Cynulliad Cenedlaethol Cymru

Welcome, everyone, to this meeting of the Local Government and Housing Committee. We've received apologies today from Lesley Griffiths MS, one of our committee members, and another committee member, Joel James, is joining us remotely. Also, Lee Waters, another committee member, will be joining us remotely. The meeting, as always, is being held in a hybrid format, and public items are being broadcast live on Senedd.tv. A record of the proceedings will be published as usual. The meeting is bilingual, and simultaneous translation is available. Are there any declarations of interest from committee members? No, there are not.

We will move on to our second item on our agenda today, which is the committee's one-day inquiry into hazardous disrepair in social housing in Wales. I'm very pleased to welcome, joining us here in our committee room, Dr Henry Dawson of the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health. Croeso. And joining us remotely, Michelle Morris, who is the Public Services Ombudsman for Wales.

This one-day inquiry will focus on social landlords' response to hazardous disrepair and the steps that the Welsh Government has taken to improve processes to identify and remediate hazards.

Let me begin with some initial questions, before we turn to other committee members. Firstly, with regard to the extent of disrepair in Wales, what do we know about the scale and nature of hazardous disrepair within our social housing? Henry or Michelle, who would like to begin?

I'm quite happy to start, if that's okay.

Yes, please, Henry.

Trying to pull current data on this is challenging, because the next Welsh housing conditions survey isn't due until 2027-28. We did manage to pull some data, which we've provided in our written submissions, and it shows that, broadly speaking, the social rented sector is in very good condition, particularly in comparison with the private rented and owner-occupied sectors. Of the various elements that make up the primary, more safety-related issues in social rented accommodation, and secondary elements of the Welsh housing quality standard, which are more to do with comfort, social housing in Wales usually met over 90 per cent of those. When looked at overall, we've got 93 per cent of Welsh social housing being free of category 1 hazards that had been measured.

If we look at the number of properties at that time, in 2017-18, that met all elements of the Welsh housing quality standard, the figure is much lower. We've got 50 per cent—half—of local authority properties and 71 per cent of registered social landlord properties that met all elements of the Welsh housing quality standard in 2017-18. By comparison, owner-occupied was 15 per cent of the stock, and private rented sector was 19 per cent of the stock. So, we saw some quite significantly improved conditions, which are a direct result of the imposition of the Welsh housing quality standard around the turn of the millennium on the Welsh housing stock.

Where we did have problems, they were typically with a single Part 1 fault, or one of the more serious problems that you get, or single Part 2 ones, but taken individually, those elements, usually in a table, which we found being produced by StatsWales, were over 90 per cent compliant. So, where we're seeing these lower figures, it's where you've got something wrong, which might be a fail, which is what's called an acceptable fail, where they're permitted not to meet the standard—for instance, having problems in your back garden. If you're in a Valleys area, you may have quite a steeply tiered back garden, so you'll always have problems with your back garden. Or the tenant may have refused works. 

Thank you very much, Henry. Michelle, did you want to add anything to that in terms of the general picture?

Yes, and I think that sets the scene helpfully. In terms of the evidence I bring to the committee, I can talk to the experience of tenants, based on the casework that we have and we see. The reality is that, although we accept that social landlords in Wales receive thousands of service requests and probably hundreds of complaints every year, they're working hard to try and keep the standards up, and you've heard some of that evidence. But it's also the case that, over the last few years, we've seen a significant increase in the number of cases and complaints that we see in our caseload about social housing, so that has been quite a significant increase over the last couple of years.

Where we're at now is that social housing in Wales is the second largest complained about, if you like, public service that we deal with. The first is health, but we're certainly seeing housing increasing. And in respect of our caseload, what we're seeing is that about half of those cases that we're dealing with on housing are to do with disrepair, damp and mould, and the impact that's having on the families who live in those properties.

As you'd expect, the cases we see are the more serious ones. We intervene in about 13 per cent of the complaints about housing that we see on an annual basis. But if you look at the complaints we receive about damp and mould, then we're more likely to intervene in those cases—up to a third of those cases we would intervene in. I think that indicates that those issues are serious, they're complex, they're probably having quite a significant impact on those individuals—it's causing them harm, or potential harm, and injustice. They reach us, as Members will know, because they remain dissatisfied with the way that their social housing landlord has responded to their request for service and complaint. Things escalate, and it ends up with us. So, we are seeing more of those complex cases coming through, and we've done a lot of work on reports on those over the last couple of years, which I'm sure I can come back and talk to a bit more during the evidence session.

Thanks for that, Michelle. Do you have a view on why that increase has taken place over the last couple of years? Because, obviously, there could be a number of factors behind that, not just the fact that there may be more problems of that nature than was the case hitherto.

There's obviously more prevalence of those sorts of cases, so that's why we're seeing more of them. I think, probably, people are more aware of their rights and are prepared to pursue things if they're not happy with how their landlord is performing. And we know there's been a lot of publicity around these issues across the UK, where things have gone badly and sadly wrong for tenants. I think that has raised people's awareness of issues they might be facing and their preparedness to come forward and complain about them and seek for things to be put right. I think those are two things, or a combination of why we're seeing more coming through.

The reasons people usually come to us is because they've got an issue, they've made repeated service requests to their landlords to please come and sort them out, but those things haven't been sorted out, and either things have got worse or other issues have then been caused and the whole thing escalates. There's a real opportunity for social landlords to deal with these things early, nip things in the bud, and prevent these things from escalating, and those are a lot of the themes that we see in our work and that we've reported on over the last couple of years.

And all too often, tenants are having to raise a complaint to get a service request dealt with, and that shouldn't happen—it should be dealt with as a service request; it shouldn't escalate to a complaint. And then we see issues, sometimes, about how that tenant's complaint is dealt with and whether a landlord is prepared to listen properly to what they're saying and put some effort into addressing the problems.

Okay, Michelle, that's great. Thank you very much. Peter Fox.

Thank you. Good morning. I wanted to explore a little bit more the response of social landlords, because I know from my own casework that I've had people for whom I've struggled to get things sorted. You feel so sorry for the tenants, especially if they're ending up cleaning the house themselves, repainting it themselves, trying to kid themselves that the problem has gone away, but it's generally being covered up for a few weeks until it comes through. Whilst there obviously are pressures for landlords, generally are landlords taking their tenants seriously, or are they preoccupied with other things? Are you experiencing that landlords aren't really listening, or is it just something that is happening—? I don't know. 

Considering tenants' perceptions of some of the risk around particularly damp and mould growth, I pulled some data, unfortunately from the ombudsman in England, but it provides the levels of damp and mould-related complaints prior to and then after the tragic death of Awaab Ishak. In 2019-20, including flooding, there were 612 complaints that made it as far as the English ombudsman—my apologies, I wasn't able to get the same data in Wales. Awaab Ishak died in December 2020. In 2021-22, the ombudsman recorded 3,741 complaints. So, it gives you an idea of the public's perception of the risk and their concerns about this, and so things do get elevated. But the points that have been made by my colleague from the ombudsman are entirely accurate.

Their report says that, often, occupiers had to raise a complaint to obtain remedial work and repeatedly chase public bodies in order to get a response. Pre-letting inspections were sometimes of questionable quality, and some occupiers in vulnerable situations would have to wait significantly longer for works to be carried out if it were not for the ombudsman's intervention. There were issues with complaint handling responses seemingly being delayed whilst the organisation carried out works in the meantime for failure to properly record the complaint. The report raised a concern over a lack of proactivity among landlords in dealing with damp and mould. 

Damp and mould is quite a complex one, and usually the problem that we see in this industry is that people tend to blame the tenant, and so they make a presumption that the cause of the damp is as a result of the tenant's failure to ventilate and heat the property adequately, which they have to do, but it does take someone with a reasonable amount of expertise to look at the structure of the property, the way it's served by services such as heating and insulation in the property, in order to ascertain what proportion of the damp in a property is the fault of the property's design and its construction and what proportion is the fault of the tenant.

One of the best methods to try to inform investigations of this is the use of hygrometers or data loggers. These are devices that measure the temperature and humidity. You can leave them in a home for a week, and they'll give you an idea of the occupier's moisture patterns and ventilation in the property. I'm not aware that these are being used in a terribly widespread way, but if you carry out a superficial investigation, then it's going to be very difficult to ascertain what the problem is, and it may involve some ongoing monitoring.

What I'm picking up from that is that, begrudgingly, often, it seems that landlords are going out after they've been either challenged by the likes of us or the likes of Michelle's office. I find from my own experience that it's only when you really lean on people that it suddenly leads to some action, and so I have got some concerns around that. Michelle, would your view be that landlords are taking their tenants seriously? 

As I said in my opening remarks, there will be thousands of service requests and complaints across Wales every year to social landlords that are dealt with. I think what we're seeing in our casework is that sometimes the more complex things, which are difficult to get to the bottom of, are not, as we just heard, being properly addressed. The response or the actions that have been taken are a bit superficial, and so the problem then comes back. So, I think it is important that tenants who have got really serious and complex—. And perhaps, what happens is tenants are repeatedly coming back. Landlords shouldn't be seeing them as a nuisance. They should be seeing those multiple service requests and saying, 'Hang on; there's something wrong here.' There should be a flag coming up to say, 'There are some problems here; we need to go in and take a proper look at it.' And all too often, I think perhaps those people are being pushed aside and not being listened to.

So, sadly, there are instances—and you're seeing it in your casework as well—where tenants have got serious issues and genuine concerns and they're not being dealt with. And what we—. I published a thematic report on this subject about 18 months ago, and the lessons learnt that came out of that are the ones which my colleague has just run through there. I think those, probably, were taken from my report. So, I won't repeat them. But I think what we're trying to do is to raise people's awareness, and definitely social landlords' awareness, of where things have gone wrong and how those things could have been handled better—so, sharing that learning from those experiences to try and put that across the sector.

So, it does happen, and there is room for improvement, particularly on more vulnerable tenants. We see it in our casework—tenants who have a disability and perhaps ill health issues that are being exacerbated or even caused, perhaps, by those housing conditions. And social landlords need to listen to that and be very aware of those circumstances that people are in and take appropriate action.

[Inaudible.]—if there were some main lessons you would like to have shared with landlords out of your investigations. I know you've captured some of that, but are there a couple of overarching messages like, 'Look: sit up and listen' or something? What are your big messages to landlords?

I can talk to the four public interest reports that I did last autumn. It was the first time we'd done a public interest report on housing, and we actually ended up doing four in a row, just because we had those serious cases in front of us and we felt that they needed to be put into the public domain and the lessons needed to be shared across the sector. 

So, the key messages out of that for all social landlords—. The first is about acting in a timely manner. So, it is about getting in and nipping some of those—. And it's an important consideration for your evidence session, because some of the things that might not register within the new rules for the Welsh housing quality standard, because they're low level, if not dealt with at that early stage, while they're low level, can escalate and become a much bigger issue. So, acting quickly, and in a timely manner, can prevent things escalating and prevent it becoming a more serious case. And we've seen that particularly around damp and mould issues. 

