers receive timely communication throughout. This requires genuine collaboration across housing, repairs, asset management, compliance and customer-facing teams – not just referrals between siloed functions. For us, phase 2 and 3 preparations are less about creating entirely new processes and more about embedding a proactive, risk-aware culture across the organisation. The legislation sets a higher standard, but the test is practical: are residents living in safe, healthy homes, and are concerns acted upon quickly? The providers who get this right won’t be those with the most elaborate compliance frameworks. They’ll be the ones who’ve built organisations where identifying and resolving hazards is simply how things work.

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Nadhia Khan, former Executive Director of Customer and Community at RBH It’s widely recognised that dealing with the requirements of Awaab’s Law phase 2 are likely to present additional challenges for organisational processes, systems and reporting in having to deal with some hazards that haven’t traditionally been dealt with as part of a repairs service. The greater challenge, however, comes from ensuring that organisational culture has evolved in a positive way over the last few years so that those working in customer-facing roles are confident in recognising when hazards exist and that they’re proactively taking responsibility for reporting these so that appropriate measures can be taken to guarantee the safety and security of tenants. This will require some significant training but also having up-to-date information about individual households, particularly in respect of any vulnerabilities that might exist and that this information is easily accessible to those delivering services. These were crucial learnings following the tragic death of Awaab Ishak, the little boy after whom this legislation is named, and if as a sector we’re serious about providing warm, safe homes for our tenants, then we have to be sure that the actual delivery of services on the ground match the warm words of our stated strategic objectives around the quality of our homes.

“We’re retraining colleagues to strengthen early identification, accurate logging and timely escalation. Hazards must be recognised and acted upon at the first point of contact, regardless of which team receives the report” Lysa Nicely, head of property and building safety, Hexagon Housing Association

Cem Savas, CEO of Plentific Phase 2 of Awaab’s Law is about more than responding quickly. The real challenge for social landlords is whether they can clearly show how a risk was identified, what information shaped decisions, who reviewed the case and what action was taken. That full evidence trail will be essential for compliance, resident trust and scrutiny from regulators and the Housing Ombudsman. To meet phase 2 effectively, landlords need to treat data governance as an operational priority. The strongest housing providers will be those able to connect property data, workflows and resident engagement in a single joined-up model. In practice, this means moving beyond isolated reporting towards systems that support earlier hazard detection, clearer triage, faster escalation and stronger audit trails. Technology has a key role, especially where automation reduces manual handling and integration helps teams act before risks become crises. AI, when built into governed platforms and workflows, can improve operational insight while maintaining control, transparency and data integrity. In regulated sectors like UK housing, the aim should be better decisions, stronger evidence and safer outcomes for residents. Housing providers that see phase 2 only as a compliance deadline may struggle with the scale and complexity involved. Those that use it as a catalyst to improve data quality, operational coordination and accountability will be far better placed to comply and deliver safer homes.

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2026

‘FANTASTIC FOUR’ FINALISTS ANNOUNCED Get the lowdown on the outstanding candidates who’ve made it through to the final of this year’s Housing’s Next Generation competition.

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HQN is delighted to announce the finalists for this year’s Housing’s Next Generation competition. After a challenging but enjoyable semi-final day in London, judges have come up with their ‘fantastic four’ candidates who will take part in the final at HQN’s annual conference in July. For this year’s semi-final at the Sovereign Network Group offices in Wembley, the 10 candidates were asked to complete a series of challenges, from creating a time capsule representing the current state of social housing to acting out an emergency response to a crisis scenario. The semi-finalists then took part in a 90-minute task that required them to plan the conversion of a former hotel into a homeless shelter – no easy task with a strict timeframe, limited budget, no staff and some tough decisions standing in their way. Commenting on the semi-final, Next Generation judge, and former housing association CEO, Gordon Perry, said: “Such talent. Such passion and enthusiasm. Such a rewarding and motivating day for an old timer with similar

passions as these great candidates. I can’t wait for the final. They’re all winners to me!” Fellow judge and former Next Generation winner Kate Ratcliffe added: “The semi-final day was outstanding – the standard this year is seriously high. Having won it four years ago, I know how tough this stage can be, so it was brilliant to see candidates bringing so much confidence and commitment on the day. “Every finalist showed real energy, ambition and passion for the sector, clearly earning their place in the final. They should be incredibly proud – and if this is anything to go by, the final is going to be close.” For the final, candidates will compete in two tasks. For the first, they’ve been asked to record a video depicting what they’d say if stuck in an elevator with Andy Burnham for four minutes. At the HQN conference in London on Thursday 16 July, our finalists have been asked to play the role of an interim CEO who’s been drafted into a failing housing association with the aim of coming up with a credible rescue plan. No easy feat!

The Next Generation class of 2026, from left, Beth Flexen (ForHousing), Ellie McGuinness (Gateshead Council), Zorba Emelonye (Brent Council), Natalia Widomska (Swindon Borough Council), John Dunne (Birmingham City Council), Lorna Biddell (London Borough of Redbridge), Jessica Doran (Norwich City Council), Frankie Lane (NSAH, Alliance Homes), Adam Smith (54North Homes), Millie Clive (The Barnet Group).

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MEET THE FINALISTS

Ellie McGuinness Community Development Officer (multi-storeys), Gateshead Council

Ellie joined Gateshead Council’s Multi-Storey Housing team in August 2025 as a community development officer, where she works to strengthen resident participation and improve tenant satisfaction in high-rise social housing. Since joining, she’s built strong relationships across the local authority, Gateshead’s vast VCSE network and the communities living within multistorey housing, developing a clear understanding of hyper-local challenges and opportunities. Through resident meetings, door-knocking activity and consultation processes, she’s established new communal spaces in five high-rise blocks and codesigned inclusive engagement programmes that promote wellbeing and social connection among residents. All initiatives are resident-led, ensuring they reflect the priorities and lived experiences of the communities they serve. Nine months into the role, she’s more passionate than ever about a career focused on empowering local people to shape spaces and opportunities where they feel heard, valued and optimistic about the future of social housing.

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Natalia Widomska Tenant Engagement Officer, Swindon Borough Council

Nat began her career in the housing sector in 2023, bringing with her eight years of experience in customer-facing roles. As an apprentice, she’s been shortlisted as a finalist for Swindon Borough Council’s Learner of the Year annual award. Nat quickly progressed into a permanent position within the tenant engagement team and successfully completed her CIH Level 3 Apprenticeship in Housing and Property Management with distinction. Nat’s work focuses on ensuring tenants feel listened to, respected, valued and involved. She supports engagement through community cafés, drop-in sessions, Let’s Talk Housing events and resident meetings, listening carefully to feedback and helping turn it into action. Following the findings of the Regulator of Social Housing’s recent inspection, Nat has played an active role in supporting the ongoing delivery of commitments set out in housing’s improvement plan linked to the Transparency, Influence and Accountability Standard. She’s committed to finding creative and inclusive ways to engage underrepresented groups, making involvement accessible to everyone. Nat has been instrumental in setting up the scrutiny and asset management groups and is currently encouraging tenants to join the new policy and complaints groups, ensuring residents can influence decision-making within housing. Committed to learning and development, Nat believes housing services work best when staff continue to listen, learn and adapt to residents’ changing needs. As an AI champion, she explores new ways to work more efficiently and to record and analyse tenant engagement. Nat also works closely with partner organisations to identify support opportunities and build strong links between tenants and services, helping residents access the right support at the right time.

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Zorba Emelonye Head of Homelessness Services, Brent Council

Zorba is head of homelessness services at Brent Council, leading a frontline service delivering prevention and statutory homelessness duties. She has extensive experience across the sector, supporting households at risk of homelessness and driving improvements in service delivery. She’s passionate about early intervention, improving access to services and ensuring residents receive the right support at the right time. Her work focuses on system-wide collaboration and creating practical, inclusive solutions that support long-term housing stability. Zorba has played a key role in service transformation, improving decision-making and outcomes for residents. She’s a strong advocate for inclusive services, particularly for individuals with complex or neurodiverse needs and has been recognised as one of the top housing professionals in the country.

Lorna Biddell Co-Creation Officer, London Borough of Redbridge

Lorna is a co-creation officer with just over two years’ experience in the housing sector. She was looking for a role where she could make a real difference, and leading on co-creation has allowed her to do exactly that. In her role, she uses performance data to identify key areas of resident dissatisfaction and leads collaborative service improvement projects. These projects bring staff and residents together as equal partners, ensuring lived experience directly shapes recommendations and outcomes. She believes co-creation is meaningful engagement that builds trust between the housing service and residents, demonstrating that the service genuinely listens and cares. She’s passionate about helping people, driving positive change and embedding the resident voice at the heart of every service delivered.

Meet the judges:

• Gordon Perry, former CEO Accent Group and governing board member at the Chartered Institute of Housing • Olivia Richards, (2025 winner), Social Research and Policy Advisor, Hedyn • Shauna Hutchinson, People Advisor, Sovereign Network Group • Alistair McIntosh, Chief Executive, HQN • Mica Joseph, Regional Director of Places (London), Riverside • Kate Ratcliffe, Lettings Team Leader, VIVID • Simal Govindia, Solicitor, Birketts LLP • Guy Marshall, Director, Fuza Ltd.

