Housing Compliance in Temporary Accommodation - What is it and why is it important?

What does compliance in housing mean? 

Housing compliance can often be mistaken for just being about fire safety. In reality, it is a lot more than that. Compliant housing covers all housing governance and legislation from The Housing Act 1996 and The Homelessness Reduction Act 2017 to ensure standards regarding construction, maintenance, and health and safety are followed to keep all tenants safe.  

To enable compliant housing,  often local authorities will hire compliance teams to cover all areas that are governed by legislation. Here staff will carry out tests, assessments, and services in accommodations to ensure that all assessments happen regularly and that all safety certificates are constantly up to date.  

Housing that is not compliant with regulations, however, can lead to legal issues, penalties, and reputational damage for landlords, property owners, and managers.  

Housing compliance in temporary and social housing – what’s the difference? 

Similarly, the main context of housing compliance in temporary and social housing is the same as housing compliance in general. Both types of housing compliance are essential to protect the rights and wellbeing of tenants. With housing being one of the main wider social determinants of health, the quality and safety of homes must be maintained.  

Housing compliance in temporary accommodation, however, also refers to ensuring that short-term housing options meet all the health and safety regulations for tenants during their stay regardless of how long it is. For social housing compliance, it involves meeting standards that have been set by both government agencies and local authorities. This could include income qualifications for tenants, rent control, and ensuring housing remains affordable and accessible to those in need.  

Failure to follow housing compliance in temporary and social housing again can cause legal issues and penalties but also further issues for the tenants themselves as it can lead to loss of funding in different temporary and social housing programs making it even harder to help individuals and families get back on their feet.  

Emerging risks in social housing and temporary housing

The Regulator of Social Housing has set out a view of key risks and challenges housing providers are facing within social housing. Now we are also seeing these challenges occur more frequently in temporary housing as demand increases, budgets are limited, and local authorities struggle to reach demand, ensure compliance, and meet the needs of individuals and families.

The list below demonstrates some of the key emerging risks that are occurring across both social housing and temporary housing:

• High inflation 
• High borrowing costs to fund housing support
• Declining house market increasing pressure on both social and temporary housing 
• Lack permanence 
• Difficulties in providing accessibility to essential amenities and services including healthcare
• Overcrowding
• Substandard housing quality 
• Increased poor health and wellbeing 
• Increased social exclusion 
• Higher risks of living in unsafe environments 
• Increased stigma 
• Inconsistent support 
• Continuous cycles of homelessness

Why is compliant housing important? 

Housing compliance is important for several reasons for the tenants themselves, as well as their landlords, housing managers, and the wider community.  

Ultimately the biggest reason why housing compliance is important is it promotes wellbeing and helps tenants maintain good health. A safe house that is compliant and away from potential hazards, dangers, and overcrowding can help improve quality of life. For tenants living in social or temporary housing, living in fully compliant housing also provides them with confidence that they are safe and help them get back on their feet to prevent homelessness in the future.  

When individuals live in unsafe, unsuitable, or incompliant housing, this can widen health inequalities and disparities within a community and increase the risk of health problems including chronic diseases. The quality of housing can directly impact a person’s health and the presence of possible irritants such as mould, damp, asbestos, and lead can lead to preventable respiratory and nervous system conditions.  

In fact, over the last two years, Watchdog has received over 400 complaints related to damp and mould, and 142 landlords were investigated, with the top 10 landlords paying over £57,000 in compensation. 

Housing compliance is important therefore as helps to ensure tenants and safe as well as living in happy and healthy environments where housing conditions are not limiting their health and wellbeing.  This, in turn, provides a higher quality of life for residents due to fewer maintenance issues, better living conditions, and overall improved comfort. More compliant temporary and social housing can also help provide better preventative measures through adopting social prescribing in the housing sector and helping residents learn and access the tools needed to manage their health, wellbeing, and housing issues more effectively.  

There are also additional reasons why housing compliance is important including: 

• To improve accessibility  
• To improve environmental impacts 
• To avoid legal and financial implications  

Compliant housing not only benefits the residents themselves, but also housing associations, landlords, and local authorities. Through being compliant, landlords can avoid legal and financial implications, maintain a decent property value, and have peace of mind knowing that their homes meet the necessary legislation so they will not be at risk of any legal obligations. 

For housing associations, housing compliance helps to maintain the positive reputation that they can provide reliable, safe, and affordable housing. This in turn, reduces complaints and disputes as well as the risk of losing funding from the government due to delivering fully compliant housing to meet every need, prevent homelessness, and help individuals and families get back on their feet, so they never have to seek social or temporary housing again.  

As discussed above health and housing are connected. Having housing compliance for local authorities means the overall wellbeing of a community can improve due to all residents being able to live in safe and healthy environments. This, in turn, reduces the risk of health issues and the spread of diseases, reducing the demand for NHS services for housing-related issues.  

