The Competence & Conduct Standard cometh

Following consultation which closed 18 months ago, the Government has now issued a direction to the Regulator of Social Housing to set a new Standard for registered providers of social housing (RPs) relating to the conduct and competence of staff involved in providing services connected with the management of social housing (SHM Staff). This Standard will set requirements for RPs both in relation to their own staff and also the staff of any other organisation providing such services to the RP (e.g. managing agents).   

These requirements have been trailed for a long time and the new Standard will come into force in October 2026, with initial transitional periods for the much-anticipated qualification requirements.

The decision to introduce this new Standard is said to stem directly from evidence heard as part of the Grenfell Tower Inquiry and the Social Housing Green Paper consultation, and from learnings from the death of Awwab Ishak. The Government is confident that this action will address identified gaps in skills, knowledge, experience and behaviour which are a barrier to the social housing workforce delivering a consistently high standard of housing management services. In turn, the Government’s aim is that tenants’ general wellbeing and health and safety will improve, and stigma connected to social housing will be eradicated.

The Government’s direction as to what should be included in the new Standard is quite prescriptive so we already know that the new Standard will require:-

• RPs to comply with MCHLG’s Policy Statement on Qualification Requirements for Social Housing (more on which below).
• Every RP to introduce a policy setting out its approach to managing and developing its own SHM Staff, and the steps it will take to ensure that any service provider’s SHM Staff are competent and behave in a manner necessary to ensure that good quality services are provided on behalf of the RP. Tenants should be given meaningful opportunities to influence and scrutinise the development of the policy, which must be kept up to date, remain fit for purpose, and be accessible to tenants.
• A code of conduct for each RP’s SHM Staff which is embedded within the RP’s organisation, kept up to date and accessible to tenants. Tenants must also be given meaningful opportunities to influence and scrutinise decisions relating to the adoption/development of the code.

The Policy Statement on Qualification Requirements for Social Housing will require RPs to take additional steps in relation to a sub-set of SHM Staff – ‘senior housing managers’ and ‘senior housing executives’. These additional steps relate to the qualifications that such staff must have or be working towards.  As a result of consultation feedback, the Government has made further attempts to help RPs understand which staff will be subject to these qualification requirements.  The guidance provided is to be interpreted by RPs in accordance with their own organisational structures and individual role profiles.

Also as a result of consultation feedback, the transition period timetable for senior housing managers and senior housing executives with a substantive role in managing delivery of housing management services to tenants (and spending the “majority of their working time” doing so) to be working towards the necessary qualifications (level 4 for senior housing managers and level 5 for senior housing executives) has been extended.  Existing staff in such roles who do not already have the requisite level of qualification now need to be working towards such qualifications by October 2029 (October 2030 for small providers), and those starting in such roles after October 2026 will need to be enrolled within 12 months of starting in the role. The requirement that 50% of relevant staff should have or be working towards their necessary qualification by the 12-month anniversary of the qualification requirement coming into effect has been dropped entirely.

Attempts to persuade the Government to recognise existing learning or experience have been redirected to qualification providers to reflect on, but some concerns expressed about what should be needed in respect of staff with partially relevant qualifications and those on apprenticeships have been heeded.

The impact assessment published alongside the direction to the Regulator places an estimate of 30,000 staff who will need to be working towards, or gain, a qualification within the next 10 years.

We’ll be providing more detailed analysis about what this means from an employment/HR perspective, a governance perspective, for Management Agreements and for other impacted areas over the coming months so please do look out for further briefings and subscribe to Devonshires Insights so that these land into your inbox.