Pride in Place at Party Conferences

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Earlier this month the Northern Housing Consortium and partners were in Manchester and Liverpool, hosting breakfast roundtables previewing the findings of Pride in Place to political stakeholders. As Rishi Sunak unveiled his ‘Long Term Plan for Towns’, with an emphasis on community-led vision and collaborative working, and Keir Starmer announced a new generation of New Towns, built around prosperity, parks, and public services, the sessions proved timely for both political parties in outlining what northern residents look for in a great place to live.

Each session began with an overview of findings provided by Thinks Insight & Strategy, the research agency established by Deborah Mattinson, the Leader of the Opposition’s Director of Strategy. Although already rich in insights, a testament to the social and private rented sector residents who contributed, this was only a preview, with the full report being published on 9th November at the Northern Housing Summit. Drawn from workshops held across the North, in Blackpool, Benwell, Skipton, Moss Side, and Knowsley, attendees discussed what residents had to say about Levelling Up, what contributes to local pride, and the role of both individuals and in agencies in building pride across areas.

Key themes included access to basic services, transparency and engagement, and the local environment. In Manchester at Conservative Party Conference, attendees including Local Trust, Centre for Cities, and the University of Manchester discussed the importance of social capital; centring around comfort and community, this was the way residents felt at ease in their neighbourhood, and the pride they feel in the connection they have with neighbourhoods and near-by friends. During Labour Party Conference, attendees in Liverpool, which included representatives from across local politics, honed in on the importance of green spaces for health, wellbeing, and sociability. Although universally popular, many neighbourhoods were unsure their green spaces were reaching their full potential, and more could be done to scope out community involvement in reaching that potential.

The Party Conferences were the last stop on the road to publishing Pride in Place at the Northern Housing Summit on the 9th November. There attendees will be joined by Thinks Insight and Strategy, partners involved in the work, and participant residents sharing their views. We look forward to seeing you there.

Updates on the Pride in Place project can be found on the Northern Housing Consortium’s dedicated Rebalancing Webpage:

Rebalancing

RSH Consumer Standards Consultation – our response

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Thanks to everyone who has been involved in our response to the recent consultation on Consumer Standards from Regulator for Social Housing (RSH). We hope that you found our webinar, meetings and opportunities to meet the regulator useful in shaping your response. Your contributions helped very much to shape ours.

Our response to the consultation can be found here.

We will also be responding to the current consultation on fees and expect further consultation documents related to the Social Housing (Regulation) Act to be issued shortly. If you have any comments around the fees consultation, please email nigel.johnston@northern-consortium.org.uk.

We are pleased to have been invited to join the newly-formed RSH Advisory Panel (the only non-national organisation to be involved), and will continue to represent the views of members in our discussions with the RSH.

Test and learn phase begins for Heartwarming Homes toolkit

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Eighteen social housing providers are testing a communications toolkit which will support them to engage with residents about having Net Zero work completed in their homes.

The Heartwarming Homes toolkit will help providers change the way they engage and communicate with residents about energy efficiency improvements.  It will be a useful guide for both communications and sustainability and asset management teams.

The toolkit uses behaviour change principles and includes research and practical advice about how to make energy efficiency an easy choice for residents.

There is advice  about which channels to use to engage with residents successfully. Face-to-face communication and resident ambassadors have both been identified as key to building trust, as well as educating colleagues so everyone a resident has contact with is on-message.

There is a step-by-step communication process for energy efficiency projects, and a range of resources you can download and share with residents including  FAQs, sample letters and case study videos. The ‘using the right language’ section will help you communicate in a clear and accessible way.

There is also a section which looks at how you can communicate with the wider customer group about energy efficiency, including those who are not yet due to have work done on their home.

Kathy Thomas, the project’s Communications Project Manager (Net Zero) said:

“One of the biggest takeaways for me from our tenant advisory group and communications advisory group has been the need to create trust between tenants and landlords. Both groups have played a big part in making sure what we produce is relevant to tenants and the housing sector.

“Social landlords are leading the way with making the UK’s homes greener – and they’re facing similar challenges. Heartwarming Homes is about offering a better resident experience and helping your sustainability programme run smoothly. To make this happen, communication and engagement need to be an integral part of net zero project plans.”