It’s never too early to get involved in next year’s competition. Nominations officially open early next year but if you have someone in mind now, let us know by contacting charlie.maunder@hqnetwork.co.uk

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Welcome Housing remains firmly in the political spotlight as we usher in a new government. Burnham has put housing at the centre of his policy pitch, saying, “If you don’t give people a good home, what chance do they have of having a good life?” It’s hard to disagree. For those of us working across housing policy, practice and research, this is a principle we’ve argued for over many years. We’re hearing promises of the biggest council housebuilding programme since the post-war period, which, if delivered, could ease long-standing pressures on councils, housing providers and communities. We’re also hearing renewed calls to suspend Right to Buy in areas of greatest housing need, a proposal likely to generate significant sector interest. Of course, the challenge will be delivery. Critics have noted that while the big-picture pitch is strong, the detail still needs to follow. Changes to Right to Buy remain politically sensitive and could be framed as anti-aspiration or anti-homeownership. However, as Professor Kate Pickett (Professor of Epidemiology at the University of York) recently argued in a letter to The Guardian, Burnham recognises the value of evidence, research and co-designing policy with experts and communities, as work they delivered was used to help tackle inequalities in the city-region. That matters because housing isn’t a standalone policy area. It cannot be separated from health, education, employment, safety, opportunity or community cohesion,

and decisions taken should be robust and evidenceinformed. Our homes, their quality and performance directly affect our physical and mental wellbeing. They sit within communities, many of which have experienced decades of underfunding, disinvestment and widening inequality. Housing also sits within a highly contested political climate. For too long, decent, secure and affordable housing has been treated as a finite resource. When something so fundamental feels scarce, tensions can escalate quickly. Debates about need, fairness and entitlement become sharper, and some people are too easily presented as more or less deserving than others. The disorder and vitriol seen in some communities is deeply worrying, affecting everyone who lives and works there. These tensions aren’t new. History has much to teach us about today’s housing crises and the consequences of failing to respond with urgency, compassion and evidence. The issues facing housing aren’t easy to fix. But across the sector, people continue to collaborate, share learning, engage with research and use evidence to drive change. That’s why I’m delighted to introduce this edition of Evidence, which shows the breadth, depth and importance of work taking place across the country. At a time of political uncertainty and real pressure on communities, that commitment to learning, evidence and practical progress feels more important than ever. Gareth Young Editor, Evidence

Temporary accommodation in the archives: What can we learn? Dr Jessica Field is an independent researcher and Research Affiliate with the University of Manchester Temporary accommodation has hit headlines a lot recently, for all the wrong reasons: terrible conditions, prolonged stays, child deaths. People are calling this a ‘crisis’. Yet, the emergency framing suggests there was a

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past ‘norm’ of decent temporary accommodation (TA) we need to return to. I partnered with TA charity Justlife to investigate whether that was ever the case, and what might be driving conditions today. Far from a recent crisis, the archives reveal a litany of continuities: exclusions from assistance, poor-quality TA, family separations, prolonged stays, placements away from communities and frequent deaths. Their persistence speaks

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to a structural problem in the governance of TA itself. The problem, I argue in Lifelines: A History of Temporary Accommodation, is one of two parts. First, nineteenth century attitudes about homeless families’ ‘deservingness’ to state assistance have endured. The Victorian workhouses were infamous for their grime, family separations, and cruelty against those who didn’t conform to labour and family norms. The Poor Law system was abolished in 1948. But ‘deservingness’ was administratively recoded into welfare conditionality. It frequently operated by deterring those judged less deserving of help – including single mothers and immigrant families – from housing assistance. Or else, by placing them in the worst quality TA and separating families – with children taken into care. Ken Loach’s powerful 1966 film Cathy Come Home depicted these very processes, using a fictional family to speak of real experiences. The second part of the governance problem has been the fragmentation of TA administration, which obscures harmful practices and prevents learning from good ones. The 1977 Housing (Homeless Persons) Act was a watershed, creating a statutory definition for homelessness and guaranteeing rehousing for those owed a duty. Yet, the law continued to exclude single people from its remit and codified ‘priority need’ categories and ‘intentionally homeless’ provisions – remaking conditionality. Where harmful effects have been identified, statutory change or enforcement rarely followed – enabling poor treatment to evolve along with conditions. For instance, after the 1977 act, duty acceptances for single parent households increased significantly at the same time as the use of B&B TA exploded, exacerbating already heavy care burdens for those vulnerable families. A 1995 Barnardo’s study reported a lack of play space, shared beds, infestations, criminality and child abuse as not uncommon in these nightly-paid dwellings. While there’s a strict six-week limit on B&B placements today, it’s frequently broken. The Children’s Commissioner recently reported on how children in these conditions continue to lack privacy, play space and healthy childhoods. Some homeless families are still separated and children taken into care. These patterns are enabled by a fragmented system that prioritises local discretion and cost calculations over decent

conditions and statutory accountability. Responsibilities are split across departments and often contracted out or exported via out-of-area placements – distancing accountability even further away. Standards exemptions have also endured, ostensibly to reflect the short-term nature of TA. But they leave families staying for years in properties that wouldn’t be legal to rent in the social or private rented market. History repeatedly shows exclusions and TA-related harms have disproportionately fallen on alreadymarginalised groups – especially single people experiencing homelessness, single parent families and racialised minorities and migrants. Yet, calls for statutory equalityand conditions-monitoring have been persistently ignored or diluted. Even H-CLIC – the Homelessness Case Level Information Collection system introduced in 2017 reforms – doesn’t map protected characteristics data onto TA conditions. Local housing officers are left firefighting with inadequate tools. What discriminatory outcomes do these gaps keep concealing? We’ll only know if we look. In Lifelines we call for three changes: 1. Equality monitoring mapped onto TA conditions. This is the minimum requirement to detect harms that the current system obscures – and local authorities don’t need to wait for national legislation to implement it. 2. End silo working and the outsourcing of accountability with statutory coordination. Cross-sector collaboration is a key component, and increasingly happening, though it cannot plug statutory gaps. 3. Create a coherent and enforceable legal framework for TA, free from the exemptions and discretion that has allowed so many TA providers to escape responsibility for poor conditions. Before that, local authorities must use existing powers – like pre-inspection – to weed out substandard properties and providers. The question is not how to quell the current crisis. Rather, it’s how to transform the structures that keep so many homeless families in a perpetual state of emergency. Jessica Field is the author of Lifelines: A history of temporary accommodation in England 1834-2011 (Justlife, June 2026) and Eviction: A Social History of Rent (Verso, 2025).

No more excuses: Rural affordable housing can be a story of renewal David Barrowcliff, Head of Communications and Technology, English Rural The affordable rural housing crisis in England is often described as intractable. It isn’t. It’s serious, but it’s also solvable. In villages across the country, the right homes in the right places are already helping people stay close to family, work and support networks, while keeping schools,

shops, pubs and care services viable. The scale of need is stark. English Rural’s No More Excuses report shows average rural house prices at around £419,000 – roughly 16 times typical rural earnings of £25,600. In 202425, only 4,501 affordable homes, just 7% of the national total, were delivered in settlements with fewer than 3,000 people, even though 17% of England’s population lives in rural areas. More than 306,000 people are on rural social housing waiting lists and, at current build rates, it’d take HOUSING QUALITY MAGAZINE JULY 2026

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almost 90 years to clear the backlog. Yet those numbers aren’t the whole story. Rural housing need is often small in scale and huge in impact. A village may not need 200 new homes. It may need eight, 10 or 12: homes for a teaching assistant, a care worker, a young farming family, an older resident wanting to downsize, or a local worker priced out by the open market. Just 10 new affordable rural homes can generate £1.4 million for the wider economy and support an average of 26 jobs. This is why the current moment matters. For too long rural schemes have been seen as too difficult, too expensive or too small to prioritise. The latest evidence challenges that head on. No More Excuses analysed 2024/25 performance data from 145 housing associations, comparing 11 specialist rural providers with the wider sector. It found that the average cost of managing a rural home was £469 per property, compared with £842 across the sector, and tenant satisfaction was 87.6%, compared with 79.6% nationally. That doesn’t mean rural delivery is easy. Small sites, stretched planning teams, infrastructure constraints, ecology, design expectations and local concern can all add time and cost. But the key point for housing providers is encouraging: higher development complexity doesn’t translate into poor long-term performance. Well-planned rural homes can be high-quality, popular, efficient to manage and rooted in the communities they serve. So, what are the solutions? First, start with local need. Housing needs surveys, parish engagement and good local data turn an abstract debate about ‘more housing’ into a practical conversation about who needs a home and why. People may oppose generic development, but many will support homes for local

people, kept affordable in perpetuity. Second, treat rural exception sites as a mainstream delivery tool. They allow affordable homes to be built on land that wouldn’t normally come forward for market housing, provided the scheme meets local need. Used well, they can unlock small, carefully designed developments that respect village character while giving local people a realistic future there. Third, back rural housing enablers. These roles are often the quiet glue between parish councils, local authorities, landowners, residents and housing associations. They build trust, identify sites, explain need and keep schemes moving. English Rural has highlighted evidence that the Rural Housing Enabler programme returns £3.30 of social value for every £1 invested. (English Rural) Fourth, funding and partnership models need to fit rural reality. Small schemes rarely look as neat on a spreadsheet as large urban sites, but they can deliver exceptional social value. The new Social and Affordable Homes Programme is a real opportunity: government guidance explicitly includes community-led and rural housing among the types of delivery it seeks to support. (GOV.UK) The hopeful message is this: we already know what works. Listen locally. Design well. Protect affordability. Fund the enabling work. Treat small schemes as strategic investments, not awkward exceptions. Rural communities aren’t museum pieces; they’re living places that need teachers, carers, tradespeople, young families and older residents to flourish. Affordable rural housing isn’t a problem beyond our reach. It’s one of the clearest opportunities we have to turn housing investment into community renewal. The evidence is there. The need is there. The solutions are there too. Now’s the time to build.

Home lost, lives shattered: The Windrush housing scandal Kehinde Adeogun, Director of Legal Services and Policy at the Black Equity Organisation The Black Equity Organisation is a Blackled civil rights charity that launched in 2022, as the UK’s first national, independent civil rights organisation. Our mission is to promote economic, legal, social and political equity for Black communities in Britain in order to ensure equal opportunity for progress and prosperity. We commissioned the report Homes Lost, Lives Shattered, because it was evident to us that there had been little to no focus on the impact the Windrush scandal had on the housing situations of those caught up in it. The hostile environment policies that were started in 2014 meant that individuals were denied the right to work, denied the right to rent, denied access to DWP benefits and were as a result forced into homelessness and insecure housing situations through no fault of their own.