The other thing—and it's related to that—is, in the cases that we saw, a particular problem had been looked at and solved, but they didn't stand back and look at the bigger picture and say, 'Well, what's causing that? Is there something underlying that that we can't see?' We've already heard that it can be quite tricky to identify when there's damp in a property. So, sometimes, just treating one thing doesn't actually solve the problem and the problem keeps coming back, and that's when they get repeated service requests. And when they get those repeated requests, it should be ringing an alarm bell, it should be flagging, 'There's something going on in this property that we're not really getting to grips with' and they should be getting a focus on that to try and solve those problems. 

And the final thing then would be, perhaps, around policies and procedures. They all have procedures in place for dealing with repairs and responsive repairs and for dealing with complaints, but they need to make sure that staff are aware of them and that they use them. And all too often, particularly with the complaints—obviously which is something our office focuses on—people are not following the proper procedures when people bring a complaint to them, and that's of concern.

Thank you. 

Peter, could I just bring Lee—

Oh, yes, sorry. 

—in for a moment? Lee. 

Just a quick follow-up to that, if I may, to the ombudsman. Can you give us a sense of, on the spectrum of severity, is this is a growing problem? Is it a problem that's always existed and it's just that we're now more alert to it because we're trying to get higher standards through the Welsh housing quality standard? Just give us a sense of what should be flashing on a dashboard for us here.

Certainly, from our casework, we are seeing more of this. So, in the last two years, as I've said, we're seeing more cases coming through, and the ones we see, as you'll understand, are complex and where things have perhaps been ignored for a while and matters have escalated. So, you look at the bigger picture, and you've heard the stats from across Wales, and there's a fairly strong picture there. This might be a smaller percentage of tenants that are being affected in this way, but what we see is the impact and the harm that's been done to them. Their quality of life and their family life is really, really significantly affected when things do go wrong, and 400 or 500 cases a year that we're looking at—that's 400, 500 families that have gone through that. My public interest reports, there are four cases there that are, probably, admittedly, at the extreme, but those things shouldn't be happening. That's why we try and shine a light on it through a public interest report.

I think there is an element of what you say there as well, that we're more aware of this. What's happened in England and, you know, the action we're trying to take in Wales, I think there's more awareness of that and people are more prepared to not accept being fobbed off and to keep on going until they get a resolution.

So, would you say, from a housing stock point of view, we're talking about a very small number of homes here that are problematic and have stubborn problems that housing associations are not sufficiently grappling with? But, from a human point of view, clearly, 500 cases is unacceptable, and it's right that that's being shone upon; I'm just trying to apply some different lenses here.

Yes. I think what you say is right. We are going to be doing more work on this. I'm going to be using my own-initiative powers to try and do some further investigations. Because what I want to know, and I suppose it's what you're asking—you know, we rely on the complaints that come to us—is there more out there that we're not aware of that we need to have a deeper look at? And that's where I'm going to be using my own-initiative powers next, alongside the work the Welsh Government's doing to tighten the rules around this, just to make sure that, if it is more systemic across the sector, we try and identify that.

Okay. And Siân.

Sorry, Chair, may I make an additional point?

Yes. Sorry, Henry—yes. Please.

So, when looked at, it's 411 complaints out of a housing stock of about 240,000. I worked out it's about 0.17 per cent. But the human cost of that, as you say, is completely unacceptable, and, in each case, it is a family that's likely to have been affected. However, one of the concerns that we have is that we've got no clear indication of what proportion of the social landlord staff have got housing health and safety rating system qualifications. You have to do a two-day course and have an understanding of construction in order to be able to carry out these assessments, and, until you've done an assessment, you've got no record of an assessment. Effectively, the hazard does not exist until you've identified it.

So, one of the things that was highlighted in the ombudsman's own report is that we're not actually seeing much proactivity—or not as much as we would like—from social landlords in order to go out and ascertain where, particularly, damp and mould problems exist in the stock. So, I think the ombudsman's making a very good point there in that, actually, we need to do some proactive investigation to determine what level of inspection is going on in order to identify these problems. Because we may have an awful lot more problems in our housing stock that have not been properly assessed and identified as hazards and therefore had to be reported. If you don't get somebody qualified in to make the report, you then never have a hazard to identify in the annual returns. So, this is certainly a concern. What we find in local authority inspections is, when we identify a problem, we're looking at the thin end of the wedge that has got as far as us in a complaint, and actually underneath that is—sorry to mix my metaphors—an iceberg's worth of other problems, and it's only those that have got to the last resort of complaining to us that we're actually seeing coming across our desks.

Siân.

Shall I start on that one?

Yes, please, Michelle.

I think, in terms of what we've been doing—. So, those public interest reports, two were in relation to local authorities who are social landlords—one in south Wales, one in north Wales—and the other two were in relation to a housing association in the south Wales Valleys. So, there wasn't really a pattern there in terms of where we're seeing the complaints coming from, to be honest. We would expect that there are bigger challenges in respect of older housing stock, and, as you say, the challenges of retrofitting that. But I can't speak to a pattern in terms of our complaints at present. Certainly, when I go on to the next stage now, to do my own-initiative work that I just referred to, we will be—. And we're talking to social landlords at the moment about who will be involved in that. But our intention would be to follow the data and to go to and work with those social landlords where we see complaints as being the highest in terms of our caseload. So, those would be in the housing association sector, based on the data we're seeing. So, it's very difficult to see a pattern there, but, certainly, we will focus our future investigations around this on the areas where we're seeing the most complaints coming in.

Michelle, can I just ask? You've identified a number of shortcomings within social landlords—not dealing with things at a low level and allowing them to escalate, not repairing in a timely fashion, so then there's a complaint, and then, when there is a complaint, sometimes the complaint isn't dealt with properly. Within your powers and your role, to what extent can you really get down to, I don't know, I was going to say 'hand-holding'—? Others have a role as well, but are you able to really affect the practice that social landlords have in Wales on those matters?

Yes, I believe so. So, there are a few things. Obviously, if we do a report, particularly if it's a public interest report, we make clear recommendations about what we think needs to happen to improve things and to make sure it doesn't happen to people in the future, but also that things are put right for that particular tenant. So, we don't just walk away at that point: we will monitor compliance, we will work with them, to make sure that those recommendations have been implemented and have had the desired impact. So, that's the first part of what we do.

I think the other part of our powers that we have in Wales is around complaints standards. So, we've got a complaints standards common framework that we're rolling out across the Welsh public sector. Most social landlords are now part of that scheme; I think we've got about half a dozen left to complete in this this current year—that should be done by the summer. That allows us to gather data about how complaints are being handled, what the complaints are about, and allows us to work with landlords if we see that they're not dealing with complaints as they should be, if the data is telling us that.

Then I think the third aspect is the own-initiative, which I've already referred to. We've got those powers in Wales, as you know—most ombuds in the UK don't have them. That's allowing me to say, 'Actually, I think I need to look further into this sector.' That's what we're proposing to do, and we've consulted on that quite recently. So, I think there are a number of levers that we have that we can use to keep a focus on this and to keep watching the data and to keep making sure that, if we see things going awry, and we think it's impacting tenants, we can work with the landlords to put that right.

Okay. So, back to Siân. Before you go on, Siân, Henry, there might be instances, mightn't there, I guess, where the stock is so poor that various things have been tried to deal with damp and mould, for example, without success, and it might be a case of demolition and rebuild is about the only real solution. If that picture is valid, is that significant in terms of these issues in Wales in terms of numbers?

If we look at the properties that are most likely to have damp and mould problems in the housing stock, then they're usually pre-1920s properties. Between the 1920s and 1940s we started building with cavity walls, and where we have the two-layer cavity walls, then you get a lot less damp. It provides some thermal insulation as regards to the structure without the additional thermal insulation being fitted later, and also they're much more vulnerable to moisture penetration and they're colder surfaces so they tend to attract condensation. Also, the pre-1920s housing stock will be more susceptible to building defects, partly through wear and tear and partly through design.

Other problems that we’ve got in the Welsh housing stock that are more common in the social rented sector is post second world war housing. We had a lot of system-built properties that had been manufactured in factories and then were assembled onsite. These—what are called novel-build properties—are often made out of concrete panelling or similar, and so they're quite difficult to insulate, so you get more problems with internal temperature regulation and with levels of damp. Then we've had some problems with more tightly sealed-up post-2001 properties as a result of the lack of an imposition of I think it's part O of the building regs, which provides adequate ventilation. So, these properties are exceptionally well sealed up. They go through an air tightness test, and so we need manual measures in order to manage moisture levels in those properties from condensation in order to prevent the condensation occurring.

So, if we're focusing on what to treat, then the most difficult are usually the post second world war and the pre 1920s. With regard to demolition and rebuild, we have powers in environmental health for area clearance under the Housing Act 1985, but it's exceptionally rare for us to make use of those sorts of powers, because, usually, given the value of housing now, it's far more economic to carry out retrospective wall cladding insulation solutions and new roofing solutions encapsulating the existing structure, rather than demolish and rebuild.

Okay. 

Just a last one from me, John. We talked about the lack of proactivity, really, in sorting or identifying these issues, but in fairness, then, to them, what are the barriers, do you think, that might be stopping landlords being more proactive? There are some obvious ones you’ve shared—perhaps they haven’t got the staff—but are there some other obvious barriers in their way?

I think with regard to understanding the nature of the houses, there are the superficial inspections that don't really get to the root of, particularly, damp and mould issues. I also think that there's a differential level of awareness as to where our greatest health risks are, if we're looking from a purely public health perspective, as to what constitutes our most serious public health problems. I would argue that falls present our greatest risk, particularly in the social rented sector, which has up to a half of its current tenants with some form of additional vulnerability or disability. So, we really shouldn't—. We have a lot of attention on damp and mould, but if we looked at the housing health and safety rating system operating guidance, and I personally was involved with updating that, and that's due to be released in England this year, then we saw that, actually, the relative risk from hazards like damp and mould is far lower than we see for other issues like excess cold in our housing stock, excess heat and various falls hazards. They split them up into a number of different categories.

I think for social landlords it's particularly challenging with the availability of trades, and also monitoring of contractors and the quality of the work that they're carrying out. I think that's particularly fraught with problems for them, and ensuring that those contractors are appropriately trained and able to manage the works that are required, and the additional considerations that come with the vulnerabilities of the tenants in the stock that they're serving.

Finally, the—. What's the other point I wanted to make? Yes, so, finally, the housing associations and social landlords have a system that's very much based on self-reporting, where they're going in and doing the property-by-property inspections for the new Welsh housing quality standard 2023, to ensure optimised retrofit to hit predominantly the concerns around making the housing stock energy performance certificate band A. Those inspections could be accompanied by a general inspection for disrepair, so that both could be managed simultaneously, but due to the way that funding tranches are being released to the to the housing stock in this area, to the landlords, there are very short periods for them to set up tranches of works to improve properties to WHQS 2023, and it makes it very difficult for them to manage the miscellaneous repairs that they would have to deal with at the same time. So, they go in and do the WHQS works, and then the repairs get left to one side, or set to one side somewhat, because WHQS is shouting much louder.

Thank you. Thank you, John.

Thank you, Peter. Siân.