Heartwarming Homes has been developed in partnership with Northern Housing Consortium, Placeshapers and Tpas. It takes forward recommendations from the Social Housing Tenants’ Climate Jury and Residents’ Voices in the Net Zero journey.

 

Heartwarming Homes is about the sector working together – it’s time to collaborate not duplicate. Get in touch if you’d like to find out more or share your learning.

Thousands of Homes Face Safety Challenges

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Over 800,000 Northern homes have serious hazards at a cost of £3.15 billion to put right.

On average one in ten (9.9 %) of the occupied homes in England have a Category 1 Hazard.

Research for the new Northern Housing Monitor, a ‘state of the region’ report for housing in the North, finds that, over 823,000 Northern homes are modelled as having a Category 1 Hazard.

In the North West, almost one in every seven homes has a hazard, one in nine in Yorkshire & the Humber and over one in ten in the North East.

Private renting is consistently the tenure most likely to be modelled for a hazard:

  • Between one in five and one in six privately rented homes have a Category 1 Hazard
  • Social housing has the overall best quality tenure at around a third better than the all-tenure average. Owner occupied homes are also much less likely to have a serious problem than in the private rented sector.

The most common Category 1 hazards found in homes are excess cold, damp and mould growth, fire, falls on stairs, and electrical hazards.

The government and the local authorities have been taking measures to improve the quality and safety of housing and to reduce the number of Category 1 hazards in homes.

 

What would it cost to put this right and what would the wider benefits be?

  • Using estimates of the cost to resolve Category 1 hazards published by the independent BRE Trust in July 2023  pro rata, the costs would be about £3.15 billion in the North.
  • Whilst a huge bill, which would take about nine years before it was paid back, this investment would be good business for the tax-payer. These faults cost the NHS £350 million pro rata a year in the North. Nationally, the wider benefits reach about £130 billion over 30 years (ten times the NHS benefits) and would include reducing CO2 emissions by 97 million tonnes.
  • Pro rata these benefits for the North would be in the region of £44 billion and 34 million tonnes of emissions reduced.

 

Hotspots are largely rural

          Rural areas in the North of England have proportions of the most dangerous hazards across all dwellings that are approximately double the England average.

  • Seven of the top ten most challenged local authority areas in England are located in these rural areas.

 

Terraces dominate the house types with hazards in the North

 Of the 823,000 homes in the North with hazards, by far the largest type are terraces with a 40.8% share, followed by semi-detached homes. Flats were a distant third at 16.3%.

  • Hazards appear to broadly follow a pattern of income distribution assumed by bungalows and detached homes occupying more land (and thereby costing more) with terraces and flats being the least expensive units to occupy on the whole.
  • Terraces are substantially more likely to be assessed as hazardous in the North, with North West terraces being proportionately over half more likely to have a hazard compared with the English average.
  • The North East does not follow the England distribution, with its flats being more than twice as likely to be modelled with a hazard than flats overall in England. Conversely, the very low value for terraces in the region probably reflects the post-war replacement of obsolete or destroyed terraces within public stock.

The research above is extracted from the new edition of the Northern Housing Monitor for 2023 – the full document will be launched in autumn 2023 – keep a look out in Member News for launch dates.

NOTES

WHAT ARE HAZARDS IN THE HOME?

The housing health and safety rating system (HHSRS) is a risk-based evaluation tool to help local authorities identify and protect against potential risks and hazards to health and safety from any deficiencies identified in dwellings.  It was introduced under the Housing Act 2004.

There are 29 categories of housing hazard with a category 1 hazard the most serious hazard which could pose the most serious risk of harm. Some examples of category 1 hazards are excess cold, damp and mould growth, falls on stairs and other trip hazards.

A review of the HHSRS was commissioned by DLUHC to clarify and modernise the HHSRS assessment and consider whether some hazard profiles could be removed or combined and to improve the guidance given to landlords and tenants. The review is nearing completion and the Government will publish a summary of the findings and set out next steps.

DATA MODELLING

This data is extracted from the English Housing Survey local authority level stock modelling undertaken by BRE Group’s Local Government Data & Insights team, on behalf of DLUHC.

English Housing Survey Local Authority Stock Condition Modelling of HHSRS Category 1 Hazards has modelled the most recent pre-Covid data down to local authority level. Known characteristics associated with unsafe dwellings have been used to estimate the number of homes in an area that would likely fail a HHSRS assessment in the North. This is experimental data released in June 2023.