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What we found from our research was that homelessness issues for Windrush-impacted individuals in private rented, in social housing and those in homeownership weren’t just historic. The impacts are still being felt in 2026. As well as interviewing impacted individuals and Windrush advisers we made freedom of information requests of 10 London boroughs and 11 city councils to assess the steps they’d taken to identify and support Windrush-impacted individuals who were or had experienced homelessness or insecure housing. We were surprised to find that none of the respondents confirmed that they had in place any policy, procedure or guidance since the scandal broke in 2018 to deal effectively with those whose housing insecurity had been caused by the Windrush scandal. One of the central recommendations from the research is: All councils and housing departments should implement mandatory Windrush training and written guidance, funded by central government and monitored by a dedicated Windrush task force in each council. The

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Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) should oversee compliance and use its enforcement powers where authorities fall short. Guidance should cover how to identify Windrush survivors, understanding why conventional documentation may not exist, how to handle cases where documentation is limited without disadvantaging applications, and training to embed anti-discrimination practice. Successive governments have apologised for the scandal and said they will “right the wrongs”. The government’s housing policy should include a specific policy on how it intends to right the wrongs of the scandal for Windrushimpacted individuals. BEO isn’t unaware of the dire straits of the housing situation faced by the government; too many families in temporary accommodation, substandard current housing stock and insufficient new house builds. However, those issues shouldn’t detract from the unique situation Windrush-impacted individuals find themselves in as a result of a harm (homelessness or insecure housing) inflicted upon them by the state. Our pursuit of the recommendations is based on the

belief that the government should take progressive steps to implement the United Nations’ Covenant on Economic Social and Cultural Rights core protection in relation to housing, which states that every person has a right to adequate, safe and secure shelter. That right was shattered for those inadvertently caught up in the Windrush scandal. The Windrush Commissioner, whose role came as a result of the judicial review BEO was involved in, has set up a Councils Windrush Network. He’s said that “its purpose is simple: to coordinate consistent support for survivors, share what works, build trust, raise awareness in communities, and ensure that every resident receives clear and accessible help”. We call on all councils to join the Windrush Councils Network. And for all involved in social housing to join with BEO to work on devising and implementing our core recommendation. Read the report at blackequityorg.com/windrush-legacy View the Windrush Support Directory at https:// blackequityorg.com/windrush-compensation-supportmap/

Fire safety trumps accessibility: New research highlights a key paradox Professors Kim McKee and Vikki McCall, University of Stirling Fire safety has, quite rightly, received significant media and political attention following the Grenfell Tower fire of 2017, in which 72 residents of a high-rise block in North Kensington, London lost their lives. It was one of the worst fires in the UK of recent times and a tragedy for bereaved families, survivors of the fire and the wider community. Whilst new laws and guidance across the UK introduced measures to improve fire safety in residential homes, it has, ironically, also led to older and disabled people becoming trapped by the very fire doors designed to keep them safe. New research from the University of Stirling highlights this key paradox. Fire doors are heavier and fitted with door closers to ensure they self-close to help stop the spread of smoke and fire. However, this also makes them more difficult to open, especially for frailer older people and those using mobility equipment. Interviews with professionals working in housing and health suggests that in both policy and practice, “fire safety trumps accessibility”. These heavy fire doors act as daily reminders of how the built environment can limit people’s independence and freedom. To avoid becoming trapped, residents are wedging doors open, which is unsafe. This practice can also invalidate building insurance and prevent fire doors doing their job in the event of a fire. These heavier doors can also

cause older and disabled people to lose their independence by making them reliant on neighbours and carers opening doors for them. These doors also risk injuring people who cannot move through the opening quickly enough before it closes – leaving them bruised or even knocked off their feet. A common solution is for occupational therapy (OT) assessments to recommend the installation of automatic door openers (ADOs), which allow residents to open fire doors with a push button or fob. However, making fire

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doors more accessible often requires an adaptation that can be difficult to achieve in practice. Our research found a lack of clarity around the legal and technical requirements, and inconsistencies in the issuing of building warrants. Additionally, some residents have rejected ADOs because they look ugly and medicalised, making their house look more like an institutionalised health or care setting than a home. This emphasises the importance of avoiding stigma by design. In some areas, OTs have recommended free-swing door closers as an alternative, but again, practice is inconsistent. Not all OTs supported their use, and not all building standards teams will approve them. Frontline practitioners often described the situation as a “very confusing landscape”. Progress is further slowed by limited funding for adaptations, inconsistent advice from allied professions, and a lack of understanding about compliance when retrofitting doors. Importantly, our research showed that these aren’t just local issues. Building design is a technical standard set nationally. It urgently needs reviewing or the challenges we identify will persist. But we need to avoid silo thinking.

Any review of building standards must also consider the equalities impacts for older and disabled people. Our research recommends bringing together professionals from housing, health, design and fire safety, alongside product manufacturers, to develop clearer, consistent national guidance. This kind of collaboration is essential to support practitioners working on the frontline and to ensure that residents aren’t put at risk – or left trapped – by fire safety measures. You can read the report on the website of the Intersectional Stigma of Place-based Ageing project: https://www. housinglin.org.uk/_assets/Resources/Housing/Practice_ examples/Other_case_studies/Fire-Doors-Report-finalversion-24Oct25.pdf Professors Kim McKee and Vikki McCall, University of Stirling 1 Peter Apps (2022) book Show me the Bodies, provides a forensic analysis of the events surrounding Grenfell, including the emergency response and is well worth a read.

Migrant workers’ housing matters for systemic resilience during crises Housing insecurity among migrant essential workers is a missing link in maintaining systemic resilience – our study finds y Dr Anna Gawlewicz, B Senior Lecturer (University of Glasgow), Dr Aneta Piekut, Senior Lecturer in Quantitative Social Sciences (University of Sheffield), Dr Molly Gilmour, Research Associate (Newcastle University) and Prof. Sharon Wright, Professor of Social Policy (University of Glasgow) Systemic resilience is a nation’s capacity to continue functioning during times of crisis, whether political, economic, health or environmental, of which we’ve had a few recently. Nation-wide vulnerabilities, including a labour force weakened by unstable jobs, limited access to healthcare and hostile politics, carry implications for systemic resilience and undermine the entire labour market, economy and society. This is particularly striking in countries dependent on the chronically insecure migrant work, like the UK, where migrants account for a staggering 20% of those employed (Migration Observatory 2026) and are overrepresented in ‘essential’ or ‘frontline’ jobs, including in healthcare, food production and public safety.

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Migrant essential workers Looking at migrant essential workers’ housing can be particularly illuminating in understanding this complex relationship. To this end, we surveyed 1,105 and interviewed 40 UK-based Polish essential workers alongside 10 support organisations in the unsettling period of Covid-19 and Brexit (spring 2021). We selected Polish workers as one of the largest non-UK migrant populations that’s been highly visible in essential sectors while navigating socio-economic vulnerabilities. Housing insecurities While the housing situations of these workers were variegated, and some lived comfortably, we found many to experience fragile housing situations linked to accommodation sharing (23% of those surveyed), moving home during the exceptional moment of the pandemic (10%), unstable contracts and substandard conditions. In addition, 8% reported having no access to green space whether public (e.g. park) or private (e.g. garden). “I feel like a slave. A prisoner in my own home.” (Survey respondent, food production, Northern Ireland)

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These experiences were compounded for individual migrants by the emergency of Covid-19 and the shock of Brexit, which notably coincided in the UK. But they were also highly differentiated, especially across gender, age, employment situation, education and immigration status, meaning that the proportions noted earlier were far greater for some groups. Those experiencing worsening financial conditions, job change and/or in part-time employment were more likely to be adversely affected, clearly showing that financial and housing insecurity went hand in hand. Young Polish workers, especially men with lower education, limited access to welfare support and insecure immigration status, were the ones most often moving home. Overcrowding was a challenge not least because of uncaring landlords or housemates and a profound lack of privacy, but also due to disproportionate exposure to health risks, such as inability to socially distance. Limited or no access to green space was clearly connected with high levels of emotional strain and worsening mental health. “We [five adults] share a bathroom, a small kitchen and a living room. There’s no way to socially distance.” (Interview participant, utility services, England) Interestingly, better housing outcomes were noted in Scotland, which has a devolved housing policy, with stronger tenant rights and social housing investment. This

suggests that localised approaches might support migrant workers even within the increasingly hostile immigration policy of the UK. Collective experience Our findings show worrying patterns of housing insecurity and instability among migrant essential workers. These should be understood as collective rather than merely individual experiences that hold implications for the entire country. Migrant essential workers faced a greater risk of infection not only because of the nature of their frontline work but also inadequate housing. Those whose job was to keep everyone safe were unsafe themselves. The double whammy of risks at both work and home undermined their capability to deliver essential work in times when it was most needed, with consequences for the economy and society. Housing is critical to maintaining systemic resilience – migrant housing, especially migrant workers’, still receives little attention in policy and public debates, with the latter being increasingly marked by anti-immigration rhetoric. There’s an opportunity to change it in view of improving the country’s resilience to adversity. This piece is based on a recently published research article in the International Journal of Housing Policy, which is publicly available under this link: https://doi.org/10.1080/19 491247.2026.2673656

Supporting resident-led governance models to work more effectively in multi-occupancy buildings Following the Grenfell Tower fire and the wider building safety crisis, governance problems associated with leasehold arrangements in multi-occupancy buildings (MOBs), such as blocks of flats and mixed-use buildings, have received increasing attention. These concerns underpin recent commonhold and leasehold reform, which seeks to promote and expand resident-led models of building governance, writes Yu-Tung Wu However, while residents may have greater control and authority over their homes, they will also be taking on a more direct role in the management of MOBs. This necessitates working with a range of stakeholders, including resident owners, investor owners and tenants, while navigating the complexity of ownership structures and vertically integrated building forms. Led by Dr Jenny Preece at the University of Sheffield, our research, conducted between November 2025 and April 2026, reviewed and synthesised international evidence on the governance of MOBs. The aim was to

improve understanding of how commonplace residentled governance models outside the UK operate in practice. The findings are relevant not only to homes currently or potentially operating under commonhold arrangements, but also to buildings managed by resident management companies and/or right to manage companies. In total, we reviewed the full texts of 74 sources, covering evidence from 25 countries and regions. Inspired by Easthope and colleagues’ 2014 study, our report presents governance issues chronologically across the life cycle of multi-title developments, distinguishing four stages (Figure 1). The key challenges associated with resident-led management systems can be summarised under the following themes: Shortfalls in collective funds: residents may not always be familiar with the day-to-day operation of buildings or the full range of expenditure required to maintain them. This can make it difficult to develop robust longterm financial plans. As a result, collective funds may fall short, particularly after unexpected and costly repair or

