The designation of new private rented sector selective licensing schemes by local authorities continued apace through 2022. Some schemes involved the licensing of tens of thousands of urban PRS properties.

But - even for authorities licensing properties in the mere hundreds or, say, fewer than 2000 - the resource implications of manually processing applications in the current financial hostile environment don’t bear thinking about. Most local authorities setting up licensing schemes used (long) paper application forms until relatively recently. Then, they moved to on-line applications but would also accept paper applications. Today though, most if not all recent schemes have stipulated that only online applications will be accepted. The journey to this new, if perhaps not final, frontier hasn’t been overnight though.

“Digital by default” became government bywords in the early 2010s but now, in the Government’s own words on its current 2022-2025 digital strategy, “New technology has revolutionised every aspect of our society and the economy, including the way we deliver public services. The Government has come a long way over the past ten years to improve use of digital and data. In many areas, however, we still lag behind the private sector and other countries around the world”.

What does this mean for local authority PRS licensing administration though? It’s clear that it’s not just about available administrative resources in the middle of a period of tight public finances - certainly it’s obvious that it would be impossible to process 40,000 selective licences without going digital. We now live in a thoroughly data driven world and selective licensing isn’t simply about getting licences out of the door and into the hands of landlords. The data gathered on properties via selective licensing schemes now informs (or can inform) local strategies for improved health outcomes, well-being support, energy efficiency drives (and upgrade funding) as well as area regeneration. In the current era, such strategies would be unthinkable without the data crunching abilities of digital infrastructure. After all, Mr Bezos started out as a bookseller - now he knows what we want to watch before we do.

But local authorities need to keep licence applicants in mind too. It is important that a landlord, whether they own one property or a portfolio of properties, doesn’t experience an online, digital process as a barrier. In Home Safe’s experience there will be, for example, applicants who, out of habit or out of principle, don’t use a smart phone or who may not use a laptop but do everything via smartphone.

Both of these types of individual need to be catered for at the front end of the process. If possible, by a mixture of drop in sessions, advice and on-line training in advance of the go live date of the scheme. But even tech savvy landlords aren’t averse to being shown how an online application process can make things easier for them both in time and effort. This in turn will make things easier for the local authority officers managing the scheme.

Ealing Council are already aware of this issue - they have put on a series of online training sessions, using Microsoft Teams, for PRS landlords on how to make an application for a selective licence under their recently commenced licensing scheme. This is because, in Ealing’s words, they have provided “a modern, digital on-line application system specifically designed for property licensing that landlords and agents applying to licence properties must use”. They now have a video on their selective licence page on how to make a licence application.

Looking down from the helicopter this only seems natural - we are, afterall, now in the third decade of the 21st century and, moving to digital by default has been a policy for a decade or more. But an online process, like a battle plan, does need to be able to survive contact with reality and so landlords do need awareness raising support. That way, the local authority will get the best out of the data supplied whether it uses an in-house IT platform or works with a partner provider.

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