TABLES

 

Cells are shaded horizontally, red being the highest.

Table 3: Number and proportion of homes modelled to have Category 1 Hazards

Cells are shaded horizontally, red being the highest

MAPS

Note: Tenure maps are shaded to the same scale. This means that where the top or bottom of a range does not appear on a map the relevant shades are omitted from the map key.

Map 1 The proportion of private rented homes modelled with Category 1 Hazards

 

Map 2 The proportion of social rented homes modelled with Category 1 Hazards

 

Map 3 The proportion of owner occupied homes modelled with Category 1 Hazards

 

NHC Unlocking Success Bursary Scheme awards 13 tenants with £500 bursary

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The Unlocking Success Bursary Scheme, funded through the Northern Housing Consortium Charitable Trust, awards bursaries of £500 to help tenants develop learning and skills to support future employment. Since its launch in 2019, we have awarded 88 bursaries to successful applicants to help them with various forms of learning and development including IT courses, books for A-Levels, a British Sign Language course and travel costs for getting to college.

The 2023 edition of the scheme launched in April and we had 33 brilliant applicants from 14 of our members. Of these 33 applications, 13 were successful and were awarded £500 to help support their future employment. The bursaries will go towards a range of different training and skills development, including towards the training costs and purchasing a laptop to complete online training in helping young people and young offenders in the community. Another successful applicant will use the bursary to fund a First Response Emergency Care Level 3 course, with an expectation of eventually joining the Ambulance Service.

 

The successful applicants will use the bursary for a variety of forms of education, such as HGV driver training and training in food safety and hygiene to work in a school kitchen. One bursary winner will use the grant for a laptop to help support their whole family with English courses, along with starting a Level 1 Plumbing course.

 

Simone, a tenant who was awarded the £500 bursary for a First Response Emergency Care (FREC) course said:

“Thank you so much! For all the support with helping me apply for this bursary, as well as the FREC which has given me such a good start to my new path !!!

I have applied for the C1 on my license now, and I can’t wait to start my driver training, which wouldn’t have been possible any time soon without this bursary! I am so happy and grateful to have people supporting and believing in me, and to be chosen for it…

I am definitely on the right path now and come September I will either be working and training with North West Ambulance Service as an EMT or training to be a paramedic at Warrington Vale!!”

 

Another tenant awarded the £500 bursary was Peter, who is putting the money towards a Security Industry Authority (SIA) license, Peter said:

“I would like to start off by saying thank you so much for accepting my application and for being successful this had made a huge impact on my mental health already as I know that once the payment comes through for the training things will start improving for me in terms of financial stability, more work, better mental health and I can eventually start reducing my rent arrears.

More work and being full time also means I will be able to earn a wage and not rely on universal credits and the uncertainty of shifts I was able to claim without my SIA license. I would have never of been able to save up for this training myself and everything alongside it i.e. travel expenses etc.”

 

To read more of the success stories from past successful bursary applications, see here.

Congratulations to this year’s 13 successful applicants! Look out for updates on the next round of the bursary in 2024, further information on the scheme is available on our website.

 

Pride in Place Project Concludes with Co-Creation Workshop

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Over the last few months the Northern Housing Consortium and our members Blackpool Coastal Homes, Karbon Homes, Livv Housing Group, MSV Housing Group, and Yorkshire Housing have been working with Thinks Insight and Strategy, the leading research agency founded by Deborah Mattinson, currently the Labour Party’s Director of Strategy, on Pride in Place: Housing at the Heart of a Rebalanced Country.

Making the most of the sense of community and belonging prevalent across the North, as well as empowering residents themselves, will play a key role in supporting all areas of the country to thrive. As part of the NHC’s work, we’re committed to underlining the importance of our members to any national agenda looking to reduce local and regional inequalities. Pride in Place is central to that work, and has brought together residents from both the social and private rented sectors together to understand what pride means to them, what makes a place enjoyable to live in, and the role we all need to play whether the community directly, NHC members, or national government.

The fieldwork for the project concluded last Wednesday at a Co-Creation Workshop hosted by Yorkshire Housing. Ten residents were joined by stakeholders representing organisations with a part to play in making great places including the Department for Levelling Up, Housing, and Communities. Each were tasked with working together to identify and co-create potential solutions and initiatives that could improve pride in an area. Through the workshop, we wanted to learn what residents prioritised for areas like theirs across the North and how we could all contribute.

