Communities and Local Government

• Housing
• Social housing management
• Local authority housing management

Housing

Local authority housing management

With over 2.5 million council tenants in England, the Government expects Local Housing Authorities (LHAs) to carry out their housing management function effectively and efficiently, delivering high quality services. They should adopt a comprehensive approach to delivering these services that will contribute to the liveability and sustainability on their estates.

The provision of good quality housing management services is key to the delivery of efficient services for council tenants.

Services may cover a wide range of functions: estate and tenancy management including rent collection and management of rent arrears, tackling anti-social behaviour and succession rights; repairs and maintenance service; allocations and lettings policy including making the effective use of housing stock through tackling over-crowding and under-occupation and the management of voids; and tenant involvement, consultation and rights.

To help local housing authorities achieve high standards, the Government works closely with the Local Government Association, the representative body of local government, and professional housing bodies such as the Chartered Institute of Housing, both in developing housing policy and legislation, and in producing good practice guidance on how that policy should be implemented.

What is housing management?

The housing management function is wide-ranging covering all aspects of estate and tenancy management, at both a strategic level and through day-to-day liaison with individual tenants.

Although not prescriptive about how the management function is carried out, the Government does expect housing managers to have close liaison with their tenants. The kind of activities covered includes:

• estate and tenancy management
• rent collection and management of rent arrears
• repairs and maintenance service
• tackling anti-social behaviour
• succession rights
• allocations and lettings policy
• making effective use of housing stock through tackling over-crowding and under-occupation, requests for transfers and management of voids, and
• tenant rights, involvement and consultation

The Government has no particular view on whether councils should deliver housing management services centrally or locally. It does, however, recognise that good local (or "on-the-spot") housing management can be essential in helping to turn round poor and deprived estates. The Social Exclusion Unit's Policy Action Team 5 report on Housing Management discusses, and makes recommendations about, on-the-spot housing management.

Council Tenants' Statutory Right to Repair

Councils are responsible for most repairs to their housing stock. Their main repairing obligations are set out in tenancy agreements or by Section 11 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 which implies certain repairing obligations into every tenancy agreement.  The landlord may also have additional obligations imposed by the express terms of the tenancy agreement itself.

Some repairs are the responsibility of the tenant and these are normally set out in their tenancy agreement.  

Some kinds of repairs are covered by the Statutory Right to Repair scheme.  This means that small urgent repairs which are likely to affect the tenant's health, safety or security must, by law, be carried out by the council in legislatively prescribed timescales and at no cost to the tenant.  Further, these regulations permit local authority tenants to require local authority landlords to appoint a contractor when repairs are not carried out on time (and if there are further delays to receive compensation). However, only certain types of repair, called qualifying repairs, are covered by this law.  There are also some exceptions to this scheme.  You can find out more about the Right to Repair scheme in the A Better Deal for Tenants: Your Right to Repair leaflet.

The Statutory Instrument 1994 No. 133 'the Secure Tenants of Local Housing Authorities (Right to Repair) Regulations 1994' can be found at: www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si1994/Uksi_19940133_en_1.htm  (external link).

The Schedule to this instrument  lists specific defects and sets out prescribed periods in which repairs to such defects should be carried out. It can be found at www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si1994/Uksi_19940133_en_2.htm   (external link).

Further information for social housing managers and tenants

Tenants who would like more information on getting involved in the running of their estate, or on the Government's initiatives to improve the level of service received from their housing authority, should see the Tenant empowerment/participation and Best Value in Housing pages.

Communities and Local Government produces the  leaflet, Your Rights as a Council Tenant (the Council Tenant's Charter) which sets out the rights that council tenants enjoy (including the Right to Buy your council property, the right to get compensation for certain improvements done with the landlord's consent, and the right to get small urgent repairs done quickly and free of charge). It also spells out the tenant's responsibilities, which include paying rent on time, and not annoying their neighbours.

The booklets are free to download, are also available in print and can be ordered from Communities and Local Government Publications in Wetherby.

The Department has published good practice guidance for social landlords on managing under-occupation which provides advice on issues such as deciding when an under-occupation strategy is needed, providing the properties that under-occupying tenants want, and the practicalities of cash incentive payments.

The good practice guidance, is drawn from research carried out for the Department by the London Research Centre (now the Greater London Authority) and Heriot-Watt University. Housing Research Summary No. 141: Under-occupation in social housing, outlines the findings of the research report

The Government is proposing to give authorities more flexibility in the way they let housing management contracts. See the Proposal for the Regulatory Reform (Housing Management Agreements) Order 2003 for more details.

Contact us

We hope these pages have answered most of the questions you may have about local authority housing management and Government's contribution to work in this area .

However if you require further information, please contact:

Lesley Storer
Community Empowerment Team
Communities and Local Government
Eland House
London
SW1E 5DU
Telephone: 0207 944 8316

In this section

• Delegation of housing management
• Research into local authority housing management
• Publications about local authority housing management

Related publications

• Managing underoccupation: A guide to good practice in social housing

  • Published: N/A
  • Site: Housing

Archived content

• Best Value in Housing