Housing compliance therefore is essential to ensure that housing is not only affordable and of high quality but readily available, to reduce health risks, keep tenants safe, and most importantly provide housing associations and local authorities with the tools and services to help prevent homelessness and improve their community’s overall wellbeing.  

Housing Market Risks – What are they?  

For the housing market in general there are several risks which are important to be aware of including price volatility, interest rates changing, housing shortages, and mortgage rates. There are also more specific risks for both social and temporary housing which local authorities have to be aware of.  

Arguably there are three main housing risks affecting people and their local authorities: 

1. Affordability  
2. Availability  
3. Quality  

Currently, more and more people are living in poverty including both fuel and food poverty. The cost-of-living crisis has exacerbated these issues further leaving many to struggle to pay their bills and housing costs. This in turn has increased the number of families becoming homeless and needing to seek temporary or social housing.  

The lack of affordable and available housing for these individuals has led to increased homelessness, people trapped in temporary accommodation, as well as paying ridiculously expensive rent for accommodation that is poor quality.  

Over the last year alone over 1.1 million people were added to social housing waiting lists. This has increased the risk of overcrowding ultimately leading to increased health and safety risks.  

The increasing demand and limited supply of appropriate housing often leads many local authorities having work with incompliant providers. With the demand so high it can be difficult for local authorities to check the compliance of every provider fully. Admin processes can take long periods and it can be difficult to manage cases and find accommodation that suits every need in the appropriate amount of time. The increased pressure, and often local authorities relying on paper or manual processes, can lead to increased risks of documents getting lost and providers not being checked properly.  

Councils can then suffer reputational damage and large financial implications for leaving tenants in unsuitable housing whilst trying to find alternatives.  

Other housing market risks associated with both temporary and social housing include: 

• Funding and budget constraints  
• Tenant vulnerability  
• Demand imbalance  
• Lack of tenant protection  

One of the biggest risks many councils are facing is being able to find more permanent accommodation this leads to individuals and families being left stuck in temporary accommodation for long periods. A report published by Crisis and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation stated that 70% of councils are struggling to find more permanent housing.  

Paul Hackett, Director of the Smith Institute and Founder of the Affordable Housing Commission stated that: 

“My main concern is the families, too many families are coming through the system…You go to the council for help and you get offered temporary accommodation, you don’t want temporary you want permanent accommodation, but there isn’t any.”  

Hazard and risk examples in housing

Across temporary accommodation there are many hazards and risks local authorities need to be aware of to ensure they are placing individuals in fully compliant, safe, and high quality temporary so individuals and families can live happier and healthier lives as they get back on their feet. 

The table below demonstrates some of the hazards local authorities must be aware of and the risks these hazards can give. 

Housing Risk Management – How to improve housing compliance? 

To improve the housing risk management in social and temporary housing the government has introduced several methods over the years.  

Most recently the government updated their housing sector risk profile. The housing sector risk profile 2022 sets out the main risks facing the social housing sector and the actions needed to take place to manage these risks.  

The sector risk profile explains strategic risks including macroeconomic and financial environmental risks,  being able to deliver against expectations,  and diversity to name a few, as well as acknowledging operational risks including being able to deliver good quality housing to tenants, following compliance, and ensuring health and safety. The profile also addresses issues regarding rent to ensure social housing providers do not overcharge tenants. 

In general, however, to improve compliance in both social and temporary housing and ensure the risk sector profile is being implemented correctly a co-production approach is needed to conduct successful regulatory updates and inspections, and provide the appropriate support services when needed.  

If local authorities collaborate with housing providers and community organisations to create and enforce compliance measures effectively, better preventative measures can be put in place to prevent homelessness again and avoid the vicious cycle of temporary housing.  

Finally, another method local authorities can introduce to overcome the shortage of temporary and social housing is through removing the stigma on why individuals need it. Currently, some housing providers and landlords can be reluctant to have their properties used for this type of accommodation. This is mainly due to the stereotypes on the type of individuals needing this accommodation thinking they are troublemakers and will destroy the home.  

In reality, more and more individuals from a variety of backgrounds are dealing with housing problems and are seeking support. Through launching campaigns to educate housing providers and landlords on these situations more compliant housing can be made available and individuals and families can get into safer housing sooner. Equally, both residents and providers can be educated on their rights and responsibilities so that if anything is not right it can be quickly reported and resolved.  

Housing Risk Assessments in Temporary Accommodation

As discussed it is vital that local authorities places individuals and families into appropriate and fully compliant temporary housing promptly to overcome the issues of the rise in homelessness. To do this local authorities must conduct risk assessments to ensure properties available meet their specific criteria as well as follow regulations. 