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maintenance works. When regular payments increase to cover these costs, some residents may struggle to afford them. Late or missed payments can then further widen the funding gap. Inadequate funding for routine maintenance may allow small problems to accumulate, resulting in larger risks and more costly repairs over time. Professionalisation: the everyday management of MOBs involves a wide range of complex and often highly specialised tasks, including facilities management, building services, structural maintenance, fire safety, legal matters, finance and security. These specialist and technical areas may be difficult for residents to fully understand or oversee. This contributes to reliance on outsourced professional services, such as managing agents, where residents may not have the knowledge or capacity to assess the quality of provision. The expertise, technical capacity and professional standards of managing agents can also vary considerably. When the services provided don’t match the costs paid by residents, this can lead not only to financial loss, but also to poor management decisions that may affect the longterm safety of buildings and contribute to disputes within communities. Juridification: the ownership and management of MOBs involves extensive legal and contractual arrangements. However, over-reliance on legal expertise can increase the influence of legal professionals in decision-making processes. International evidence suggests that this may lead to costly legal services and, in some cases, outcomes that undermine residents’ interests. This is particularly problematic where some residents form alliances with professional experts and use unequal access to specialist knowledge to influence collective decisions. Dispute resolution: resolving disputes can be costly and time-consuming, especially when cases proceed to tribunal. Disputes arising from everyday management can have many causes, including pets, the use of shared space, noise and disagreements over use of collective funds and decision-making and control. These disputes can disrupt the normal functioning of everyday building

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management. Before reaching mediation or tribunals, disputes often require the involvement of resident committees. However, committees may not always have the capacity, expertise or authority needed to achieve acceptable outcomes. Neglect of tenants’ needs: in resident-led governance models, participation in decision-making is often tied to property ownership. This means that tenants may find that their needs and voices are easily overlooked, even where they make up a substantive part of building occupants.

International evidence shows that residents and resident committees often lack sufficient capacity and training to identify and resolve problems arising from the complexity and professionalisation of MOB governance. Unequal access to information can hinder effective decision-making and negotiation with professional service providers. In addition, widespread apathy among residents can make it even harder to challenge poor decisions, as effective oversight often requires substantial time and effort in communication and a sufficient level of participation in collective affairs and voting. Many governance problems also emerge before residents move in. At the physical level, these include design features, unclear boundaries, unsuitable materials and facilities that may create later management problems. Developer involvement can also be a source of longer-term issues. Before control is transferred to residents, developers may leave behind problematic by-laws and service contracts, or retain ownership of some units or spaces, giving continued influence on future decisions. Because collective action can be difficult to organise, these issues are often hard to resolve. Combined with later challenges in everyday management, they can lead to financial losses for residents and conflicts within communities. In the long term, the accumulation of these problems may create risks for building safety and residents’ wellbeing, eventually requiring further public intervention. The international evidence is relatively silent on the

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challenges of resident-led governance of mixed-tenure buildings. This is likely to be a significant challenge in England and Wales, because of the ways in which affordable housing is developed in mixed tenure and pepper-potted schemes. This is less common in countries such as Australia, Canada, and the US (where most research has been carried out). Drawing on the strategies proposed in the existing literature, we summarise the following policy recommendations: 1. Government should introduce measures to encourage or require developers to disclose key information at the point of sale. This should include whole-life cost assumptions, climate change risks and adaptation, and the future operation of the building. Such information would help residents develop more effective maintenance and financial plans. 2. Government should consider providing a portal that brings together developer records, including examples of good and poor practice, to reduce the cost and difficulty for residents in accessing information and making informed decisions. 3. Government should strengthen regulation of the transition process from developer- to resident-control. This would help prevent problematic by-laws, service contracts and other developer-led arrangements from having lasting negative effects. 4. Government should legislate to limit developer influence over resident-led governance models – for example, by restricting the period during which proxy voting rights can be exercised by developers. 5. Government should establish a more comprehensive professional accreditation system for managing agents. This should set standards for professional competence and conduct, alongside mechanisms for regulation, accreditation, and the removal of accreditation where

standards aren’t met. 6. Government should continue to refine and clarify legal frameworks and guidance, recognising that the challenges facing MOBs, and the solutions they require, vary from building to building. Practical guidance can provide an important reference point when residents address conflicts of interest and governance problems. 7. Government should provide support and training for residents and committees on the practical work of building management, including democratic procedures, conflict resolution, financial planning, maintenance planning, and guidelines on engaging tenants and other non-owner occupants. Taken together, international experience shows that resident-led governance models require appropriate intervention and support from an early stage. Reducing the financial, emotional and time costs of resident governance is essential if democratic mechanisms are to work effectively and prevent building safety risks and wider social problems from emerging over time. Dr Yu-Tung Wu is a Research Associate at the University of Sheffield Funding statement: the research was funded by the UK Collaborative Centre for Housing Evidence (ESRC grant number ES/W012278/1) Can you help us to understand how Housing Associations are preparing for Commonhold, and the challenges you face? Contact Yu-Tung Wu (yutung.wu@sheffield.ac.uk) for more information

The Policy and Politics of Improving Standards in the English Private Rented Sector (PRS) Introduction

By Dr Alice Earley, Research Associate, UK Collaborative Centre for Housing Evidence, University of Glasgow, Kenneth Gibb, Professor in Housing Economics at the University of Glasgow where he directs the UK Collaborative Centre for Housing Evidence, and Alex Marsh, Professor of Public Policy at the School for Policy Studies, University of Bristol. This piece is a summary of a 2025 article published in the Political Quarterly, entitled The Policy and Politics of Improving Standards in the English Private Rented Sector by the above authors.

The challenges regarding standards in the English PRS are well-established, including issues regarding inadequate renovation, maintenance and upgrading. Despite policy and legislation to improve standards, enforcement challenges remain. Our 2025 article argues for a need to think more expansively about the practical policy interventions that could help improve PRS standards, with the need to focus on more powerful leverage points associated with the design and intent of the system, to achieve transformative change towards a stronger culture of compliance with standards. Identifying the causes The supply and demand-side factors contributing to these challenges are well-known. On the supply-side, inadequate HOUSING QUALITY MAGAZINE JULY 2026

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access to social-rented and owner-occupied homes means that many are living in the PRS who wouldn’t traditionally have done so. Further, the number of small-scale landlords in the sector means that landlords may not be wellinformed about their responsibilities, and may not have business models in place to be able to easily pay for routine repairs and maintenance. Moreover, landlords may struggle to understand and follow often complex legislation. Finally, some landlords operate outside the law. Regarding demand, tenants may be scared to exercise their rights if there’s a maintenance issue, for fear of eviction, due to insufficient security of tenure. Moreover, tenants may not know their rights to be able to exercise them in the first place. Furthermore, austerity has led to reductions in housing advice and support functions, further disadvantaging tenants. Finally, concerns have been raised about the nature, scale and administration of sanctions for landlord non-compliance. The developing policy response In response to these challenges, successive governments have aimed to strengthen policy and legislation to improve PRS standards. Labour’s Renters’ Rights Act aims to increase the rights and protections of renters. Key to this is

Figure 1: Leverage points for driving compliance with standards

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the abolition of Section 21 ‘no fault’ evictions and reforming the grounds for repossession. The act also extends the Decent Homes Standard to the PRS, introduces a new ombudsman, creates a new PRS database, and strengthens local authority enforcement powers. Developing policy, seeking additional leverage In terms of how best to regulate standards, we argue for a broader understanding of the drivers of compliance, considering the ‘spontaneous’ factors which influence landlord behaviour, as well as the ‘enforced factors’ (see Figure 1). We argue for considering the role of ‘deeper’ leverage points, following the work of Donella Meadows, to identify policy interventions which can change system behaviour. Existing policy debate tends to focus on the relatively shallow realms of leverage, with parameters and feedback in the bottom-left quadrant of the table, whereas those realms likely to be more effective – design and intent – and associated with spontaneous compliance (in the top-right quadrant) – remain relatively unexplored. There’s a need to pay greater attention to these deeper leverage points. The provisions introduced in the Renters’ Rights Act operate on ‘enforced’ compliance factors and information

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accessibility. These policies are dependent upon a strong element of consumerism: the key mechanism for remedying non-compliance is tenants asserting their rights, either directly or by raising issues with the local authority. There’s uncertainty regarding whether these reforms are sufficient, with a question about whether adequate resources will be available for local authorities to fulfil their new responsibilities.

1. Issues of organisation and consistency of purpose, with a need for a long-term strategic approach to the housing system and issues by government. 2. Challenges relating to affordability, public spending and housing supply. 3. A need for greater clarity and consensus over the purpose of the PRS, with consideration of how we can shift the debate to prioritise housing as a right, over housing as a commodity.

What policy could be doing Concluding thoughts There’s arguably a case for focusing on the deeper leverage points that have greater potential to address the causes, rather than just symptoms, of the issues. We identify three potential areas for action: 1. Professionalising business models to increase the likelihood of adequate property maintenance. 2. Utilising alternative, non-official influences on compliance which can potentially alert local authorities to noncompliance. 3. Identifying how we can delegitimise the provision of inadequate PRS accommodation, thus changing social norms. Barriers to accessing deeper leverage points We identify three key barriers to change:

A systems-thinking approach can offer a fruitful route forward to think more expansively about interventions. This helps bring barriers to policy change more clearly into focus, with a need for considerable thought and care regarding system redesign and shifting system intent. To access and operate these levers requires engaging with fundamental questions within housing policy, including how – and where – to embed good-quality housing as a right.

