A common historic complaint from private sector landlords about the use by Local Authorities of Selective Licensing in regulating the PRS was that the councils took the licensing fees from landlords, good and bad, and then fined any landlords who’d not applied for a licence but did little else to improve matters. Effectively, a licensing scheme was just a way to impose a ‘tax’ on landlords.

As part of our Meet the Team series, we introduce Mike Brook, whose extensive experience at Leeds City Council has uniquely equipped him to understand the challenges Local Authorities face. Here, he shares insights into his background, his role at Home Safe, and how we are supporting Local Authorities in addressing mounting pressures to improve housing standards across the sector.

Gas Safety Week 2024 (9th to 15th September) is upon us with this year’s theme being “Every [gas safety] Check Counts” as Gas Safe Register’s “latest inspection data reveals 1 in 5 UK homes have an unsafe gas appliance.” Gas Safe Register is the only official gas registration body for gas businesses and gas engineers in the UK and operates on behalf of the Health & Safety Executive.

After Leeds City Council introduced selective licensing in two of its wards in 2020 the resulting “closer working” between the council and allied agencies - enabled by the licensing schemes - ended up with “the seizure of over £50 million in Cannabis across the city as a whole.” Now the council is looking to extend licensing across five more of its ‘priority’ wards, in part, as a result of this licensing success.

It’s probably fair to say that the majority of the public have never heard of the “Government Digital [by default] Strategy” published in 2012. But then, it was meant for government departments, rather than the public, in order to drive efficiency and financial savings in the provision of public services.

Peterborough City Council’s new Selective Licensing scheme, which covers 10 of the city’s wards and was launched in March, has received over 7,000 applications with over 1,750 draft licences issued and over 500 final licences issued to landlords operating private rented sector properties in the city.

Licensing schemes are an essential tool for elevating rental housing standards. At their core, Selective and Additional licensing schemes are all about ensuring better living conditions for tenants, a goal everyone can stand behind. The real conversation often centres on the most effective ways to achieve these standards. Based on our hands-on experience, the central pillar of any successful licensing scheme lies in rigorous property inspections that ensure tenants have a safe place to live.

With the recent statements by the Chancellor, Rachel Reeves MP, about the £22 billion “black hole” ‘discovered’ in the nation’s finances (and her consequent remedies) and the focus of the Secretary of State for Housing, Angela Rayner MP, firmly set on a huge house building programme fuelled by reform of the planning system, private rented sector reform seems to have taken somewhat of a backseat on the journey to resolving the national housing crisis.

The pomp and circumstance of the King’s speech during the state opening of Parliament sees the formalised beginning of the new parliament and a new legislative programme. Whilst the new Government is hoping for an increase in the economy’s growth rate to help fund the across the board “National renewal” that they wish to see, for the moment the path to making a difference looks like it will be via regulation with nearly 40 new legislative bills laid out in the speech.

A new Government is in place and Parliament will be swearing in MPs on Tuesday 9th July. There is a new Secretary of State at the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities and a new legislative programme will be officially unveiled during the King’s Speech on 17th July. The current stabilisation of interest rates and inflation levels, although still higher than through the last decade, will hopefully help create some economic stability but huge fiscal challenges remain.