By conducting risk assessments in temporary housing effectively local authorities can ensure the safety and wellbeing of their residents. To do this local authorities must follow 5 key steps:

1. An initial inspection - Here this will be to check they are following regulations and guidance to ensure compliance 

2. Resident feedback - This steps allows local authorities to share the properties available that are fully compliant to identify which is the most appropriate

3. Risk Analysis - Once a property is decided further risk analysis must be conducted to identify ways local authorities and housing providers will work together to mitigate these risks.

4. Action Plan - At this point local authorities and housing providers will both have plans to ensure the safety and wellbeing of residents in their local area using temporary accommodation to know and understand what is their responsibility to prevent residents being put at risk.

5. Ongoing Monitoring - Finally, once the risk assessment is completed it will need to be agreed how often the risk assessment is reevaluated and updated when needed to ensure risks are still being prevented. 

The table below demonstrates some examples of how action plans can be developed to mitigate identified risks in temporary housing. 

Conducting both risk assessments, having incident logs, and ensuring compliance records are up-to-date are vital therefore to foster collaboration with local authorities and housing providers to better address the increasing challenges of temporary accommodation to create safer, healthier, and stable living environments. 

Temporary Accommodation Compliance – How can Access Adam Housing help? 

As discussed previously, one of the reasons why ensuring temporary accommodation is compliant can get so complicated for local authorities is that some heavily rely on paper and manual processes. This increases additional risks to what is already an intense process, due to increasing demand. One way this can be overcome is through digitally transforming processes to be able to manage all cases in one centralised place.  

Through digitally transforming your processes of selecting temporary accommodation, compliance can be completed automatically prior to the point of booking, using our housing contract management solution. We provide an end-to-end solution, supporting local authorities to meet all of the statutory requirements. Our software allows compliance checks to be completed automatically before the property is listed as available, saving your local authority time, especially when demand is high, and leaving you confident that no one will be placed into accommodation without the provider being fully assessed first.  

Once all housing providers are fully checked and analysed, our system creates a list of fully compliant providers, which can be filtered to meet every individual or family's needs, so that local authorities can be 100% confident they have placed an individual or family in the temporary accommodation they need. Through automating compliance, our housing management software also helps local authorities manage risks more effectively. Housing teams within a local authority no longer need to chase providers and landlords as the bidding process is also completed and managed within the system. Notifications are automatically sent out when any documentation is about to go out of date, so councils can see in real-time the providers available which are both in line with the individual needs and legislation.  

The WREN Housing group of London Boroughs finds our innovative housing solution highly beneficial, and since working with us in 2015 our system has automatically checked over 8,500 safety certificates across 2,300 different listings for them. What made it easier for WREN housing teams to provide the temporary accommodation needed was their use of our interactive maps. Our interactive maps provide live access to the properties available that match every need, for example, whether an accommodation is within walking distance to schools, shops, and other local amenities including launderettes.  

At Access Adam Housing we want to go one step further than typical housing management systems to ensure that housing providers are continually 100% compliant, compliance teams are 100% confident, and tenants feel 100% safe. Through presenting real-time information in our system, our customers can keep constantly updated when regulation changes happen, so no tenant is put at risk.  

Milton Keynes City Council, for example, has not only improved their housing compliance so that 99.5% of the houses they work with a fully compliant, they have also been able to create new strategies to prevent homelessness altogether due to us being able to build a bespoke solution to support their AST scheme. As a result, they have over 200 AST bookings to determine longer tenancies helping individuals break the homelessness cycle and be able to become independent and no longer need to depend on temporary accommodation.

We are working to reduce homelessness and ensure all housing providers have housing risk assessments that are detailed to support every service user’s needs. To find out more information on how technology can help improve housing compliance and prevent homelessness, download our housing guide today. 

Summarising the importance of housing compliance 

This article has reviewed all there is to know about housing compliance in general and within both social and temporary accommodation. I have explained why it is important to not only ensure health and safety are followed but also to promote wellbeing to introduce preventative measures such as social prescribing in housing to improve overall community health and wellbeing and get housing issues addressed and resolved quickly.  

By explaining the benefits of working with 100% compliant housing providers, this article has shown the risks of incompliance in social and temporary accommodation and detailed the strategies government has been introducing to improve housing risk management.   

I have explained that one of the best ways to speed up the process of placing individuals into temporary accommodation is through digitally transforming your processes. Not only does this speed up the process it also helps housing teams have better workloads, especially as the demand for housing keeps increasing.  

At Access Adam Housing we want to go one step further by ensuring our innovative housing management system automates compliance for you to ensure you only ever work with 100% compliant providers.  

For more information on our Access Adam Housing solution contact us today. Let’s get a plan into action on preventing homelessness both now and in the future to help the residents in your community get back on their feet to improve their quality of life and live in happier, healthier, and safer homes.