Thank you. We're generally supportive of the action that Welsh Government has taken to strengthen these rules, and I think it'll give us an important handle, hopefully a better handle, on issues such as damp and mould and how they're affecting social housing in Wales.

I've talked a lot today about nipping things in the bud and, of course, a lot of the things we see in our casework are lower level things that they wouldn't have to report or log as part of this new requirement, this new rule. I would just hope that they're not overly focused on the serious issues and that they overlook the opportunities for early action to prevent things escalating to those more serious issues. The reality is that social landlords already have the responsibilities around making sure that the properties they're renting are fit for human habitation—they already exist. So, I suppose, the risk for me is what was just said, which is that there's a big focus given to these new rules and the stronger rules under WHQS, and that those opportunities for early action to prevent things getting that serious are overlooked, because that's what tenants would want: fix the problem quickly, early on; let's not let it get that serious, because then it's really affecting their quality of life and potentially their health as well. So, I think we need to monitor it, we need to see how this goes. I'll be really interested to see the first batch of figures when they come out, and we'll obviously keep on monitoring, through our work, whether we're seeing more or less of these sorts of cases coming through.

That's something we would normally do through our work, but it would be an interesting thing to do, perhaps as part of the next phase of our own-initiative work, to do those comparisons. It's certainly something we could think about in the future.

From our perspective in CIEH, we welcome the additional rule. It provides additional accountability and particularly the use of a summary plan provides reassurance and informs tenants of what's going on. A strong part of the psychological part of this for the tenant is a sense of powerlessness that they have when they're trying to get works carried out to their property, and so it will help to directly address that, because they will be kept informed through this plan of what's going on.

Some of the concerns that we have is that the guidance—and we have the same issues with what's been drafted for Awaab's law in England—is quite vague with what constitutes a significant and imminent hazard. In fact, 'imminent' risk is not actually defined. The definition for a 'significant' hazard is somewhat vague:

'a significant risk of harm is defined as a risk of harm to the occupier’s health or safety that a competent member of the landlord’s workforce with the relevant knowledge would take steps to make safe as a matter of urgency.'

Something that we've noticed is that, actually, there's no requirement or even a preference for the person making those decisions to be HHSRS qualified.

There's also no clear guidance on at what point a complaint is made. If I refer back to the ombudsman's points made in her report, which I quoted, and her opening statement, there are issues around when the complaint is made. So, tenants are having to persist before they reach a point of formal complaint. There should be some clear guidance within the addendum, or the guidance for the addendum, which is how they've got around it in England, as to what constitutes a formal complaint and at what point the clock starts ticking.

We welcome the additional consideration of vulnerabilities of tenants in determining whether works are required. We find it to be reasonable and appropriate. But we do come back to the challenge that until you've done an HHSRS assessment, then no hazard is identified. So, if there's no requirement in that process for an HHSRS assessment to be undertaken, we don't have a record of whether there was a hazard or not. Something I should also point out is that the HHSRS does not generally score damp and mould growth hazards into the category 1 bracket for the most severe hazards. It tends to be other hazards with a significant risk on health, such as falls, excess cold, excess heat, that tend to attract those sorts of scores. So, damp and mould tend to be a little incidentally dealt with as we inspect and deal with excess cold-related issues, which I should point out, under the new WHQS, we should see a significant dip in, with the push towards bringing the Welsh social rented sector up to band A by 2034.

Absolutely, I think I'd agree with those points. To some extent, there's some scope for getting past this with some guidance, rather than doing an addendum to the addendum. I think some example case studies might be useful in trying to direct thoughts as to what constitutes the point of making a complaint, and then what would be 'imminent' or 'significant'. But with regard to rolling out the standard or applying it to other hazards other than damp and mould, then we don't have an equivalent to the Building Research Establishment's modelling of proportions of category 1 hazards across the Welsh housing stock. They only did that as part of the English housing survey for the English housing stock, or using that similar data. We could ask them to do something similar in Wales to give a proportion of the number of category 1 hazards we see across our housing stock in Wales, and that would tell us where we need to direct our efforts most, either through number of hazards and public opinion about what we should address, or by the proportion of risk to health that they present to the public. So, fire and damp and mould, which attract the public's attention most, generally tend to score quite low under HHSRS, because, relative to other hazards, they occur less frequently in severe levels, or other hazards present a more immediate threat of more severe harm outcomes, such as falls hazards leading to hospitalisation and ultimately more severe, long-term decline of, particularly, older tenants. So, I would welcome something that allowed us to prioritise a shortlist of hazards. I've got some data, which, again, I apologise I've based on the English sector, because we've got nothing since 2017 for the Welsh sector. But falls on stairs, falls on the level, overcrowding comes in quite highly, but we're not covering that, excess cold, damp and mould growth, falls between levels, and personal hygiene, sanitation and drainage. So, those hazards are the ones that, in English housing, taken across the whole housing stock, are the most frequently occurring in the social rented sector. At the moment, we don't have any data that should suggest that the Welsh housing sector looked proportionately different, apart from the fact that, taken overall, our housing stock has a slightly higher representation of pre-1920s properties, but they don't tend to be as much into the social rented sector, because of the time at which social rented accommodation was being produced in large volumes, which was usually post the first world war and post the second world war.

Siân, we'd better move on.

Thank you. I've finished, yes.

Lee Waters.

In terms of the accountability of social landlords, what further steps can be taken? We've discussed the rules and the hope around them and the limitations. What further things do you think we might be able to call for that would make a practical difference?

Okay. Michelle.

I'll just to start on that one. It should lead to greater transparency and accountability. And I think that's about how the data is used, so, obviously, there will be data that comes out; I understand that it won't be until the end of the first year. But you've already heard that there isn't a lot of data available in Wales, so I think having that data and understanding what's happening across the sector, and are there any patterns and where there might be standouts, is really important. So, I think using that data and making sure that those who—this is what we try and do through our work—those who are charged with governance of those organisations are sighted on that and have to report on it, and have to be open and transparent about what the challenges are and how they're addressing them. If it's just, 'This is the situation', but there's nothing then from that organisation about how they're going to address it and how to improve the situation, then it won't have the weight that it should have. So, I think it's about the use of that data, being open and transparent about it, holding the people to account and saying, 'Right, what are you going to do now to use that data to improve your stock and how you deliver services to your tenants as well?'

Do you want to add anything, Henry?

Certainly. I'll keep my comments brief. Once the initial deadline has been missed, it's unclear what accountability there is for the new addendum for the identification of hazards. So, asking for that to be included in their annual reporting would be helpful, and asking for HHSRS assessments as part of the Welsh housing quality standard 2023 housing stock visits being undertaken would also provide some indication of whether properties were free or not free of hazards, and, ultimately, a new Welsh housing survey being undertaken at an interval more regular than a decade. So, it's been typically every 10 years, bringing it to five would be helpful.

Okay, thanks very much, Henry. We've exceeded our time already, but we've got one further question that perhaps you could just offer us some brief views on. Joel James.

Yes, thank you, Chair. I'm sorry, I can't be there in person again. It's just a quick question, really. Given everything that's been said, in an ideal world, what more would you want the Welsh Government to be doing? What would you like them to be focusing on, if that makes sense? You mentioned there about data collection, but is there anything else that the Welsh Government could be doing, in ways of just like a summarisation of the evidence, if that makes sense? Thank you, Chair.

Henry, is there anything further you'd like to see Welsh Government doing that you haven't already mentioned?

I think certainly celebrate the good condition that the Welsh social housing sector is in. We've done a lot of work on this over the last few decades, and since the turn of the millennium the quality of our social housing has changed significantly, and the aspirations to bring it up to EPC band A, I think, will actually give us a near carbon-neutral housing stock in the social rented sector and contribute towards the infrastructure and supply chains and skills in the professions, which will then transfer over to improvements in other areas of the housing stock.

For take-home messages, I think focusing on particular areas of hazards that present the largest public health risk or concern to the general public, and I think pressing the NHS services to provide closer collaboration between them and, particularly, local authority environmental health departments, as they see the symptoms of poor housing conditions everyday. But what we don't see is a very joined-up public health approach, in which NHS services routinely refer patients to private housing teams from whatever area of the housing sector that they live in, in order to help them to identify and address hazards in their homes.

Thank you very much. Michelle.

I think the one thing I'd add is about making sure that that lived experience of the tenants and their families isn't forgotten. The data is good in understanding the quality of the stock and how that's improving. But what we see is the end of it when it goes wrong and the impact that that has on tenants. Welsh Government needs to keep that rounded approach and that rounded view of what's happening, because the outcome that everyone would want is that people aren't having that bad experience and they're not being subjected to living in social housing that isn't fit for purpose and is affecting their health and quality of life.

Okay, Michelle, thank you very much. Thank you both for coming in to give evidence to committee this morning. You will be sent a transcript to check for factual accuracy. Diolch yn fawr.

We'll take a very quick break while we get our next panel in place.

Okay. We’ve reached our second evidence session this morning, and we will now hear from third sector and tenants’ organisations, with four witnesses joining us in our committee room. Would you like to introduce yourselves, please, starting with Robin?

Yes. I am Robin White. I am the head of campaigns at Shelter Cymru.

Hi, I'm Emma Nicholas. I’m the tenant co-ordinator at National Independent Tenant Voice Cymru.

I’m Josh Dowdall. I’m a board member of Tai Pawb, and chief executive officer of Taff Housing Association.

I’m David Wilton, chief executive of TPAS Cymru, the tenant engagement organisation for Wales.

Okay, thank you all very much for giving evidence to the committee. Perhaps I might begin, then, with some initial questions, firstly on the extent of disrepair problems. Could you give us an idea, then, of the types of disrepair problems that you deal with, and the impact that they have on tenants? Who would like to begin?

I'll start, I guess.

Yes, Josh.

It’s really varied, depending on location, type of property. I think we’ve seen more reported to us as awareness has grown—damp and mould particularly. I think the impact that a hazard has depends on the individual circumstances of a tenant, and I think, to this point really, around how we assess that. So, I think if you’re old, if you’re young, if you have certain health conditions, then a particular hazard will affect you more. So, from that point of view, really, it depends on the individual.

Yes, okay. Anybody else?

I just want to add: you obviously see damp and mould in your own casework as well, but there are other things. Windows still keep coming up. I don’t know why; WHQS 1 should have solved that, but we’re still having issues with broken windows, draughts, things like that.

And the other thing, I think, is emerging risks as well: fire risks. In my area, there have been four social housing fires, three of them being with lithium batteries or e-scooters, things like that. It’s not necessarily the housing, but the lifestyle, and these cheap batteries and stuff. So, we’ve got new risks emerging that we probably didn’t have 10 years ago—fire risks.

Okay. Anybody else like to add to that?

