Agenda item

The Cabinet Member for Corporate Governance and Licensing presented the report which amended the Corporate Enforcement Policy specifically in respect of Appendix C - Private Sector Housing Approach to Investigation and Enforcement (Appendix 2 of the report) due to changes in legislation.

The changes proposed to the Corporate Enforcement Policy would enable the Private Sector Housing Team to carry out their functions as set out in legislation.  The updates within the document primarily related to the financial penalties matrix that was used to calculate penalties for breaches of the relevant legislation.  It had been necessary to revise the statutory guidance due to changes within the law.  The Renters Rights Act 2025 would come into force on 1 May 2026 and provided additional civil penalties that may be imposed by the local housing authority; in order to impose the penalties the  Council was required to have a policy or matrix in place setting out how the penalties would be calculated.  The Corporate Enforcement Policy therefore needed to be amended to take account of the new legislative requirements.  It was noted that future updates would be likely due to secondary legislation which would require the Policy to be amended again.  The Cabinet Member for Corporate Governance and Licensing thanked the Environmental Health Manager – Environment and Private Sector Housing, Tom Amblin-Lightowler for all his hard work in amending this section of the Corporate Enforcement Policy.

The Vice-Chairman asked if the changes made to the Policy were in respect of the new Renters Rights Act that was coming into effect on 1 May 2026. 

The Environmental Health Manager – Environment and Private Sector Housing stated that yes some of the new penalties and offences were due to the Renters Rights Act where civil penalties rather than prosecutions would be undertaken.  Some of the new offences were not in the existing matrix and there were some existing offences under the previous legislation that had carried over to the new legislation which now had maximum penalties changed.  Recently there had been draught legislation that had been put before Parliament in March that would come in to effect on 1 May 2026 which were existing penalties in breach of the Housing Act 2004 which have been aligned to £40,000 instead of £30,000.  The Policy had been changed to address the new penalties brought in, together with new offences and corresponding penalties. New guidance in respect of statutory guidance that the Council must follow gave a starting point for each offence as indicated by  Government.  This was in conflict with the Council’s previous policy which had no set starting point.  The Policy had been updated with existing penalties in line with the new guidance, existing penalties to the new penalty amounts and to bring the Policy in line with those new penalties.

The Chairman stated that in simple terms the Enforcement Policy was being amended to bring the Council in line with what was contained within the Renters Rights Act 2025.  The Environment Health Manager, Environment and Private Sector Housing stated it was a tidying up exercise to enable the Council to have the ability to carry out its legislative functions as contained within the Renters Rights Act 2025.

A comment was made by one Member in relation to the benefits but it was stated that this was in relation to private sector housing not social housing.

The proposed amendments would aid Officers in carrying out their roles in respect of private sector housing.

It was proposed, seconded and agreed to recommend the amended document to Cabinet for approval.

Recommendation

That the Housing OSC recommends that Cabinet approves the amendments to Appendix C – Private Sector Housing Approach to Investigation and Enforcement as part of the Corporate Enforcement Policy.