Findings from this workshop will inform the development of recommendations, both to the sector in how we engage communities on our placemaking work, but also to Government, showcasing the full breadth of how NHC members contribute to regeneration in the broadest sense, tackling inequalities, and overall, improving community belonging. You’ll soon be seeing the NHC at Party Conferences in the Autumn and November’s Northern Housing Summit will see the launch of our final report.

Sector consultation summer round up

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The sector’s views are currently being sought on a number of key areas through consultations and calls for evidence running over the summer and into the autumn.

The NHC plans to respond to several of these on:

  1. Consultation on new draft consumer standards by the Regulator of Social Housing.
    • The NHC is also running two events for members specifically on this consultation:
      • A ‘Meet the Regulator’ session on 20th September where Angela Holden, Assistant Director of Consumer Regulation at the RSH will discuss the consultation and new consumer standards, with time for a Q&A.
      • Our Regulation network on 25th September will provide an opportunity to discuss the draft standards and consultation facilitated by NHC Head of Business Improvement, Nigel Johnson.
  2. Public Bodies Review of Homes England by the Department of Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC).
  3. Inquiry into Shared Ownership and its associated challenges and barriers as a route to home ownership by the Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (LUHC) Committee.
  4. Inquiry into Heating our Homes, focusing on the challenges associated with decarbonising housing stock by the Energy Security and Net Zero Committee.

 

If members would like to share their thoughts with us on any of the above consultations, or if you are submitting a response to any of these directly and are happy to share it with us, please contact: tom.kennedy@northern-consortium.org.uk (for the Consumer Standards Consultation please copy in: karen.brown@northern-consortium.org.uk)

 

The wider list of sector-related consultations and inquiries currently accepting submissions are below:

Name Consulting body Contents and objectives Submission deadline
Consultation on the consumer standards Regulator of Social Housing (RSH) To collect views from across the sector on newly published draft consumer standards, which set out specific expectations and outcomes that all registered providers of social housing are expected to achieve.

The draft Standards are:

·       The Safety and Quality Standard – covering health and safety compliance, stock quality, compliance with the Decent Homes Standard, providing an effective repairs and maintenance service, a providers’ adaptations service and other related areas.

·       The Transparency, Influence and Accountability Standard – covering tenant engagement, complaints handling, the collection and publication of performance data, demonstrating fairness and respect in how providers treat tenants, meeting diverse needs and other related areas.

·       The Neighbourhood and Community Standard – covering the management of shared spaces, cooperation between providers and other local stakeholders e.g. police, how providers manage reported cases of anti-social behaviour in communities and cases of domestic abuse.

·       The Tenancy Standard – covering allocations and lettings, tenancy sustainment, evictions, tenure and mutual exchange.

It is expected that the final standards will enter force, and providers’ performance against them will be assessed by the RSH, from 01 April 2024.

 6pm – 17th October 2023
Homes England Public Bodies Review Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) To collect views from organisations and individuals with experience working with Homes England and how the agency could perform better, including how it works alongside local tiers of government.

The Review aims to specifically assess whether Homes England is performing in areas of:

·       Efficacy – their ability to deliver an effective service which meets the needs of citizens.

·       Efficiency – their ability to deliver a service in the best way with good use of resources

·       Governance – having in place systems and processes to ensure the organisation is managed responsibly.

·       Accountability – their ability to be open and transparent in decision making and service delivery.

 11:59pm – 14th September 2023
Heating our Homes Energy Security and Net Zero Commons Select Committee To examine issues around the ability of households to heat their homes, with a focus on:

·       Establishing minimum energy efficiency standards (MEES) across housing tenures

·       Property insulation and retrofit

·       Heat pumps and other technologies for heating homes as an alternative to gas boilers

·       Workforce and skills requirements for a largescale retrofit programme

·       Affordability issues related to the switch to decarbonised heating

 25th August 2023
Shared Ownership Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Commons Select Committee To examine the challenges associated with shared ownership schemes including barriers to achieving full home ownership, affordability issues such as service charges, maintenance responsibilities and mortgage availability.

Also, to assess whether Shared Ownership offers a genuinely affordable route to home ownership and value for money, or if alternatives such as ‘Rent to Buy’ could offer a better alternative.