Obviously, given the nature of the work Shelter Cymru does as an advice provider, we do see a lot of damp and disrepair issues. So, for January 2026—that’s the latest month for which we have data—just over 15 per cent of our total caseload was to do with damp and disrepair issues. What I’d say is—and we don’t break the data down by tenure perfectly, but anecdotally from our caseworkers, what we can say is—we see more damp and disrepair in social housing than we do in other sectors as a proportion of the caseload, but the bulk of our work comes from the private rented sector. So, if we just looked at social housing, I think it would be higher than 15 per cent of issues are to do with damp and disrepair. So, it is a very significant part of the work we do. And then on top of that, our online advice pages, the relevant pages for damp and disrepair, had about 30,000 visits in the last calendar year. So, from our perspective, it's a very significant problem. I think lots of us can speak to the human impact; we’ve seen that in the ombudsman’s reports.

The other thing I’d add is: we've definitely seen a little bit of an uptick in recent times in the number of cases being reported. Some of that is seasonal—we see more of this at different times of the year. But also, I think, we haven't looked into it in detail, but I'm fairly confident that increased—. We've seen more reporting in the media of these issues, which feeds through into our casework. And you probably can't ignore that in a cost-of-living crisis, some issues like damp and mould become more prevalent, because they are associated with, say, not being able to afford to heat the home. So, yes, it's definitely one of the more significant issues that we are coming across.

Thanks for that. Would you say that there are differences between social housing providers in terms of the extent of these disrepair problems, and are there differences between local authorities and housing associations?

There will be differences. Different organisations will take different approaches. I can only speak for my organisation, Taff, where we've already implemented a risk assessment process for damp and mould, which assesses the vulnerability as well as the actual hazard itself. But different organisations will be in different places, and local authorities have a different approach to housing associations. I think the approach around hazard management is varied. You'll find elements of good practice and maybe elements where things need to improve as well.

So, some might be good at some things, not so good at others and vice versa.

Yes.

You've also got different age of stock as well. With something like Adra, stock transfer, local authorities, they've got much older stock compared to some of the more modern housing associations. So, it's not always a level playing field. It's not just the culture within, but some of them have got different starting points in terms of the type of stock they've got. 

Yes, okay. Anything to add? 

Yes. It's not just the age of the stock, it's where that stock is, because people's ability to afford to heat their homes or treat their homes properly is actually affected in terms of where they are positioned within Wales—on an income basis. That makes a difference. 

Yes, sure. Okay.

There's one thing I'd add to that. I think everyone's right: inevitably there is difference in practice. I think there are other things that matter, like stock profile. If you're a large rural housing association or a rural local authority, your stock is going to be more spread out. Basic management of stock that is spread out can be different. That can lead to variations in how you can do things.

I think there's the scale of your operation as well. If you're a much smaller housing association, compared to a much bigger one, your management at scale can look very different to the management of a small number of properties. I suspect that is something that we will see be really relevant as the new rule comes in as well, because bigger organisations might be in a different position to smaller—some might need more support than others. I think that's just the nature of—. These are not all the same organisation, even though they're operating in the same sector.

No, okay. Just finally from me, before we turn to other committee members: you mentioned, Emma, that tenants who were poorer than the general situation are more likely, perhaps, to have issues, if they're struggling to heat their homes properly and so on. Are there any other types of tenants—any particular tenants that are more likely to have these problems in terms of disrepair issues? 

For us, we work in central Cardiff, and a high proportion of black, Asian and minority ethnic households are often disproportionately affected by overcrowding. That can have a massive impact on damp and mould and other related factors. So, absolutely, that's one group of people that are disproportionately affected by things like damp and mould, because of the impact of overcrowding.

For me, there's another type of tenant—it's not just health that is affected. People who are in rent arrears are less likely to ring and report damp and disrepair in their home, because of the fear of access being given, because the rules have changed, but not everybody understands or is aware of what that means to them. So, they're less likely to report things. Embarrassment—people who are suffering with mental health issues, who are embarrassed because their house smells, because it's damp, those sorts of things. That trust issue between tenant and landlord is very, very fragile, and I think that they're less likely to ring.

And people who have historically suffered with it. Some of these people in these homes have been suffering for years and the blame game is happening: 'It's because you're using a tumble dryer' or, 'You're not opening your windows'. Actually, we're realising now that it's an issue with the properties rather than lifestyles—not all the time, I admit. But, actually, it's, 'Why bother, because I've been ignored for four years.' So those types of tenants are at risk, and I think we've got a duty to ask the organisations to actually go back and look at those people that were ignored or blamed previously and say, 'We're sorry'. 

Yes. Living with damp and mould is never a lifestyle choice, ever.

No. In terms of rent arrears, is it an absolute bar to being moved to another property? If there's an overcrowding issue, for example, and the family are looking to be transferred to a bigger property, if they're in rent arrears, would that stop any move?

No. Certainly where there's a requirement to move the family for health and well-being reasons, that certainly, for us, wouldn't be a barrier to moving them. It’s more that the barrier would be the housing supply.

I’d agree with that. I'd say that Emma's point is really important, that a lot of positive work is happening to improve our approach on, say, damp and mould, but also rent arrears. We've seen a real decline in the number of social housing tenants facing possession action for rent arrears. But, if you've been a tenant for 20 years and for 16 of those years you were let down, you are maybe not familiar with the changes of the last four years, you maybe have no trust, there is definitely going to be a need for proactive engagement by the landlords to rebuild that trust. It's not enough to just bring in new approaches, we've got to go back over the approaches that failed and the people who have been failed.

Yes, I see. 

There's also one last thing. You said about some being disproportionately affected. Previous Ministers have talked about finding the silence, which is if you've got, say, a block of flats, and in flat 1 you've got damp and you may have it in flat 4, you've probably got something in 2 and 3. Just because you haven't heard somebody report it—. And I think that's where—. We talk about AI and better data, we should be finding those people, because those are the people who might not be reporting stuff. But logic says if it’s in 1 and 4, surely 2 and 3 have got a problem as well. 'Find the silence' was a term that I think previous Ministers used.

So, that's being proactive and understanding—

Yes. It's really hard to do, but in time, I would hope that—.

And that's tenant vulnerability as well, isn't it?

And the point around this whole thing is reporting a hazard, but if people don't report the hazard in the first place, then you're not going to be able to act upon it, and I think organisations need to understand where people are not reporting but are still experiencing hazards, and that comes back to data, getting your data right and understanding who lives in the homes and who is not reporting these hazards, because they're still experiencing the hazards.

If we're talking about people who are more likely to live with these issues, I would include in that people who struggle to report. As we've moved into an era where we use digital tools to report increasingly, that's good, it helps the social landlords, but there are going to be people who struggle with that. If you go out and talk to tenants, you'll hear people who want to go back to the days where you could walk down to an office and speak to a person. We need to make sure that, yes, if we're moving to new ways of doing things, those people are taken with you, rather than that we just stop hearing their concerns.

Is there any particular way that that could be done, in your view, Robin?  We're not going to see lots of offices opening up, I don't think, are we?

No. Again, so much of it is going to be communication. I'm not saying that social landlords are not doing it, they are doing it and are getting the message out about how to communicate with your landlord, the rights you do have. There's a role for the Welsh Government to play there to work with organisations like Shelter Cymru to get messages out about the rights that people have, because we can't enforce rights if people genuinely don't know they have them. But the biggest thing on this issue will be what has been said about being proactive as well. It's not just flats. If you know that a certain type of home in your stock keeps coming up in a certain issue, and you know you've got other homes like that from your other data, go and check them. We should have so much data now that can support us, but we just need to use it in a way where we look across the data, rather than just picking the very specific individual point each time. It's thinking about all of what we've got to help us.

Yes. Okay. Peter—sorry, Emma.

I was just going to come in with an idea of how to do that and not open new offices. A lot of associations hold surgeries where their housing officers go out to communities and things like that. I think better partnership. I do a school drop-off every day. If there was a space in the school where I could go and report a repair and the school would forward that information to the housing association—. So, better partnership with what's already there, rather than it being costly in opening another surgery and things like that. So, actually sharing that load with the community bases that are already there.

I did miss one thing, sorry; you reminded me of this. It should be everyone's responsibility in a social landlord organisation to spot these issues. That's not just true of damp and disrepair, it's true of all issues—training not just for the staff that go out to investigate damp or mould, training for everyone to be able to spot it. If you happen to be there doing some gardening, but you know to spot for certain signs, that can help you pick things up earlier and avoid that need for reporting, and problems becoming expensive and complex. 

Thanks very much. Peter. 

Yes, I'd just like to explore a little bit about responses—the response times of social landlords. In general, how effective are our social landlords at responding to reports of disrepair?

Historically, landlords have taken an arbitrary approach, usually broken down between emergency, urgent and routine. And that is classified by the type of repair that's been reported to them. What historically hasn't happened in the sector is where they have then assessed vulnerabilities on top of that, to give you an indication of the impact. And that, I think, is what's been missing around assessing and acting upon hazards—the actual individual, the person living in the home, rather than the property issue by itself. 

We've definitely seen a change in culture that wasn't there in the past. Awaab Ishak's tragic death, I think, changed a lot of people in the sector as to damp and mould. There was a lot of tenant blaming in the past. I've been to some shocking sessions in local authorities and things like that, where I've thought, 'You're way off here, blaming the tenants'. I think that, to give some credit to social housing, has had a reflection and a change of culture, but we're still not getting it right. 

Emma, have you got a view on that?

Tenants are reporting an improvement on response, but also, when I've spoken to tenants, it feels quite plaster culture. So, they're coming in and putting a plaster over the cracks, rather than fixing the cracks. But then, it's the communication ongoing. That's fine, we know that you can't replace a boiler the same day because you haven't got the boilers, but, actually, that communication with the tenant is failing. So, the tenants don't know and understand when these things are being done, and I think that needs to improve. For me, now, it's still a missing piece. 

That is one of the dangers of these data-driven new standards. When you get obsessed—like they do with health data, waiting lists and things like that—there are ways you can, like I say, just go in and wash the mould off—tick—rather than actually treat it. And my slight concern with some of these new targets is that we become obsessed with managing targets rather than the symptoms. 

Yes, that's a good point. You talked about it earlier, that some of the reasons disrepair might not have been put right is because it hadn't been reported. But, putting that aside, what other things might be preventing social landlords from responding effectively? Is it workforce, or money, or what?

I think it's a number of things, ultimately. I think Emma's touched on how we relate to tenants, and that sort of key relationship where tenants view social landlords as an organisation that's there to support them. I think that's really important, otherwise people are not going to engage. There are, sometimes, barriers to navigate a reporting process, that's basically putting some people at a disadvantage—if your first language is not English, for example, and there's nobody who speaks your language in the organisation. So, that's really important to provide those sorts of services. So, I think, sometimes, there are barriers that maybe landlords don't even think of, where they're not hearing these houses being reported, even though, as I said before, they still exist. 

For me, some of the barriers are we don't know our stock and we don't know our people who are living in the homes. I think that that has gone downhill quite rapidly over the past few years—before COVID, so I'm not going to blame COVID. But, actually, we're less interested in the humans who live in these homes. They are not just buildings; they are homes to people, and we don't know who is living in the homes.

I foster my grandson. They don't know that I foster my grandson. I've told somebody, but they haven't reported it up, so they don't know that there's a foster child in that home. Those sorts of things slip through the net, so they can't respond appropriately to needing to do that—that there's a looked-after child in the property—because they don't know about it, because it hasn't been updated. 