1 https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-renters-rights-actinformation-sheet-2026 2 M. Pattillo, ‘Housing: commodity versus right’, Annual Review of Sociology, vol. 39, 2013, pp. 509–531; D. Rogers and C. McAuliffe, ‘Housing’s values: housing as an ethical urbanism’, Environment and Planning F, 2023.

The road to a Decent Neighbourhood Standard Dr Halima Sacranie, Director of Housing Research, Centre for the New Midlands and Nicola Bacon, Founding Director, Social Life England has had a Decent Homes Standard for 25 years which has served as clear, enforceable minimum for the quality of the home. While there are many aspirational design guides and frameworks, there’s no equivalent quality standard for the neighbourhood: the shared unit of place that connects homes and communities and where everyday life happens. There’s no clear standard setting out what level of safety, social infrastructure or opportunity a neighbourhood should offer; and accountability for neighbourhood quality is fragmented between agencies, with no single agency responsible for taking action when services and infrastructure fall short and place-based inequalities exacerbate disadvantage and stifle opportunity. The Decent Neighbourhood Standard (DNS) is being developed to fill that gap. This collaborative programme between the Centre for the New Midlands, Social Life and Witton Lodge Community Association, aims to create a practical, shared framework for measuring neighbourhood quality and building collective accountability at the neighbourhood scale.

We want the DNS to become a useful and practical tool for policymakers, housing providers, local authorities, community anchors, local institutions and wider stakeholders. It provides a shared, benchmarked evidence

Figure 1: The four universal dimensions of the Decent Neighbourhood Standard (Centre for the New Midlands, Social Life, Witton Lodge Community Association, 2025)

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base for prioritising investment, making the case for resource allocation, and holding partners to account. As national and local policy shifts towards good growth in place, devolution, the implementation of Pride in Place and the reformed Decent Homes Standard, the DNS has a strong role to play in the way that neighbourhoods are governed and funded. The DNS is built on four dimensions: neighbourhood quality; reducing inequalities and enabling aspirations; accountability, influence and stewardship; and securing a sustainable future. These universal dimensions draw on underlying principles of the Decent Homes Standard Erdington High Street (2026) around being fit for purpose and free from hazards, layered with seminal urban design frameworks Our latest report ‘North Birmingham Decent and a conceptualisation of what ‘decency’ means in place. Neighbourhood Standard: Erdington High Street’, published We’ve been applying and developing these dimensions in June 2026, focuses on the application of the first of those through neighbourhood demonstrators in north and south four universal dimensions to the Erdington High Street in Birmingham, drawing on participatory methodologies, North Birmingham. Working with Witton Lodge Community extensive engagement with stakeholders, community Association (a community-led housing organisation) we insights and neighbourhood diagnostics. The DNS indicator developed a neighbourhood quality dashboard from dashboard for each particular neighbourhood needs to existing public data, benchmarked Erdington against be grounded in local priorities and hyper-local or granular Birmingham and England, informed by a short survey of data. residents and local organisations.

Figure 2: Predicted attitudes to the local neighbourhood using Social Life’s Community Dynamics data. Community Dynamics models national data to small local areas to predict feelings about place. For more information https://www.social-life.co/blog/post/mapping_how_we_feel_about_the_places_ we_live/

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Figure 3: Decent Neighbourhood Standard: Erdington Indicator Themes (2026)

The DNS dashboard includes a mix of ‘hard’ data (for example, from the census or IMD) and ‘perceptual’ data, describing how residents feel about their neighbourhood. The evidence revealed a neighbourhood of competing strengths and challenges. Residents describe a strong sense of belonging and community spirit, and value their high street’s diversity and transport links. However, the same street is also widely described as dirty, run-down and intimidating. The starkest finding is the safety-perception deficit: only 15% of residents surveyed felt safe walking alone after dark, against a modelled benchmark of around 71% for comparable areas. Recorded crime counts measure incidents reported rather than the pervasive fear that can erode the quality of daily life. The DNS dashboard revealed significant infrastructure gaps on the Erdington High Street. GP provision is around roughly half the Birmingham average and dental access is negligible; both reinforce health inequalities. The data also showed strengths in social infrastructure strengths like the access to libraries, which is well above city and national benchmarks. However, Erdington library’s temporary closure for repairs was flagged as an issue. The report unpacks what we call “data decency”. Some indicators, like violent crime, have no acceptable level: the target must be a year-on-year reduction. Some decency benchmarks are statutory (like GP and dental access) where failure is a breach of legal duties, rather than just an aspiration gap. Other indicators are guided by national good practice, such as high-street vacancies, or, like perceptions of safety and sense of belonging, are best judged against

relative benchmarks; for example, reaching the average of comparable areas as a minimum and the national average as an ambition. Mapping indicators this way translates the concept of decency into something local, nuanced and measurable. Crucially it allows us to start understanding both the quality gaps prevalent in a neighbourhood and who’s accountable for addressing these deficits. This report captures the first phase of the DNS, the data baseline. The next phases will co-produce “decency thresholds” directly with local communities and residents through deeper community insights and neighbourhood diagnostics. The DNS needs to enact decency through its methodology, reflecting lived experience, strengthening local accountability and stewardship, and securing sustainable futures for neighbourhoods. If your organisation would like to find out more about the Decent Neighbourhood Standard, or to explore running a demonstrator in your own area, it’d be great to hear from you – please do get in touch. The home has had a quality standard for a quarter of a century, and we think it’s time for the neighbourhood to have one, too. Evidence editor: Gareth Young www.hqnetwork.co.uk email: evidence@hqnetwork.co.uk

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The curious case of the CIH position on ‘no access’ If the government is going to provide a fast-track legal power for landlords, mostly necessary because recent governments have ruined the ability of the courts to do their jobs, they should ensure every landlord request to use such a power is accompanied by evidence all the above have been tried first. As many cases flagged as ‘no access’ are simply indicative of a perfectly understandable breakdown in tenant trust, often as a result of unreliable landlord contact, there should Like an elephant doing a bungee jump, the social housing be an automatic, public review of every implementation sector has drifted away from ‘no access’ issues that were of the power, along with a referral for relevant support to highlighted in recent HQN research. Inevitably, as the address the underlying cause. recommendations about how landlords could change their There are some reasons to be hopeful that a set of new policies and protocols to improve outcomes haven’t been powers wouldn’t solely be used by organisations that widely adopted, the rope has overstretched and is bringing regularly feature in the ombudsman’s Spotlight reviews and the problems back towards their point of origin. maladministration reports to bypass correct policy. The Chartered Institute for Housing recently urged the For one, the proposal has been tabled by Lord Richard government to back powers to allow social landlords a Best. This name won’t be familiar to everyone, but Lord simplified legal route to access homes in order to conduct Best has been a champion for tenants and decent housing safety checks. for a long time. From being the Being careful to stress these cross-bench peer who originally powers would only be used in “While there are a minority coined the term ‘bedroom tax’ to cases “where landlords have being the Chair of the Affordable of cases that might qualify as exhausted reasonable efforts to Housing Commission, which repeated ‘no access’ caused arrange inspections” questions quietly damned the approaches still arise over who decides when of government and housing by tenants, the vast majority measures have been “exhausted”. providers to provide homes of instances could be Last December’s research, people could afford to live in, it backed by CIH, ARCH, the LGA, would be unfathomable for him resolved by specific changes NFA and CWA groups made to back something explicitly antiin landlord practice” it clear that many cases that tenant. landlords flag as ‘no access’ were There may be a good nothing of the sort. While there argument to be made for are a minority of cases that might qualify as repeated ‘no access in cases where the safety of residents is at risk. The access’ caused by tenants, the vast majority of instances potential implications of a missed gas or electrical hazard could be resolved by specific changes in landlord practice. aren’t limited to the home they start in. Hazards may have These included: been worsened by things builders and landlords should • Being more human when communicating with tenants have done properly in the first place but tenants should rise • Setting up specialist teams or providing ‘no access’ above these failures and protect their homes, families and training to multi-skilled teams communities. • Identifying why tenants may not provide access or be It’ll be necessary to tread carefully around any streamlined unable to do so legal power. Not all landlords operate altruistically in these • Improving the quality of data landlords hold, something cases. Riding roughshod over what might be a simple matter that remains a problem despite being highlighted in of miscommunication risks eroding trust with communities ongoing complaints resolutions at the ombudsman even further. • Involving tenants in drawing up ‘no access’ policies for At the very least, if there’s to be a quicker route to forced the modern age entry, there should be an equally rapid review of each • Adopting an evidence-informed approach to landlord outcome. policies. Rob Gershon, Associate, HQN

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Collective wellbeing – and why it matters for housing Susan Pinkney, Head of Research and Insights, Carnegie UK