 14th September 2023
Disabled people in the housing sector Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Commons Select Committee To assess whether residents with disabilities in England have access to accessible and adaptable housing, whether the planning system currently considers this effectively, the effectiveness of the Disabled Facilities Grant and what more could be done by government to support disabled residents in all housing tenures. 14th September 2023
Developer Contributions APPG for Housing Planning and Royal Town Planning Institute To examine issues around the current system of developer contributions, including Section 106 and the Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL).

In addition, the inquiry hopes to ascertain how the sector views the proposed Infrastructure Levy and how developer contributions could be improved in the future.

 5pm – 5th September 2023

 

 

Residents Across the North Come Together to Talk Pride in Place

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From Benwell to Blackpool, Moss Side to Skipton, and Prescot in between, the last few weeks has seen the Northern Housing Consortium’s Member Engagement and Policy teams on a true northern tour. We’ve been joining our members Blackpool Coastal Housing, Karbon Homes, Livv Housing Group, MSV Housing Group, and Yorkshire Housing as part of Pride in Place, our research project placing residents at the heart of the discussion on what a rebalanced country should look like at the local level. Partnering with leading global insight and strategy consultancy Thinks, we’ve brought together around 50 residents, including social and private sector tenants, across five locations to hear what ‘pride in place’ means to them, and how we can all work together to make a positive impact in neighbourhoods across the North.

The work continues against a backdrop of current and prospective Governments fleshing out their approach to the intertwining issues of civic identity, inequality, and the social fabric. The Government’s Levelling Up agenda has in many instances been built around the idea that “the most powerful barometer of economic success” is the “positive change” people see and “the pride they feel in the places they call home”. The Secretary of State’s latest intervention on housing underlines the role of both people and place; democratic decision-making and working in partnership to enhance local character. Similarly, the Shadow Levelling Up Secretary Lisa Nandy has been at work advancing Labour’s plan for regional rebalancing, rooted in the local and built around the core themes of economic resilience, labour market connectivity, environmental sustainability, and communal as well as personal wellbeing.

But notions like pride and belonging are loose terms that can mean many things to different people. The NHC’s recent Rebalancing Webinar Series displayed the full role NHC members play as vital anchor institutions cutting across, for example, physical improvements to the built and natural environment, skills and training support, and community initiatives that empower local residents. With many acknowledging the difficulties in defining, measuring, and evaluating local pride. The NHC initiated Pride in Place as part of our work, alongside our members and their residents, to highlight to all political parties the contribution of our members to making great places.

Devised by Thinks with guidance from the NHC and partner members, workshops were designed to learn more about how people in different neighbourhoods across the North felt about their areas and their views on what makes an area worth living in; what participants prioritised in their lives and the role of different groups in delivering on those priorities whether NHC members, the third sector, Government, and residents themselves. In a final task, participants worked together on a series of ‘desired outcomes’. If they oversaw a hypothetical centralised and fragmented funding pot, where would it be spent? Who would need to be involved? And what could the community take charge of right now if they were empowered to do so? This wasn’t necessarily about identifying individual projects, but thinking broadly about the future people would hope to see for areas like theirs across the North.

We’re incredibly excited to share more, but this is only the end of Stage 1. We’ll be soon joined again by participants from each Workshop location to share common themes and learning as well as work collaboratively with invited stakeholders to develop key pillars of pride. Findings from both these sessions will inform the development of recommendations to the sector in how we engage communities on our placemaking work, but also to Government, showcasing the full breadth of how NHC members contribute to regeneration in the broadest sense, tackling inequalities, and overall, improving community belonging. You’ll soon be seeing the NHC at Party Conferences in the Autumn and November’s Northern Housing Summit will see the launch of our final report.

Pride in Place forms part of the Northern Housing Consortium’s work to ensure housing sits at the heart of a rebalanced country. Further updates can be found on the NHC’s dedicated Rebalancing Webpage. If you have any further questions please contact Liam Gregson, Member Engagement Manager – liam.gregson@northern-consortium.org.uk

Renters (Reform) Bill: What does it mean for social housing providers?

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Blog by NHC supporter member, Ward Hadaway.

The Renters (Reform) Bill (currently at its second reading in Parliament) will be one of the biggest reforms of the English rental market we have seen in recent years.