Linked to that as well, I think resourcing is going to be a huge issue, I'm sure. You've done the social housing supply recently. It's the same thing, to my mind. We're asking social landlords to do a lot right now. We need to resource them to be able to do that, otherwise they are going to have to, at a board level, and strategic level, make difficult decisions about meeting legal obligations versus moral, and these things. So, I think that has to be addressed. 

One thing I do think that will come up during the course of this inquiry is the speed at which they are now being asked to move, maybe, on damp and disrepair. The one thing I would say on that—and, yes, they've had a lot to do—just because we've got the new rule coming in now, doesn't mean we haven't known for four years that something like this was coming; the prep work should be under way.

So, in your view generally, are landlords taking tenants seriously? They're not—. How do I want to say it? They're taking their concerns seriously; they're not ignoring their responsibilities or just bogged down with other things. Are they trying? Are they really trying?

It has improved. I've spent a lot of time in the sector and there is a different attitude and emphasis that you will see around attempting to address these issues. I think there was an issue around complexity, around how you actually—. Yes, you're concerned, and you want to act upon it, but actually around how you manage that complexity, how you have the right systems and data, which we've talked about a lot today, in place to allow you to fulfill your ambition around this sort of stuff. So, yes, there's been a step change around what we want to do, but I think there's a little bit of catch-up work around actually getting the sort of nuts and bolts of how it can be delivered in place.

And for me, tenants are reporting that it is improving, but it needs much more work because it's not just you decide to change the processes or policies that you've got, it's actually the culture that needs to change, because we've got it wrong for so long that, actually, it's a whole organisational culture change, and for that to catch up is a bigger piece of work. Sorry.

I was just going to say, I think this is where Shelter Cymru's data can be useful, and we're happy to share that with the committee, with the Welsh Government, to show that we don't tend to see people come to us with damp and disrepair issues who are finding that the system works for them; they're coming to us because they need help navigating it, or because it's let them down. Where we are in a situation where we're getting thousands of cases of damp and disrepair in a year, clearly we've not yet got this right. Like, that's a good sign. Our data, I think, will be a good barometer of are we going far enough, alongside the other data we have, which does show progress. We're sort of the backstop of, 'Is there still a problem?'

Anything you can share with us, Robin, will be very gratefully received.

I will try and pull a usable version of our data from the last year.

Yes. Okay. Siân.

Are the landlords ready for this change? Partially. I think that there is work to do. The most important thing, to your point, is that it makes a difference for tenants, that we don't—as I think David has mentioned—just meet the target and miss the point. It's really important that there is a significant amount of complexity. If you think about all the repairs that can be reported in a home, when you think about all the vulnerabilities and health issues that may go along with the repair, and then combine the two to get a risk score, actually, that's a really complex bit of work. We need to make sure that the people who are receiving those calls in the first place are highly trained to be able to do that effectively. That's not an easy task. We need to make sure there's consistency in those risk assessment processes as well.

So, I think that, again, the ambition is great, and I really want this to drive results for tenants. But in order to deliver it well, there's some real thought around how it is applied consistently across the board, and I think, for me, that would be a concern at the moment around the practical implementation of this. Let's make a difference for tenants; let's not just hit the target that we've been asked to do.

And I think that's the danger of this at the moment. There are some very ambitious and good targets in this, but you become target driven, and I think that's the slight concern I have about this: trying to hit things and not necessarily treating the real reason. I've said that already, but I think that's probably—

So, what do you mean? Hitting the timescales, you mean.

Yes. It's no different to health: you get them in the system, and you've ticked it, rather than you've actually treated it. And I think there's a slight—. Some of the targets here are ambitious, and they're good, but I don't think it'll see the outcomes that everyone wants out of this. That's my concern.

And that's the report from tenants as well. They're more fearful of this, which surprises me as well, but, actually, it's those plastering over issues that are the biggest fear for them. Because the expectation is for them to have completed that work and ticked that box; is it going to be less decent work? So, it needs to be decent. And I think that there needs to be a lot more work going in and a lot more funding to make this doable for organisations.

Are you saying that because there are timescales that they need to hit now, that maybe the quality of the work won't be seen to be as effective?

Yes.

That's the way tenants—

That's the fear from tenants that I've spoken to, including tenants that have lived with disrepair for two years and things. The actual fear is that the same thing's going to happen that happened to them—somebody went in and did a fix, but it wasn't actually fixed, but they signed it off as fixed. But it's actually not fixed and the house is still suffering the same—. 

We needed to have something, though. We needed to have some sort of standards. It was right after Awaab Ishak, England had already gone ahead with their approach; we needed something. And I think we have got something here that's good, but it would be interesting to review this in a year or two to see where it's gone.

All I'd add to that is that, yes, I think there's a significant role for proactive regulation. We're going to get the data from the social landlords, they're going to report on how they are doing; their regulator and the regulatory system we have in Wales—and in Wales, obviously, that will go to the Cabinet Secretary—there's going to be a role for them to go out, whether it's spot-checking things, whatever it is, to make sure this is working for tenants. And that the—to put it in a horrible way—the user experience matches the data. Because, you know, where the anecdote doesn't match the data, you should probably follow the anecdote.

On the second part around whether social landlords are ready, I don't know. I'm sure that—. Like I've said before, they've got a lot to do at the minute. There's a housing emergency on so many different fronts. But I do come back to this point of, yes, the rule is just coming in on 1 April, it's not a huge run-in from the final publication to the implementation, but the coroner's report into the tragic death of Awaab Ishak is from November 2022. I think that's a good point to say that, from there to now, we knew something needed to change—and social landlords, many of them, will have started to change. But I think we need to factor that in when we're told, 'It's all moving very, very quickly.' Yes, this bit is, but we are coming up on four years between those two things. I think this is a reasonable expectation and we can't delay any further.

Okay. In terms of the standard itself, the new rule, are the definitions too wide or are they okay? And it is relatable to every category of danger or hazard, isn't it? So, is it too wide?

We ran some sessions with tenants on this. I think they were very keen for it all to be in there. There is an elephant in the room; the one missing is 'overcrowding'. Because it's hard to fix overcrowding. That's the one that's missing and there's good reason for that. But until we start solving overcrowding, we're not going to solve some of the other hazards, really.

So, the overcrowding isn't there because we haven't got the supply of social housing.

You can't fix it in five days, you can't fix it in 10 days. Yes.

Yes. There is not enough social housing to address overcrowding; it's as simple as that.

But I do think that what we therefore need to do is to make sure that whatever data is coming back captures where overcrowding is the problem. Because what that is is an opportunity. We already know overcrowding is a massive problem, but it never hurts to have an additional data point. If we can see that 20 per cent of damp and mould issues are not being resolved because of overcrowding, that is yet another thing telling us we need to find ways to reduce overcrowding and to deliver larger homes. So, I don't want to see overcrowding just omitted from the data returns because we didn't have to do anything about it.

But in terms of the breadth otherwise—apart from the overcrowding—you think it's okay to have a breadth of hazards in there, rather than focusing on some particular hazards.

It's absolutely right to have any hazard in the home included in this. Absolutely. I think that's really important that we do take that approach. I think my point is—. Going back to, 'We need to get this right', so we need to really prepare for the complexity around that. And it's very much around those people who are receiving those contacts, that they're equipped to do that and do that well. It's not an easy task to do that because there are numerous hazards and numerous repairs, as I've said before. So, I think that's really important, that we just sort of understand that complexity and make sure that's in place and we get that right from the off.

I agree: I think it's right to have the breadth. That also mirrors what they're going to be doing in England. I know they're phasing it in England, where they've started with damp and mould and then moving to other hazards. But, fundamentally, we don't want to end up in a situation where some hazards are considered differently across the border; I think that would be a mistake. So, good to see the breadth in there, I think.

I also think this is really complicated to get right. But a little bit of credit where it's due to the Welsh Government: they have, in that new rule, tried to start explaining what they mean by this 'certain level of hazard'. They've tried to put in a definition. We will always ask for more guidance, that's sort of what the sector does is ask for more guidance. But there's something in there, and I feel like that progressed from draft to final version. And we flagged it, so it makes it feel like there was a listening exercise. We are making gradual improvements. I don't think anyone expects that there won't be more improvements over time, as we start to learn how this works in practice.

And for me, we've spoken about the need for training for the people that are in, taking those calls. But, actually, we need to make sure that we're informing tenants of the change. Because if you ring and report something that, last year, wasn't classed as a hazard, and this year they're all emergency lights coming in and fixing something within 24 hours, when last year I was waiting three days, that needs to be really well communicated with tenants, so they know what to expect and what they should be able to expect as well. So, I think that that needs to be part of the implementation of this. Some work needs to be done to prepare the tenants as well as the organisations.

And is it going to help to hold social landlords to account, this new rule?

Yes. Yes, it will. Again, I think how this is assessed and the success of it shouldn't just be looked at how many compliant reports social landlords report upon. Actually, there needs to be a bit of a deeper dive on the impact of this. If there are some amendments around how it's delivered, then we can do that in the future. But it's not simply around a regulatory return to say that we addressed all hazards within the timescales, because that's not going to tell you exactly what's going on and how this has been implemented, and the success of it.

And I think that's important. Transparent data, which, hopefully, we will have, is only part of holding people to account. The next bit is the job for the regulator themselves to look at that data and try and identify what needs to be proactively done. And that's not just who's doing badly. If one association of a certain size is a complete anomaly in getting 100 per cent every single year, and everyone else is at 80 per cent, I'd be going to look at the 100 per cent, not the 80 per cent, to be like, 'Either you're brilliant or that data is dodgy.' And either way, I want to know.

And that goes back to the data-driven bit, I think. I've got mixed views on this, because some of these deadlines now are going to make it a dream for claims companies and stuff like that, which are sucking money out of the sector. They're not delivering a public service, I don't think, all the time, on that. That's another subject.

But, sorry, the other thing I want to say about this is, when we have these data, I don't think it's that transparent at the moment. Welsh Government collect it. It has got a certain amount of transparency, but I don't think the tenants are seeing that. I don't think they'll be able to hold people to account on this well enough. We're behind the curve compared to Scotland and things on social housing transparency. We're nowhere near what is happening in other places, and I think that's something. It's another subject, transparency, but I think we've got a long way to go on that before tenants can really use this.

Yes. I've heard that they want more transparency and accountability, and they want more power sharing with the organisation, so they can go in and review and sit in a situation like this and actually ask the questions that need asking and receive the answers. So, that's what I'm hearing from tenants, that they want more power sharing, transparency and accountability, and sharing that information with other organisations, and learning from people that are doing it well, but not being embarrassed to say, 'We got it wrong, but we want to get it right.' I think that that is a really important message from tenants.

If I might make a final point on holding to account—and I think this is always an issue in housing—is we also need to be careful not to make tenants— . They are not responsible for quality assurance. They are not responsible for holding everyone to account. They should be able to just live their lives in the home they've been provided. If they want to get involved in things, great, we should have routes for them to do that, but there should be an onus on landlords, on Governments, to be the regulator, to do the proactive investigation, so that tenants have an active choice to be involved in the process, and are not being forced into the process because nobody else is there to do it. I think it's not just in this. We see a lot of this in the housing system, where it falls to the tenant to be the person who raises complaints, chases it up, acts as quality assurance after work is done.