At Carnegie UK, we focus on improving collective wellbeing across the UK and Ireland by influencing public policy and practice. That means looking beyond short-term fixes to understand the conditions that enable people and communities to thrive, now and in the future. A central part of that work is measuring what really matters in people’s lives, because without this, it’s difficult to design policy and practice that delivers meaningful, sustained change. For those working in housing, this is particularly important. Housing isn’t a discrete policy area: it influences so many parts of life. Our research programme, Life in the UK, consistently shows that housing plays a significant role in overall levels of wellbeing, along with income, age, disability, ethnicity and place. What the evidence tells us Now in its fourth year, the Life in the UK Index is the largest independent measure of collective wellbeing across England, Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. Based on a 26-question survey, it offers a consistent and comparable picture of how people experience their lives across social, economic, environmental and democratic dimensions. The index is designed to help governments and other decision-makers focus on what matters most to people, and to track whether we’re collectively living better or worse over time. It also highlights where progress is being made and where policy action is still needed. The overall findings from our 2025 Index are sobering. Despite sustained policy attention across a range of areas, the UK’s level of collective wellbeing hasn’t improved since 2023. That suggests we need to think differently about how we define success and how we evaluate the impact of interventions. Traditional metrics still matter, but on their own they cannot tell us whether people’s lives are actually improving. Housing and wellbeing There are some encouraging signs. More people report being able to keep their homes warm than in previous years. However, this sits alongside continued economic pressure for many households. Many still face financial strain, particularly

those in social housing, larger families and people on lower incomes. Inequalities in housing continue to translate directly into inequalities in outcomes. The gap between those who own their own home and those who don’t remains wide, shaping experiences of health, safety and financial resilience. People living in the social rented sector report significantly worse health than homeowners. The index also highlights differences in democratic wellbeing. While trust in the UK government has increased since the general election, many people still feel they have little say over decisions that affect their lives. This sense of powerlessness is particularly evident among those living in social housing, where low trust in both national and local government is more common. Renters are more likely to report poorer outcomes across a range of measures, including experiences of discrimination and levels of trust. The scores for economic wellbeing, where people have the financial security and resources needed to live well, illustrate the scale of variation: in 2025, social tenants recorded a score of 52, compared with 63 for private renters and 76 for homeowners. Social connections also vary by housing tenure. Those living in rented accommodation are less likely to feel they can rely on neighbours for support. Good outcomes aren’t only about the quality of homes, but also about how systems enable people to shape the places they live. Taken together, the evidence illustrates how closely housing is associated with wellbeing outcomes. Long-term thinking At Carnegie UK, we believe everyone should have what they need to live well together. Achieving this requires a long-term, joined-up approach. Improving collective wellbeing depends on sustained attention to the quality of places, the availability of opportunities and the strength of communities. For housing professionals, this means looking beyond delivery metrics to consider how their work contributes to wider outcomes over time. Measuring what matters provides the foundation for doing this well – helping ensure that housing policy not only delivers homes but improves lives. We hope the Life in the UK Index helps ensure that those with the power to change things, from local to national level, have the insight they need to put wellbeing at the heart of decision-making and deliver policies that meaningfully improve people’s lives now and in the future. The next Life in the UK Index is due to be published in autumn 2026. To find out more, visit carnegieuk.org/life-inthe-uk-index/

HOUSING QUALITY MAGAZINE JULY 2026

VIEWS

Engaging residents with sustainability goals To build on our engagement in Phase One, we created a quarterly newsletter for residents in the programme to meet the team and stay up to date with the project. We set up the Sustainability Advisory Group, made up of residents and staff who completed carbon literacy training, to advise on our approach to engagement and ensure maximum take-up – including making sure that we communicate with those who don’t have English as their first language. This insight helped us appoint a resident liaison Resident engagement is the backbone of Phoenix’s model advisor internally, who’s supported residents individually as a resident-led housing association but persuading our throughout the process. residents of the benefits of our sustainability goals hasn’t We then held a ‘Meet the Contractor’ event funded been easy. entirely through delivery partners’ social value In Phase One, we initiated engagement early on but commitments. Eighty-one adults and children from 30 found that, despite having the right resources, residents households attended. From these initiatives, our data weren’t engaging with us to allow us access to upgrade shows that resident cancellation rates have come in lower their homes. We learned that many residents weren’t than expected, and the project team attributes this directly convinced of the benefits of retrofit, and without resident to the quality of its engagement. trust and understanding, We also engaged with residents even the best-designed at our ‘Chat & Chips’ events and programme cannot a Phoenix health and wellbeing progress successfully. “From these initiatives, our event and included pop-up Our experiences also told stalls as part of a ‘resident data shows that resident us that that although we roadshow’, which was targeted cancellation rates have come were providing information, within geographical areas in the it wasn’t enough. We had programme. in lower than expected, and to focus on what mattered To build on this momentum, the project team attributes most to residents: comfort, we’ve invited residents to become health and affordability. Retrofit Champions, a structured this directly to the quality of Now, in Phase Two, community role developed and its engagement” we’re delivering solar PV built into the programme to panels, loft and cavity ensure residents have a formal wall insulation, ventilation voice in how delivery unfolds and upgrades, and 40 additional air source heat pump to encourage other residents to have the works done. This installations. has resulted in two residents coming forward so far and we We’re just over a quarter of the way through an ambitious are confident that others will follow. retrofit programme, and the early results suggest we’ve As we look to future phases, we plan to set up a resident started to crack something that trips up many landlords retrofit panel to provide ongoing lived-experience oversight, that attempt large-scale green investment: getting residents as well as decarbonisation works in void properties so that genuinely on board. residents can visit these and understand new technology. As a resident-led organisation, we’ve undertaken an The approach reflects a deliberate philosophy: retrofit extensive programme of resident engagement, learning as delivered with residents, not simply to them. we’ve been going along. With 120 homes completed, a strong pipeline in place, From our learning in Phase One and in preparation for and further funding conversations underway with the the Warm Homes Programme bid, we launched our Renew GLA, we’re well positioned for the long haul. For a sector campaign – an integrated communications campaign still working out how to make retrofit stick at scale, the aimed at empowering, educating and informing residents lesson from Phoenix is straightforward: engagement isn’t of our plans, milestones and the health and wellbeing a compliance tick box – it’s what keeps the programme benefits of improving the energy efficiency of their homes. moving. By Henry Smith, Sustainability Lead, Phoenix Community Housing

HOUSING QUALITY MAGAZINE JULY 2026

VIEWS

How our Buyback programme is providing desperately needed homes By David Joyce, Corporate Director of Housing and Regeneration, London Borough of Tower Hamlets

We often talk about the housing emergency but many of our responses can take years to lead to any sort of meaningful contribution to tackling it Estate regeneration, new-build schemes and repurposing existing buildings all have an important role to play but can take a number of years to come to fruition. That’s why acquisition programmes have become such an important focus for Tower Hamlets and other councils like us. In Tower Hamlets, we have a long track record of using acquisitions to provide a faster solution to the very real pressures we face. Our most recent programme (started in 2024), which encompassed both MHCLG and CHAP funding, focused on family-sized homes and bringing our previous right to buy stock back into the council’s portfolio. I’m delighted that we hit our target to deliver 237 acquisitions by the April 2026 deadline our funding partners had set. We’re now embarking on the next phase of the programme but as we hit this milestone it’s worth reflecting on why it matters so much. Increasing the supply of affordable housing is a significant priority for the borough. There are currently: 31,000 households on the council’s housing register; 13,209 households living in overcrowded conditions (with 2,668 severely overcrowded); 3,220 households are living in temporary accommodation; and 602 households require rehousing due to medical needs. This results in prolonged waiting times, particularly for those in lower priority bands, who often struggle to find suitable housing locally, and puts pressure on finances. To alleviate this, we needed a faster supply of housing within our stock, which is why our Buyback programme is so beneficial to the borough’s residents. The programme offers value for money by enabling shorter delivery times for temporary and permanent housing. It also provides financial value, efficiently leveraging funding without the excessive costs associated with new construction and, crucially, increases our housing supply more quickly. And it generates rental income almost instantaneously, from the point of investment, which helps the sustainability of our housing revenue account.

In terms of management, by acquiring previously councilowned stock we’ve been able to substantially mitigate our temporary accommodation costs (currently £25 million a year) by repurposing it for homeless families, saving us expensive accommodation fees. For the scheme to work, the council procured the services of experienced RICS valuers to ensure that our leaseholders received a fair and reasonable purchase price from an independent source. Customer service is always at the forefront of our minds and the leaseholders who sold us their property benefited from a free valuation and flexibility on appointment times. Our brilliant Buyback project team were always on hand to answer any questions and provide information to help ensure a seamless process. While the programme was successful, it wasn’t without operational challenges. These included meeting issues around space standards, as not all properties met the size criteria required by the funding, and managing leaseholder expectations where RICS and estate agent valuations differed. Understandably, people were seeking to achieve the highest possible sale price. We also encountered issues with undisclosed tenancies, unauthorised alterations, illegal subletting and inconsistent property standards. These were addressed through robust internal processes, close collaboration across teams and the introduction of a standardised finishes schedule. The marketing campaign also generated a far greater response than anticipated, which we managed effectively by introducing an online register of interest. The homes we’ve acquired are making a huge difference. I’ve seen firsthand the difference for families who are no longer placed out of borough in inadequate, temporary homes. Some families in TA have been moved more than 10 times – consider what that could mean for your family and the difference programmes like this make in ending that uncertainty. The programme purchased properties ranging from twobedroom homes right up to a seven-bedroom apartment which is benefiting a large family on a permanent tenancy. The programme also included housing under the Afghan Resettlement Scheme, focusing on family-sized homes. The council has successfully secured funding for a fouryear MHCLG programme starting in 2026-2030 to purchase 123 homes within the borough. We’ve also submitted a bid to the GLA for a long-term CHAP programme. My thanks to our brilliant team and our funders who help make it happen – the difference this makes to families in our borough is almost impossible to calculate.