The Bill itself is split into 5 distinct parts – parts 1 (assured tenancies) and 4 (supported and temporary accommodation) are most relevant to social housing providers.

Key provisions

  1. Abolition of Section 21 ‘no fault’ evictions

The government’s view is that “no-fault” evictions make it challenging for tenants to put down roots, reducing investment into local areas and impacting upon on homeless figures. In response to that, S.21 and the ability to end an assured shorthold tenancy on giving 2 months’ notice will be abolished.

It means landlords will need to rely upon other grounds for possession (including new grounds) as to which see below.

  1. Assured tenancies

Pursuant to the Bill,  all tenancies will be fully assured, periodic tenancies. Rental periods cannot be greater than 1 month.

It also means that social housing providers will no longer be able to grant “starter” tenancies as a trial before allowing tenants to convert to fully assured tenancies.

Tenants will still be able to end their assured tenancy by giving notice to quit at any time – but that notice period will be extended to at least 2 months, expiring at the end of a rental period.

Existing shorthold tenancies will convert to periodic tenancies by a specified long stop date.

But – a tenancy granted for a term of more than 7 years cannot be an assured tenancy. Currently, there is no upper limit. It means that, for example, shared ownership leases will no longer be a hybrid between a long lease and an assured tenancy – and therefore the current grounds for possession under Schedule 2 of the Housing Act 1988 will cease to have effect and shared ownership leases can only be terminated by forfeiture, bringing them into line with leasehold tenure generally.

  1. Strengthening of grounds for possession:

The government says “responsible” landlords will still be able to recover possession of their properties where tenants are at fault, through the Bill’s strengthened eviction powers and possession grounds.

New, or amended, possession grounds relevant to social housing providers include:

  • Where certain landlords, including providers of social housing, hold a leasehold interest in its property and that lease will come to an end within 12 months of the date of a S.8 Notice Seeking Possession (new mandatory ground 2ZA)
  • The notice period for ground 7A will be reduced so that landlords can issue proceedings immediately upon service of the notice;
  • The notice period for ground 8 will increase to 4 weeks;
  • Where a tenant has been in at least 2 months’ rent arrears at least 3 times in the last 3 years (new mandatory ground 8A);
  • Ground 14 is amended to include conduct “capable of causing” nuisance or annoyance rather than “likely to cause” bringing it in line with the definition of ASB in the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014;
  • The tenancy is used for supported accommodation and the tenant has unreasonably refused to co-operate with the support provider (new discretionary ground 18)
  1. Rent Review

The Bill will abolish contractual rent review clauses – instead, rent reviews for assured tenancies will be effected by:

  • Notice under S.13 of the Housing Act 1988;
  • FTT determination of an open marked rent under S.14; or
  • Written agreement between the landlord and tenant following a FTT determination.

The period of notice for a rent increase will increase to 2 months and no increase shall take effect within the first 52 weeks of the tenancy.

Many housing providers will have standard provisions in their tenancy agreements that relate to a contractual right to review the rent, and that reviews will take place on fixed dates (e.g. 1 April) each year. These provisions of the Bill will void those clauses.

  1. Redress system, supported and temporary accommodation

The Bill provides for the creation of a landlord redress system, a new Ombudsman and a landlord database. The aim is to provide tenants in the PRS with greater protection and the ability to have their landlords’ actions independently assessed.

Social housing providers are expressly excluded from the redress provisions.

However – within a year of clause 63 of the Bill coming into force, the government must set out its policy in relation to supported and temporary (homelessness) accommodation, including the standards of safety and quality  that should apply to that accommodation and how that should be enforced.

What does this mean?

For now we must wait and see how the Bill progresses through Parliament and await any potential amendments – it would be a surprise if there were no changes to the Bill, but the underlying objectives are likely to remain.

If the Bill is enacted, all new tenancies will be governed by its rules from its commencement. Existing tenancies will be governed by the new rules after the expiry of a long stop date – except where fixed term ASTs expire before that long stop date, in which case the new rules will apply from the expiry of that fixed term.

Until the Bill is enacted, there is currently no need to housing providers to do anything differently as to the creation and management of their tenancies. But at a strategic level, providers should be giving thought as to the operational effect of having no tenancies with fixed terms and limitations upon rent review – and what this may mean for property turnover and financial planning.