Which raises the point that we're not looking at, which is the role of the regulator, which is not what we're looking at really, but it's—

No, when we do come on to regulation—[Inaudible.]—keep that as a separate issue, Siân. Okay. Lee. Lee Waters.

So, just to extend that, and to focus on the practicality of the implementation, are we operationalising this in a way that's going to make a difference to tenants and in a way that is practically achievable by landlords? Because, as Robin White noted earlier, we are asking a lot of RSLs. We've just passed the Building Safety (Wales) Bill; that in itself poses significant obligations. So, I know some in the sector are asking for a phased approach, and Robin, fairly, pointed out there's already been a lag in delivery. I wonder what the panel think about phasing the series of things we're asking of RSLs, to make sure that we're setting them up to succeed.

My fear of phasing it is that this is not new. Damp and mould are very fundamental things. It's been a number of years now since—. And even just ITN and the media, exposing failings in housing generally—not just social housing, in the private rental sector—. We've been waiting for this for a long time. We've known that it's coming. We didn't know the exact detail, but we've got to get on with it and we've got to improve. I think it can be done and I don't see the benefit of delaying this much further.

To phase or not to phase, I guess, isn't, for me, the point. The point is to do this well and to make a difference to tenants, as I said before. I think, really, that the preparation is key here, but, more importantly, I think, the ongoing learning. So, if it comes in on 1 April, there will be organisations that maybe are doing it really well, and there will be organisations that maybe are struggling a little bit more with it, for various factors. I think that there's a piece here around really understanding what is working and what is working well, and that goes to systems and data and approaches and culture and all the other stuff that we've talked about today. Some organisations will be further ahead than others. So, then, there has to be an element of collaboration and understanding, and maybe an element of tolerance with the regulator around, 'Some organisations are struggling a little bit; can we learn from others who are doing a little bit better?' So, that's all I'd say on that.

On that—that's interesting—do you think there are effective mechanisms currently for spreading learning for adopt-or-justify approaches?

We held a session last week, a private session, with landlords, who are the people doing the implementation. There were about 35 of them there. We had a three-hour session, where we talked about how everyone's doing, different approaches, what the issues are, what the concerns are, and it was a very, very productive session. The feedback forms said they wanted to do this more, where they can just—. Community Housing Cymru—and there are other organisations—will be doing that as well, making sure we share best practice. That's part of our purpose as TPAS Cymru, to share best practice. There are sessions already. As I said, last week, we had a very good one, and we'll have follow-up ones to make sure people learn from each other.

But we know that sharing best practice isn't good enough, is it?

[Inaudible.]—data platforms, reporting. It went into a lot of detail, where people could talk honestly in a session and try and learn from each other—as in not just best practice. It's, 'What are my challenges? What's stopping me doing this?' Yes.

Great, but my question was about the mechanism. So, that's a meeting, where you share best practice, and that's a good thing. But that's not a mechanism for making sure that you spread best practice and you adopt or justify if you do not, is it? That's a different thing. So, can I repeat my question to the rest of the panel: do you think the mechanisms are in place to properly share and implement good practice?

[Inaudible.]—right now is the consistent application of it. Under what basis are we assessing risk? Are we doing it differently? Because some organisations now are going to go away and create their risk assessment tools. Whether that be a digital tool, whether that be something else, it will be different for different organisations. So, how are we consistently addressing hazards and risk assessing them? Because I think that's really important. And that's got to be a really strong risk assessment tool that is consistent. And at the moment, I'm concerned that that's not in place and therefore you'll have an inconsistent application of this issue.

How would you address that? What would you put in place?

Well, I think there's a job for the sector to come together, actually, and interpret this and actually work together to bring in a consistent risk assessment tool and a platform that we're all using, so we're all assessing risk in the same way. So, I think that's something on the sector to make some tracks on pretty quickly.

I just want to add to that that I think there isn't one currently in place, a mechanism for that, but I think there should be. I think that that should be designed with the sector, the regulator and tenants all within the same place, because tenant need, regulator need and organisational need are going to be very different, but if they can create one together then that's going to be fit for purpose for all, rather than just fit for the organisation, or for the tenant, or fit for the regulator—actually, to get them all in the same room. I think that I've noticed, on a personal opinion, that there is more willingness to share that information. Like David said, that session that he held, that, two years ago, wouldn't have happened, because landlords didn't want to share information. They were all very guarded. And I think that that is opening up and I think that this is an opportunity to actually create a space for those things to happen going forward, not just for this, but for other stuff as well. I think that's my—

I think they were driven by fear and the timescales to get together for that one.

Yes. And financially, just who's going for what funding and things like that—all of those, historically. I think there's a willingness to change on that, though.

Well, Chair, I think there were some helpful suggestions for us in recommendations there. Thank you. 

Okay, thank you, Lee. Yes, Robin.

If the landlords are asking for a phased approach, it suggests that they do not feel ready, and I think let's take them at their word. But then I don't think we should move to a phased approach. We just have to accept that the early data returns are going to show that we're not quite getting there. And that's not the worst thing. It’s bad, but I'd rather know that we're not there from the data coming back than phase the approach and still not get there. But I do—and I've said this already, so I apologise—I do think that if people are not ready, if organisations are not ready, then we should ask the question as to why at a strategic level—. This must have been on your risk assessments for the last minimum four years, presumably longer. There's a good question about why we are not ready at this point, because I don't think this result is a million miles from what you might have guessed we were going to get in 2022.

Okay, thank you very much. Thank you, Lee. And Joel James.

Thank you, Chair. Apologies to the people giving evidence that I can't be there; I'm a bit under the weather. I also must apologise—I didn't realise my camera was still off from the break we had, but I have been here listening to everything; I hope you can believe me on that.

I just want to thank you all for coming in. I’ve got two questions, if I can. Again, the audio is not the greatest for me, so apologies if it has been answered. One of the chaps mentioned about not wanting the onus to be on the tenants all the time and for social landlords be more proactive in terms of identification and working with the issues there. I just wanted to get an idea of that, because one of the issues that gets fed back to me when I when I speak to landlords, for example, is, especially where issues might develop in terms of dampness, black mould, they often say they're the last to know, and by then it's an issue that takes a lot more to remediate or remedy than if they'd been told before. So, the engagement’s not necessarily there from a tenant’s point of view. I know from my own personal experience, when, for example, my nan was in a social housing situation, she was involved with the tenants association there to link up with the landlords, and I know that she actively enjoyed that, actually. It was a way of being useful in her retirement, I think. I just want to get some ideas on that, really, because surely it's more of a partnership, rather than one has more responsibility than the other, if that makes sense. But that's just my view on that.

And then the other thing then—sorry—again, apologies if it has already been touched upon, but I’m keen to know what further action you would like to see from the Welsh Government to ensure that social homes are kept in good condition? Obviously, there's a lot of stuff coming up now from the Welsh Government, for example building safety and everything, and responsible persons in charge of that, and I just wanted to see what more you'd like to see from the Welsh Government, and if they're missing the boat on anything, really. Sorry, it's more of an all-encompassing question, that is, right at the end. Thank you, Chair.

Okay, Joel. Thank you. Who would like to start us off with a response then, please?

Given I talked about the onus on tenants—. This is something that I think I say a lot, actually, because I say it about the PRS as well, that we often push the onus onto the tenant. I see where you're coming from with the idea of partnership. I'm not sure I fully agree, because we're talking about rented properties. If I am the landlord, I am providing someone with a home, something that Shelter Cymru believes is a human right, so we're providing someone with something really important, and then we are taking rent for that—and social homes are rented, people pay their rent—the primary responsibility for ensuring that property is in a fit state to be let, to my mind, sits with the landlord.

Yes, we know that tenants have—. There's always going to be a role for tenants, because they are the people in the home every day, and, if things appear, the earlier that they are reported, the better they get fixed. But we can't rely only on that is my point. And landlords do go out and do stock surveys. I'm not saying they don't; they do go out and do that. But I think, where we've got significant issues with damp and disrepair coming through, we need to look at how we increase that. Is it about doing them differently? Is it about those informal opportunities, where, if it's a block of flats and someone's in there to replace stuff in the communal areas, can they also be having a look? So, I think that is really important.

On the Welsh Government side, I think there's quite a lot of interesting stuff the Welsh Government could do. A lot of this is going to come back to money, and there's not a lot of it, so I apologise for asking for more money. But you take an area where— particularly rural areas—you've got spread-out stock and it's difficult to do management, and you might have 10 in an area, someone else has got five, what role could do we think the Welsh Government could play in having its own service to support social landlords with investigations and repairs? Now, it might seem odd— because the Welsh Government doesn't own those properties, why should the Welsh Government be paying to go in and do the investigations? Well, because properties in a safe state that aren't in disrepair are good for everybody. They are good for health, and that saves money for the NHS. They help people thrive, and that's good for our economy and it's good for education.

I think, when we adopt, as we've spoken about in other sessions, an invest-to-save mentality on housing, it's not just about investing to build homes, it's recognising that social housing, whoever is the landlord, is a benefit to all of us, and therefore the Welsh Government can explore ways in which it can provide not just financial but on-the-ground support, I think, to social landlords and build a partnership model in areas. It won't work everywhere; it might not work at all. I'd consider it, though.

There is an onus on tenants to be on the front foot around knowing what's in their homes, okay. For me, that's really important. We are in people's homes at least once a year; we are talking to tenants all the time. We really need to be proactive around asking tenants the right questions when we speak to them, making sure that we're assessing homes when we're in those homes. It's not just the gas operative's job to fix the boiler or do the gas service; actually, it's their job to look around the home and check whether it's in a good state of repair and, if not, act upon it. It's the same for a neighbourhood officer, same for an income officer, same for anyone taking a call. So, I think, for me, the onus is on the organisation to really assess that, rather than the tenant to report it. Obviously, the tenants will report it.

On the Welsh Government thing, I think the world-leading ambition around all of this is really laudable and it's great to see. That always comes at a cost, and the implementability of that is sometimes challenging when you're trying to do all these great things across the board, and I think sometimes they put pressure on organisations, really, to deliver to the standard to which we're expected to do, so maybe some more thought around how these are actually delivered in tandem.

Can I just add, on the culture bit, that I think it's really important, the landlord culture? There's a south Wales landlord who had a claim, a legal claim. They went through, and five, six people had been in that property over the last year. And it was like, 'How did nobody spot or say about this?' And they actually started implementing—. It was actually a disciplinary if you hadn't reported things when you've been in that home. Whether they enforced it, you'd have to ask them, but the point was they started talking to staff going, 'You might be there for gas; you might be there for something else.' There's a fine line between that and snooping. Whilst you're there for the gas, 'Can I also go and look around your bedrooms?' 'Well, no, I thought you were just coming for the gas.' And there is an element of respecting tenant boundaries, especially when you've got maybe a male gas engineer, traditionally, versus somebody who's had domestic violence. But there's got to be an emphasis on the people who are going into those properties to also be stepping up on that. I think that goes back to that culture, respect, and understanding the customer you're going into. That might be someone who won't take gladly to, 'Can we have a look?', or, 'Is there anything you want to report?', or something like that at the same time. But also I think staff need to be better at feeding back what they're seeing and the condition of the stock.