HOUSING QUALITY MAGAZINE JULY 2026

VIEWS

Exploring why funding certainty is the key to unlocking institutional capital grant rates that hold steady long enough for providers to build delivery teams, commit land and enter contracts that run for years. The more stable that framework remains, the more confidently providers can plan and invest against it. Stability of approach is, in itself, one of the most powerful tools government has to encourage ambition. Confidence is where institutional capital comes in, and this is the point too often missed. The grant programme is substantial, but it cannot meet the need alone. Pension funds, insurers and other long-term investors hold exactly The National Housing Federation’s call for the chancellor the patient capital affordable housing requires, and are to bring forward funding under the £39 billion Social and actively looking for places to deploy it. What they need Affordable Homes Programme is a welcome and timely is predictability: stable, index-linked income they can intervention. It comes at a moment when demand from model with confidence over decades, set within a policy providers has run well ahead of the funding available in environment they can rely on. The 10-year rent settlement the programme’s early years, and points to something at CPI + 1% was a significant step towards exactly that, giving the sector has wanted for a long time: a serious, longinvestors clear visibility on cash flows that’s long been the term commitment to social and affordable housing. The missing piece. question now is whether we can Many believe that grant convert that commitment into and private capital aren’t delivery at the scale the country alternatives, but work best in needs. “The real prize in this tandem. Consistent, transparent Bringing funding forward government funding does more programme isn’t the matters. Earlier access to grant than build homes directly – headline figure but its 10lets providers unlock stalled it de-risks the wider market, pipelines, bring schemes signals that affordable housing year horizon. I’ve been in out of viability limbo, and is a durable national priority, the sector for two decades respond more quickly to acute and gives institutional investors housing need. The federation’s the assurance they need to and for the first time in point is a practical one: with commit at scale. It also offers a living memory, providers the programme heavily measure of economic stability, can plan against a decade oversubscribed, providers have sustaining construction activity shown the ambition and capacity and investment through weaker of certainty” to build now, and the profile of points in the cycle. Where grant the funding shouldn’t be what and other government stimulus, holds them back. Bringing it including the National Housing forward would, as the federation Bank, lead with confidence, puts it, turn that capacity into starts on site. After a period private capital follows. The clearer and steadier the public in which affordable housing starts fell sharply, momentum approach, the more readily that long-term capital comes of this kind isn’t a luxury. forward. Acceleration on its own won’t deliver 300,000 homes. If acceleration is matched with steady progress on Two things will: the consistency of the funding approach; planning, procurement, skills upgrades and supply chain and the confidence it gives the capital markets. Both capacity, the conditions for transformational delivery are deserve more attention than they usually receive. within reach. Providers and investors are ready to play their The real prize in this programme is not the headline figure full part. Bringing funding forward, and maintaining a steady, but its 10-year horizon. I’ve been in the sector for two decades transparent approach over the life of the new programme, and for the first time in living memory, providers can plan is among the most powerful things government can do to against a decade of certainty rather than a series of short, draw in the institutional capital this country’s housing need stop-start windows. That certainty is valuable and worth demands. Get that right, and a decade of funding becomes protecting. It depends on funding rules, bidding routes and a decade of genuine renewal. By Triya Maicha, Partner and Head of Real Estate & Projects, Devonshires

HOUSING QUALITY MAGAZINE JULY 2026

HQN summer skills season 2026 Practical training for the social housing sector this July and August. Refresh knowledge, close skills gaps and prepare your teams for the challenges ahead with focused live virtual training covering Awaab’s Law, consumer standards, complaints, repairs, income management, resident engagement, safeguarding, EDI and more. HQN members can access discounted rates, with additional savings available when booking multiple places. View the full programme and book your place at hqnetwork.co.uk/summer-skills-season-2026

VIEWS

Why social housing was never designed with displaced people in mind By Fuad Mahamed, CEO and Founder of refugee and migrant provider, ACH

healthcare registration, education and training are all critical, yet frequently inaccessible. The problem is rarely that information doesn’t exist. It’s that it’s only available in English, written in technical or bureaucratic language, spread across multiple agencies and websites, and not delivered through trusted channels. Integrated support

‘Hard to reach’ is a phrase I encounter regularly, and one that reveals more about our systems than the people they’re meant to serve. When we describe refugees and migrants this way, we’re locating the problem in the individual rather than the service. Newly arrived people are highly motivated to access housing, employment, education and healthcare. However, many systems assume a level of familiarity with UK institutions, language, technology and bureaucracy that they simply don’t yet have. Design barriers Common obstacles include complex housing application processes, digital-first systems that assume device access and digital literacy, services requiring extensive documentation or a UK credit history, and fragmented support pathways where housing, employment, health and welfare operate in silos. Standardised approaches that take no account of trauma, displacement or cultural difference further compound these barriers. Years of austerity have also left their mark. Under pressure to manage high demand with limited resources, services have defaulted to efficiency and standardisation over personalised support. Most public systems weren’t designed with forced migration and meaningful resettlement in mind. Funding and commissioning cycles reward outputs over outcomes, incentivising volume rather than quality. Risk-averse institutional cultures default to standardised processes because flexibility is seen as administratively difficult to audit. And a persistent lack of diverse representation in service design means the lived experience of refugees and migrants is rarely reflected. Until services are built from the outset with displaced people in mind, they’ll continue to exclude the very groups they’re intended to support. Information gap New arrivals also face significant challenges in accessing the information they need. Housing rights, the social housing system, welfare and benefits, employment rights,

HOUSING QUALITY MAGAZINE JULY 2026

Contrary to popular belief, effective, culturally-informed support isn’t simply about translation. It’s about understanding the wider context of someone’s experience, i.e. housing stability, physical and mental health, employment and skills, financial inclusion and community connection. Housing is one part of the journey, not the destination. Combining accommodation with integration services supports people towards achieving long-term independence. We work with residents from the moment they arrive, helping them access services, build skills, secure employment and ultimately move into sustainable housing. More than half of our employees have lived experience of migration, which creates the trust and credibility that relationship-based working requires. The impact of this integrated model is measurable. We’ve supported more than 1,500 people to find housing, more than 650 people through training and education, and more than 300 entrepreneurs and business owners. When housing is combined with wraparound integration services, the result isn’t simply accommodation provision, it’s the catalyst for long-term social and economic inclusion. Person-centred approach The most important shift the social housing sector could make is to treat housing as the starting point for integration. Too often, housing is treated as a standalone transaction, e.g. provide a room, collect the rent and move on. For refugees and migrants, housing stability is deeply connected to employment, language, health and community participation. We cannot measure success on tenancy sustainment alone. This change is entirely achievable. What’s needed is greater collaboration between housing providers, local authorities, commissioners and integration specialists, and a willingness to embed person-centred approaches systematically rather than treating them as exceptional. Commissioners need to require and reward cultural competency. Organisations need to invest in staff with lived experience and give them genuine opportunities to progress. And all of us need to move from designing services for communities to designing them with communities.

VIEWS

Why we’re building the UK’s first woodland eco-homes scheme for older people By Dominic Bradley, CEO, Lenches Trust

Ageing population, rising building costs and net-zero targets are among the many challenges that aren’t just putting social housing providers under increasing pressure but exposing the limitations of traditional later living solutions. Large scale, purpose-built, purpose-managed retirement schemes have long been considered the go-to option. But for some older people, it’s been at the expense of removing the independence and ability to contribute they value the most, including being able to work. We believe now is the time to not just look at how we can build more, but whether what we’re building has an impact – not just meeting needs but being desirable and connecting people into the nature that surrounds them. This idea around nature connectivity has led to us developing our pilot eco-pod woodland housing scheme in the heart of Birmingham. Woodland home-from-home The scheme is set to take shape within just 3.5 miles from the city centre, in a hidden, self-seeded woodland in Quinton. Six single-storey residential pods, spanning 37 square metres each, will be installed within the woodland and connected to each another by a decked walkway. Each ‘woodland home’ will comprise a bedroom, wet room, open-plan kitchen, living and dining area, and a study. Prefabricated timber components will be manufactured off-site and assembled on-site as a modular system, reducing waste, construction time and environmental impact. Crucially, while each pod will be built from the same standardised parts, the orientation and site-specific placement of each unit means that no two pods will be identical, maximising natural light into the homes. External timber cladding, green roofs, large windows that frame the canopy, and French doors opening out on to private and shared terraces will blur the boundary between the inside and out. Elevated above the woodland floor on screw-pile foundations, the pods will minimise disruption to tree roots, plant life and wildlife habitat.

the space around the eco pod homes will be maintained. Residents will be invited to take collective responsibility for their shared woodland environment, participating in the stewardship of the greenery around them. In turn, this approach is designed to help tackle social isolation by building a sense of belonging and mutual care into the development. Housing that keeps older residents connected to wider community life, rather than concentrating them in age-segregated environments, is essential for enhancing their everyday wellbeing and health. At the same time, the woodland will be given a new lease of life – a stark contrast from historic fly-tipping and drainage challenges that have plagued the site. A comprehensive drainage solution, biodiversity net gain enhancements and new ponds will be introduced. Short-lived poplar tree species will also be replaced with native oak, field maple, cherry and hornbeam to create a healthier, more resilient woodland for generations to come. We’re under no illusion that our eco-pod concept is a solution for every site or community. What we do believe it offers, however, is an important test case – a carefully considered challenge to the assumption that later living social housing must follow a single, familiar template. Just like our residents embrace change, so should we. Lench’s has lasted 500 years for that very ambition. Exciting times lie ahead, and we look forward to our Quinton pilot to help provide the beginning of an answer, as well as spark a much broader conversation within our sector.

Rethinking land as a social asset One of the most significant elements of the pilot is how HOUSING QUALITY MAGAZINE JULY 2026

SPOTLIGHT

A life in 15 questions Orla Gallagher Chief executive, Housing Solutions

1. What do you do for fun? I’m very sociable, so I love spending time with family and friends. Living in West London means I’m lucky to have plenty on my doorstep – live music, comedy nights, museums and all the quirkier bits of London. I also love quieter things too: pottering in my garden and walking my dog, Herbie, in Hyde Park early at the weekend. Seeing London wake up on a summer morning is hard to beat. 2. You have the power to change one thing about the social housing sector: what would it be? I’d put far more emphasis on the human side of housing – connection, creativity and understanding how people really live in their homes. Safety, compliance and asset management matter enormously, but we mustn’t lose sight of the people behind the process. If we’re going to meet the challenges ahead, we’ll need imagination, judgement and empathy as much as efficiency. 3. What advice would you give to someone starting out in housing? Get as much breadth of experience as you can. Housing is a wonderfully varied sector, and early on it helps to understand how all the different parts fit together. Stay close to residents, use technology well, and choose organisations that will help you grow. 4. Who’s your favourite author, and why? I don’t have one single favourite author. I’ve been part of the same book club for more than 15 years, so I’ve read widely and probably enjoy discovering a really good book more than being loyal to one writer. My reading is quite seasonal too – lighter and more escapist in summer, more thoughtful and immersive in winter.

language to feel it, and I’ve travelled a lot and seen how quickly music brings people together across cultures. 9. Favourite place in the world? London on a sunny day, especially the South Bank.

5. What’s the strangest thing you’ve ever experienced? Walking through London during Covid when the streets were completely empty. It was a hot, sunny afternoon, and yet the city was silent. It was surreal and quite unsettling. 6. What are your three favourite albums? I’m much more song-led than albumled, so if I could answer with songs, I’d choose Nina Simone’s version of Who Knows Where the Time Goes?, Rhiannon by Fleetwood Mac, and My Way. They’re all songs I never really tire of. 7. Proudest achievement? Without question, my proudest achievement is bringing up my two sons, Euan (22) and Niall (19). I’m incredibly proud of the independent, kind, and funny young men they’ve become.

