The Government’s latest amendment to the Social Housing (Regulation) Bill introduces regulatory powers to require senior RP executives and managers to hold specific professional qualifications in order to do their jobs. The intention is to increase professionalism across the sector by ensuring that people in key customer-facing roles have sufficient knowledge, skills and experience to provide a competent service to tenants.
For many, this is a chance to improve their skillsets and sector knowledge to provide a more complete and better quality service to tenants. However, this amendment is far from a silver bullet in driving change in working cultures and practices.
Wider focus on governance is what is required across the social housing sector to promote fundamental change. These measures are part of a concerted effort to reform the way that RPs interact with tenants and are part of the much wider set of changes introduced by the new bill focused on protecting tenants’ interests.
Despite added pressure due to increasing costs and scrutiny over their delivery, it is essential that social housing providers stay alive to impending changes and plan accordingly.
These comments on the proposed social housing qualification recently appeared in Property Week and Local Authority Building & Maintenance (LABM).