And I think that needs to be a simple process, because, if a repairman goes in, how does he report that? Who does he report that to? If he's a gas engineer, then he's got a different supervisor from the repair people, from the damp and mould team, from—. Who does that go to?

They're probably external contractors.

Yes. And one of the things is that the culture isn't the same for external contractors. There's an expectation and there's an assumption that it is, but actually that's not the experience for tenants on the ground. When contractors are coming into their home, they're not getting the service they expect from their landlord, and they're not getting the service that they pay their rent for, because that's not who they pay their rent to to come into their home. On David's point, about there's an element of snooping and things like that, that comes back to the culture, but actually also that trust between landlord and tenant. I've got no issue with anyone in my landlord's organisation coming into my home, because I know them and I know who to go to to report things. But, actually, if you've had that honest conversation and built that design, like I said earlier, with tenants in mind, then that's the expectation when people come into your home.

I can show you a picture now that would disgust you. Twenty-one times different departments of the organisation went into a home that was suffering disrepair—and the picture would make you, honestly, disgusted—actually 21 times. Eventually, it took an external person to get involved and hold them accountable. Twenty-one times, and nobody knew what to do with that. Somebody saw a mouldy teddy and went, 'Oh, that's awful. What are you going to do?' 'What are you going do? You're my landlord. What am I going to do as a tenant?' They didn't know what to say, and they gave up reporting it. People shouldn't be living like that. I think that it's really important to have that culture change, but that trust between tenant and landlord really needs some work. They need money to help to do that. Money for involvement in different opportunities. There needs to be more money. That's my answer to you on what Welsh Government need to do. There needs to be more money to do that work.

Thank you, Emma. All content? Okay. All right, Joel? Yes. Okay, well, thank you all—[Interruption.] Sorry, Joel.

No worries, Chair.

Yes. Okay. Well, thank you all for coming in to give evidence to committee today. You will be sent a transcript to check for factual accuracy. Diolch yn fawr.

Okay. Committee will break briefly until 11.15 a.m.

We've reached item 4 on our agenda today, then, our third evidence session, with representatives from Community Housing Cymru, Cardiff Community Housing Association, North Wales Housing Association and Cardiff Council. Would you like to introduce yourselves, those who are with us in the room to begin with, and then we'll turn to those online? Starting with you, please, Hayley.

Hi, yes, I'm Hayley Eastment. I'm one of the policy leads at Community Housing Cymru, the representative body for housing associations in Wales.

Hi, everyone. I'm Clarissa Corbisiero. I'm the deputy chief executive of Community Housing Cymru.

Hi, everyone. My name's Andrew Bradley. I'm the property director for Cardiff Community Housing Association.

Thank you very much. And online, Claire.

I'm Claire Shiland. I'm the operations director at North Wales Housing.

Hi, I'm Naomii Thomas. I'm the operational manager for homes and neighbourhoods in Cardiff Council.

Okay. Well, thank you all very much for being with us to give evidence this morning. I'll begin, then, with a couple of initial questions before we bring in other members of the committee. Firstly, the extent of the problem in terms of disrepair: what do we know about the scale and nature of hazardous disrepair in social housing in Wales—the general sort of picture? Clarissa.

I'm happy to start, if that's okay, Chair.

Yes, please. Thank you. 

Thank you for the opportunity to give evidence today. As a representative of housing associations in Wales, I think it's such an important committee inquiry. Not-for-profit social landlords and housing associations across Wales would agree that their residents and their tenants have a right to a safe, warm and affordable home. They take this issue incredibly seriously. There is a huge amount of activity taking place locally—damp, mould, condensation policies, key performance indicators, data reporting up to the housing association boards. My housing association colleagues, I'm sure, will be able to expand on that. But also, scrutiny measures internally to be able to learn, adjust and improve, if and when individual cases go wrong, I think are a really important part of the picture here, and we shouldn't shy away from that.

At a national level, in terms of the scale and state of the issue, there is no one authoritative national data set, which I'm sure you've heard already this morning, but there are four national data sets that I thought would be helpful to point the committee towards. The first is the data on WHQS compliance in its first year. As this committee will be aware, WHQS 2.0 is a new, broad and extensive standard. In its first year of operation, social landlords achieved 70 per cent compliance, if you take into account temporary fails and conditional passes. So, they're things where there might be planned work or heritage issues or those kinds of things that prevent a pass on that particular element.

I think it's also worth saying, in the context of that 70 per cent, that the WHQS is a pass-or-fail-type system. So, for example, we're having some feedback already from Government that some of the areas that actually stopped that number being higher are things like lockable storage. So, the bar is pretty high on that. So, for its first year, we think it demonstrates a commitment to invest and to achieve what is an incredibly broad and detailed standard.

The second data set I'd point the committee towards is the regulatory survey, which is published quarterly. What it's showing is consistently high levels of compliance around safety measures. So, we're seeing gas servicing at 99.8 per cent; fire at 98 per cent; asbestos at 99.9 per cent. We're not complacent about any of that; it takes continued investment and attention. But emergency repairs are 97 per cent within target as well.

The third area that at a national level we have data on is the 2025 tenant satisfaction survey. I am, of course, aware that there are various surveys that are published. I know TPAS Cymru have recently put out a pulse survey that provides some interesting data on satisfaction. But in the 2025 tenant satisfaction survey, which is the one that is reported to the Welsh Government, tenants were reporting overall satisfaction rates of 77 per cent, quality at 77 per cent and approach to repairs at 71 per cent. And, importantly, 83 per cent of those responding felt that their homes were safe and secure. That's not to say that, in any way, the sector is complacent about these issues, and there is a huge amount of work still to do.

The final data set before I pass on to, perhaps, local housing associations and social landlords to provide some more in-depth information about how they approach this locally, is around the levels of investment. So, we have old, thermally inefficient stock in Wales. Between 25 per cent and 32 per cent of our homes in Wales were built before 1919. Cyclical investment is a continuum. We will always be investing in our stock, but we have seen investment increase by 37 per cent in the latest global account data that CHC and the Welsh Government publish. That equates to around £1,800 per property. The sector values this. They know they need to invest and they continue to invest at scale. We recognise the data is incomplete nationally and that there are things in the pipeline, including the new rule that we will be discussing today, but also the housing conditions data that will help us build that picture.

Okay. Thank you, Clarissa. Is there anything that any of our other witnesses would like to add to that picture that Clarissa has provided for us? Online? [Interruption.] Yes, please. Claire. [Interruption.] 

Yes. Sorry. Go on, Claire.

Okay. Thank you. I suppose, just to add to what Clarissa said, practically, there are a number of things that we have put in place across the sector over recent years to respond to some of the concerns around social housing conditions and hazardous and damp and mould conditions. They include more robust checks in terms of our stock condition surveys, to ensure that we've got an accurate picture of condition across our stock, and many landlords do those independently, as well as internally, to give that additional layer of assurance. We're recording our damp and mould inspections, completed works, works identified and completed within our targets and, as Clarissa said, we report those as part of our quarterly return to Welsh Government, and many of us also report those internally to our committees and boards. So, there is a more strategic oversight in terms of the conditions that we're seeing.

What I would say, in terms of the scale of the problem, obviously we have seen in recent years increasing numbers of disrepair claims and cases within the social housing sector. I know I can speak on behalf of my organisation that that does seem to have levelled off somewhat in the last 12 months. We've not seen a continuation spike in those cases, which I think is really positive, and we know, from those cases, whilst we have seen that increase and we are still seeing a lower number of cases reported, that doesn't always result in an outcome where there have been hazardous conditions within the home. Quite often, those cases are disputed, for whatever reason. I think, ultimately, the message from the sector over recent years to our residents has very much been, 'Let us know if there are any concerns or problems, because we're best placed to respond quickly when we know about them.' I think that's going to be a continuation, as we move into the new framework with WHQS and the new rule. It's very much focused on how we communicate well with our residents.

Okay. Thank you, Claire. Naomii, did you want to add anything?

Yes. I suppose it's subsequent, really, to what Claire said around stock condition surveys. I'm not sure whether others will agree with this, so we've started doing our stock condition surveys in line with the new Welsh quality standard, and subsequently we've had the addendum, and I think one of the issues—. And, again, following on from what's been said in terms of more nationally, we're in a position now where we're finding we have to make sure that the survey data is aligning with the addendum, so in terms of 'hazardous', what are hazardous risks with imminent harm and not imminent harm. Again, the data is still there, being refined in terms of the level of hazards inside our properties. So, we find we've still got a bit of work to do there to make sure that that data is reflective in trying to get a national level for consistency and reporting. So, that's still a bit of an issue for us, and we're working with our surveyors to ensure that we can we can align that.

We've carried out, as per February, 6,242 surveys, and we're still finding that the most complex and the most common hazard is damp and mould. I think, in terms of changes after the really tragic case that we're all very aware of in Rochdale, there was an increase in reporting of damp and mould. I think trying to contend with that—. In terms of my organisation, we've responded very well to that and we were able to get on top of it, but that was alongside the backlash from COVID as well. So, lots of us had lots of repairs that we were trying to get on top of. So, in terms of Cardiff Council, we responded quite well to that, and I think, generally, we're still seeing lots and lots of people reporting damp and mould, so it seems like there's more awareness amongst our tenants. So, that is a positive thing, I think, really, because more reporting—you know, it didn't magically appear. So, we're seeing more reporting from our tenants, which we absolutely welcome, to reflect what Claire said: if there's a problem, get in touch. So, yes, that's generally what I wanted to say. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Does anybody want to add anything to what Naomii said in terms of recent changes in the types of disrepair reported or the frequency of reporting? Yes, Clarissa.

Thank you, Chair. I think I would agree with Naomii that we are seeing generally an increase in visibility of these issues. That's a good thing. Certainly at CHC, we have been working with our members, the ombudsman for Wales, TPAS Cymru and others to try and make sure that tenants are aware of where they can go with issues when they occur in their property, and encourage them to speak to their landlord about their routes for escalation if things don't go right. So, there's, rightly, better awareness, I think, and that has, our members tell us, resulted in an increase in reporting. But I think we do have to recognise that these are not new issues. We have structural challenges around the type of housing stock that we have in Wales, and so some of them will always require active maintenance and active investment, and that is something that housing associations and social landlords have been doing for some time and will continue to do.

I think the thing, perhaps, that has changed in the last few years, and that has made an enormous difference to individuals and families, is that we've been living through a period of incredible cost increases, particularly around energy costs for tenants. We certainly don't want anybody to be in a position where they're having to make awful choices about whether to turn the heating on or not, but it is relevant to the conversation that we're having here today, and we've seen massive increases in fuel poverty. We publish a cost-of-living report periodically, and our members increased the amount of hardship funds, so from 69 per cent of our members providing them in 2001 to 95 per cent of our members in 2023-24. Thousands of tenants are receiving energy advice, accessing those hardship funds, but also working with housing association teams around income maximisation, and sadly reaching the end of that journey where there is simply no more income to be maximised and there is still a gap. So, in terms of what has changed, I think that is a really important factor that has impacted on tenants, families and housing associations in terms of the support they provide and the impact on the physical quality of the stock.