10. You can resurrect anyone from history and talk to them for an hour: who, and why? Amy Winehouse. An extraordinary talent, taken far too early. 11. Favourite film or TV series? Derry Girls. It’s clever, hilarious and, having grown up in Ireland, I can really relate to it. 12. Favourite food? Fish and chips at the seaside. 13. Most embarrassing moment? Falling off the stage in a dancing competition – I got rather carried away! 14. If you didn’t work in housing, what would you do? Probably be a teacher. 15. What makes for a good life? Being present, looking after the people you love, making the most of the here and now, and living life to the full.

8. A world without music or a world without literature – and why? A world without literature. Much as I love books, music feels even more fundamental to me because it connects people instantly and universally. You don’t need a shared The Derry Girls mural on a wall in Derry, Northern Ireland

HOUSING QUALITY MAGAZINE JULY 2026

Networks tailored to your needs The housing sector is changing (when isn’t it?), which means the HQN membership offer is evolving to meet the needs of operational teams across the country. Our mission stays the same: to unpack what high-level policy and regulatory changes actually mean for staff on the ground, to share best practice and innovative approaches, and give you the tools you need to deliver services for residents in the most effective and efficient way possible.

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To find out more about each of our networks, visit www.hqnetwork.co.uk/hqnnetworks

SPOTLIGHT

CEO spotlight... Carmel Chambers In the first of a new regular series, the Stockport Homes chief executive reflects on her life and career in housing.

Tell us a bit about your early life Growing up in North Manchester to parents who both worked on the frontline and in public service has really shaped and influenced the sheer passion I have for this sector. My dad grew up on a council estate and had so few opportunities to progress his education, even though he was very clever. I believe children of all backgrounds should have fair life chances; we’re not there yet as a country at resolving that one! My mum was a night nurse at a large well-known Manchester hospital, working in infectious diseases and she’s very much shaped my attitudes to be non-judgemental. Her stories of loss, right through to almost being blown up by a patient who wanted access to the drug cupboard, have made me fully appreciate the resilience and care of our frontline services, and that we owe them a lot. What was your first housing job? My first housing job was just over 20 years ago, working as an accountant for both the ALMO and the housing revenue account (HRA). Back in the day, the HRA was part of a national government subsidy system, followed by a self-financing settlement in 2012. I always think when you work in finance, you get to understand most areas of the business, as you’re working up business plans with service leads, assessing viability and risk, and modelling 30-year projections. Understanding the asset management strategy, for example, leads you into spaces that any good accountant should be – not just counting and accepting numbers, but questioning assumptions, forecasts and trends, and challenging the basis of decisions that could have negative (or positive) consequences for the whole business. What’s your best housing moment? There are lots to mention here, but I’ll go with our recent C1 grading from the regulator. So much work goes on behind the scenes, from all our teams, day in, day out. To be awarded the highest grading from an independent assessment meant so much. We know there’s still so much more to do and carry on learning, but to have those fundamentals assessed was testament to all that hard work. And the worst? Discovering we had fire risk actions that had been reported as complete and added to a programme of works, when in fact they weren’t. This led to us self-referring to the housing regulator back in December. My mantra is always that tenant safety is our number one priority, above all else. A new member of staff that had joined us made the discovery. We acted on it straight away, put in place the right mitigation measures and clearly communicated to our customers. We brought in independent consultants to review our compliance operations in this area and have made numerous improvements to data quality and transparency. I drive past our high-rise blocks every day to work and never forget the huge responsibilities and accountabilities that all of us working in the housing sector hold.

HOUSING QUALITY MAGAZINE JULY 2026

SPOTLIGHT

Who’s your housing hero? My current chair of the board, Steve Partridge. Steve is just coming up to serving his full allowable term as our chair. Steve isn’t only well known and highly regarded in the sector, having shaped many housing policies and financing settlements over the years, working with, and lobbying national and local government. But he’s been an inspiration to me. Not just his knowledge, but his unwavering support as chair, and his professionalism, humility and just being a decent human being. He has good morals and sticks to them. How did you become a housing leader? After becoming director of finance, my remit grew rapidly. I’ve often been told I’m “not just a typical accountant” – I’ve always taken that as a complement by the way! My zest for people and engagement initiatives, and a desire to create a really immersive, dynamic, fun working environment led me to taking over HR and OD. From there I became executive director of resources, welcoming numerous teams into my remit, such as IT, data, health and safety, and marketing and comms, to name a few. I’ve also led more traditional front-facing teams, such as customer finance, money advice and assets teams over the years. Leading such diverse teams has only fuelled my passion for all things housing and enables me to be genuine and passionate when I say the housing sector really is a great, vibrant, rewarding sector to be part of. What’s the one key lesson you’ve learned from a career in housing? It’s all about people, and you must have a passion for people. Whether that’s attracting great people as colleagues to deliver the best services or ensuring our customers get the services they deserve. We need to listen. Listen to what colleagues and customers are saying, really listen. Create an environment where people feel they can open up and talk honestly. And then act on their feedback. If you don’t have that passion to do right by your people, you shouldn’t be working in this sector.

“We need to listen to what colleagues and customers are saying, really listen. Create an environment where people feel they can open up and talk honestly. And then act on their feedback. If you don’t have that passion to do right by your people, you shouldn’t be working in this sector”

What’s your advice for anyone starting their housing career? Don’t pigeon-hole yourself. I came in as an accountant and have since led over 20 different teams. I’ve had many team members end up in roles that they didn’t start in – rent officers that are now in our new build development team; I’ve had IT experts running engagement initiatives. As long as your guiding principle is to help people, and live by the values in our sector, you can utilise your skills and develop those skills across lots of different areas of housing. Don’t be afraid to try out new roles and speak up. I learnt very early on if you don’t ask, you don’t get. What’s the biggest challenge you currently face as a housing leader? There are numerous challenges in the sector at the moment – it’s the most challenging out of all my 20 years in the sector. So, it’s the sheer accumulation of those challenges which is the challenge! The sector needs massive financial investment; we have aging stock that’s costing more; we have over 9,700 on our housing waiting list; we have some of the most deprived areas in the country; we have increased homelessness; the list goes on. But that’s what we’re paid as leaders to navigate: to make the best decisions with limited resources, whilst spreading hope and positivity with sprinkles of happiness for those in society who need us most. What single policy would improve the housing situation in this country? Even more funding for the delivery of new social and affordable homes. There’s still so much to do.

HOUSING QUALITY MAGAZINE JULY 2026

RIEN annual conference 2026: Same-same but different Thursday 24 September 2026 Radisson Blu, Liverpool Income management may look the same. It isn’t. Beneath the surface, AI, behavioural insights, tenancy sustainment and cost of living pressures are reshaping the service. Join this year’s RIEN conference to explore these and more. This year HQN will get under the bonnet of income management to explore how teams across the country are adapting. We’ll look at emerging tools, new thinking and practical changes, helping providers maintain strong collection performance while supporting residents who need help most. To find out more and book your place, please visit hqnetwork.co.uk/hqnevents

SPOTLIGHT

The last word A glimpse into the future

By Richard Blakeway, the Housing Ombudsman

“Landlords have come a long way since I joined as ombudsman in 2019. The sector has shown more openness and honesty about the challenges being faced and improved its governance and oversight on key complaint trends. This must continue”

Roof faults, like window disrepair, are an emerging concern in our casework. They present two systemic issues which landlords need to grasp: managing homeownership and planning major works. If unaddressed, these could become a driver of more complaints in future years. Before we examine those technical areas, the resident’s voice should be heard. Our most recent ‘learning from severe maladministration’ report reveals starkly the human impact of roof disrepair. Rainwater runs down a child’s bedroom wall. This has been recurring for more than two years. Another child’s TV catches fire because of the water damage. Every heavy downpour leaves a resident’s kitchen ceiling bowing. The mould growth causes food hygiene risks. Several buckets an hour are emptied by residents catching water. This happens in more than one case. Conditions which would cause distress for most people are compounded by individual circumstances. This includes a leak into a resident’s bedroom while she’s undergoing chemotherapy. Another resident has food prepared in a moudly kitchen while recovering from a double lung transplant. It’s vital landlords never lose sight of the impact of severe failings on people – but also take a forensic approach to identifying weaknesses in policy, processes, systems or culture. This brings us back to those two themes of major works and homeownership. Most landlords are demonstrating they’re applying lessons from complaints on responsive repairs to improve services. It’s important those lessons are extended from repairs to maintenance. With the new Decent Homes Standard on the horizon, lessons from responsive repairs which could be transferred into handling major works include oversight, timeliness and communication. Poor performance in these areas could undermine what should otherwise be positive outcomes for residents of major works. There are clear echoes from our other reports on window disrepair in relation to roofs. This could be extended to other components, too. The complexity and cost (including, potentially, to homeowners) of major works mean these can be delayed beyond a reasonable timeframe. The availability of components can also make the situation worse. And temporary fixes can be inadequate and costly in a different way. For homeowners, accountability can be diffuse and third parties (such as managing agents) can hinder rather than help resolution. Accountability would be aided by a single redress scheme across the housing sector. Again, this report provides an almost identical lesson about the weaknesses of section 20 as our report on windows. The Decent Homes Standard will bring these issues to a head. These lessons should also be taken forward into the expansion of Awaab’s Law, which will bring into scope more hazards. Issues present in our early casework include incomplete risk assessments, unexplained delays, unevidenced reports of no access and no consideration of temporary moves. This is a reminder for landlords of the importance of triaging Awaab’s Law cases effectively and keeping processes agile when circumstances change. Landlords have come a long way since I joined as ombudsman in 2019. The sector has shown more openness and honesty about the challenges being faced and improved its governance and oversight on key complaint trends. This must continue. And if landlords are to get ahead of the game, using complaints as an indicator of trends or emerging issues is a vital way of achieving that. HOUSING QUALITY MAGAZINE JULY 2026

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Housing Quality Magazine July 2026