Okay, Clarissa, thank you very much. We'll turn to Peter Fox, then.

Thank you, Chair. Good morning. We've heard quite a lot already about some of the proactive things you're doing to address some of the situation, but I just wondered if you could talk a little further about how the sector has responded to some of those tragic events that we've heard of and Naomii referenced there. What lessons has the sector learnt from those terrible events?

I promise I won't talk all the way through. I know this is not a place for hyperbole, but the two events that you referenced absolutely sent shockwaves through the sector. Those lessons around tenant communication, culture, respect, the golden thread of information around tenant health and safety and proactivity I think have been heard by the sector and there is work taking place across the sector since those two terrible incidents.

In terms of Grenfell, fire safety reviews are widespread after that terrible tragedy and certainly the inquiry. Risk assessments are looking again at processes and record keeping. We've tried to provide support within CHC to bring the sector together, to learn lessons, to challenge each other and to share, as well as producing tools and support and briefings to help that. And, of course, we're supporting the Building Safety (Wales) Bill that's finishing its route through the Senedd currently. In response to the Awaab Ishak tragedy, there are sector-wide reassessments of the way that these issues are dealt with, are managed, and the culture that sits around them. Training—I think Naomii and Claire both talked earlier about processes, KPIs, assurance and reporting internally, so a spotlight on this, making sure that issues are being dealt with and being dealt with more quickly. And I think that the report and the inquiry strengthened policies, with quicker response times that our members are talking to us about. For us at CHC as the membership body for housing associations, we've tried to provide space through communities of practice, through our conferences and through our member communities, where we bring our members together to learn, to challenge and to reflect and share practice, but also producing resources, information, insight and briefings. We've certainly tried to look across the border as well so that we can learn the lessons from what has gone before, particularly in England, but also in Scotland.

Thank you. Andrew, is there anything you want to add to that?

I'll pick up on the damp and mould. I'll just give you an example, obviously, from the tragic death in 2020. As CCHA, a landlord with 3,100 properties in the 7-mile radius of Cardiff, we've done a considerable amount of work with tenants in regard to co-producing policies and procedures in regard to damp and mould. In particular, in I think it was March 2024, Cardiff Met, with CCHA and Taff Housing, did two large workshops where there were diverse tenants involved, quite a considerable amount of tenants, and that did help us in regard to co-producing those policies and procedures.

We're in a position in CCHA now where we have got very prescriptive procedures and policies of how we deal with damp. We follow the same rules as Awaab's legislation in regard to also looking at the vulnerabilities as well. I'm just saying that CCHA have done a considerable amount of work. We're in a position now where we can press a button on our systems, identify how many damp cases we've got and produce that performance in regard to how long it took us to survey and how long it took to remedy the issues.

I think Naomii—

Yes, Naomii.

I suppose I'm just reflecting, really, what's just been said. I think it's really important to note that—I don't know how to say this in a way that shows how much I mean it—it's really, really sad, I guess, that it took for this to happen for sectors to react. It's been said that this is a long-standing issue, but I think what can be noted is, definitely, the response has been really positive in terms of the action that the landlords are taking. Like I said, it's just a real shame that it's taken this event to make that happen.

In terms of Cardiff Council, our initial approach to that tragic event with Awaab Ishak is we created specialist teams to solely deal with damp and mould and more complex cases, which I think follow a similar line, where you have complex cases with lots and lots of work involved, or particularly vulnerable people. You can have that same level of challenge to get that work done through to completion.

We've applied a case management approach, where we have case officers who actually deal with the damp and mould, we red-amber-green rate the damp and mould with specific matrices. That includes the vulnerability of the residents, and that's been updated around the guidance from the housing health and safety rating system. We've trained all of our technical managers, anybody who does damp inspections, to be qualified practitioners of HHSRS.

And we've improved, because positively—although sometimes very challenging for the organisation—we’ve seen, certainly from Cardiff Council, a massive increase in the response from the ombudsman around this sort of thing, and we’ve learned a lot from ombudsman input. So, we do welcome that; like I said, it’s often challenging to try to get all this information, but it certainly does show you the flaws in the systems, and the procedures, and the approach that you have as an organisation.

Like I said, we’ve upgraded our damp processes, and we’ve found our team to be so successful that we’re actually increasing it. We still do have disrepair cases, so we want to deal with the disrepair cases the same as the complex cases, to make sure we’re following everything we need to be doing from a legal point of view, because that can be very challenging as well. And it is very much around inadequate systems, so at the moment, we're looking for a new system, where all the different information comes together, and we’re able to—like what was said previously—click a button and get that information.

We do record and report on damp and mould far more eloquently than we’ve ever done before, which is really, really useful information. And you can easily see, like we said, how long it’s taken us to do an inspection, how long it’s taken us to get the works done, and whether that’s the sort of—. We red‑amber‑green based on the circumstances—the person’s circumstances, as well as the property's circumstances—and it is really, really fantastic to see. And it’s something that I think Cardiff Council are particularly proud of. However, like I said, it’s more than a shame that it’s taken this for us to respond in the way that we have.

Thank you, Naomii. I’ll wrap a couple of questions into one here. I suppose it’d be good for us to try and get to understand what the main challenges are for social landlords in responding to disrepair. And perhaps you could give us some insight into how you can proactively identify possible cases, and perhaps how that factors into your day‑to‑day asset management.

Just one second, because Claire had just indicated previously—

Oh, sorry, Claire.

That’s okay, Peter. Claire, do you want to come in at this point?

Yes, no problem. I hope I can wrap my answer up into that question as well. I think one of the things we’ve tried to do is shift most of that proactivity and recognise problems early. We’ve added different resources across the organisation to help us do that. We’ve increased our neighbourhood team so we can do more of what we call keeping‑in‑touch and well-being visits. We’re going to see people in their homes—not responding to issues, being more proactive about the way we do that, so we can talk about how we’re meeting people’s needs, identify any problems, and having a look around the home and recording any repairs that are required. That’s been really positive in terms of broader developing trusting relationships with residents.

It has had consequences in terms of we’ve identified repairs that we didn’t know that we had, so it’s had a resource knock‑on impact, but we’d much rather know about things, rather than have hidden repairs in homes. So, that’s been really positive. We’ve introduced new caretaker roles across the organisation, so they’re helping us to do works in homes related to damp and mould—things like gutter works, et cetera—but it’s also more eyes-on when we’re in communal areas. It contributes to our safer homes priority.

We’ve talked about stock condition surveys. We’ve increased the number of surveyors that we’ve got, improved our proportion of stock condition surveys within five years now to 94 per cent. We’ve introduced follow‑on visits, so where we do have reported concerns around damp and mould, we might be either doing remedial works or offering advice. We do a follow‑on contact visit with that resident just to see how things are going—if the anticipated improvements are working, or if anything else is required.

And we’ve done all sorts of work around communications as well, for getting ready for winter, information packs, money‑saving advice, things like that. So, it is very much recognise a problem early, rather than wait to respond when it’s potentially too difficult, too late, or causing catastrophic impact. So, that’s very much our approach. In terms of challenges, I think it's fair to say that resource challenge can be a consideration, especially when specialist works are required outside of our internal workforce. For example, we do utilise specialist damp and mould assessors to ensure that we undertake the inspections and assessments to a correct and high standard. And it also has that layer of independence, but sometimes that can extend time frames.

But for us, we really do value that independence and specialism. We are increasingly finding that sometimes our residents—and this isn't across the board—aren't always willing to let us into their homes to investigate and to take repair or improvement work to homes, and this is an ongoing challenge that we're working within the legal framework to progress cases. But it can sometimes lead to added resource and then delays to undertake works if we're not able to access homes in the way that we would like to. So, I think that that is a challenge for us at the moment in terms of how we respond. Hopefully that answers your question.

Thank you.

Hayley, I think you were also going to feed in there.

Just to expand on some of the points that Claire made around the challenges for responding to disrepair cases, some of these cases are incredibly complex and require a range of different investigations and also repair attempts before the underlying cause of damp and mould can be fully addressed. That can take time; it requires access to the property, and Claire has highlighted some of the issues around that.

We've also seen, in recent years, an increase in claim farm activity, who are encouraging tenants to pursue claims, and then part of that process is requiring them to not allow access to the property to undertake that work, which adds an extra layer. The type and age of property is difficult, particularly for pre-1920s properties, where some of the remediation work can be complex.

I just want to highlight the more proactive measures that are taking place across the sector as well. Over recent years, there's been lots of successful attempts to refine damp and mould processes, but, as you've heard from some of the evidence so far, that is then being reviewed and refined over time as well. In terms of the support that we provide at CHC to assist with that, we bring together members on a quarterly basis to share what they've been doing internally to improve their processes, and there's lots of work that's taking place through stock condition surveys, importantly encouraging tenants to report all instances of hazards and damp and mould.

But we've also seen an increase in the use of diagnostic tools as well—so remote monitoring tools—to identify when there has been humidity within the property, to take a more proactive approach. Ultimately, tenants reporting any concerns with their home is the main route to really get to an understanding of issues, and we are working hard to respond in a timely manner and to keep tenants informed throughout that process.

I think Naomii wanted to come back in as well.

I just wanted to, as did the other two, reinforce the issues that we have with access to properties. We have improved on that over—. I think we're better than we were in 2018—our percentage of access has increased. But you're talking about a few per cent. What I don't have is the information, again, in terms of what was said before around disrepair. I know that would be significantly higher on different disrepair cases in terms of access.

I just think it's important to note that we do have our cyclical maintenance schemes as well, which are there to keep our properties as up to date as possible in terms of roofing, ventilation, windows, according to the new Welsh quality standard, ensuring that those drying facilities are in the homes. From a Cardiff Council perspective, we've enhanced our void inspections, and, yes, new technology in terms of detecting that damp and mould as well.

I think everybody has come to a point where those things, certainly around the new technology, are being embraced more than, probably, they've been before. I just think it's important to note that there are a lot of cyclical upgrades that we do to our properties to ensure that they're kept up to date and as energy efficient and safe and sound as possible.

Okay, Naomii. Okay, Peter?

Thank you. Yes.

Siân Gwenllian.

I'm happy to start. All social landlords already have to comply with the Renting Homes (Wales) Act 2016, the Homes (Fitness for Human Habitation) Act 2018, and ensure that they're responding to reports of repairs. They'll also have their own internal process for what those timescales look like for them as a business. What the new requirement sets out are the timescales that landlords will have to follow across the board. So, it creates that consistency in responses, which creates transparency for tenants. And we have been fully supportive of the principle of that new requirement. We have expressed concerns with the phasing and the lead-in time that we've had to prepare for that. Although we feel quite confident as a sector that we can respond to those timescales, particularly around damp and mould, the new requirement from 1 April applies to 28 of 29 hazards. And it is an ambitious approach. You will see from across the border in England, they have deliberately taken a more phased approach, where initially that would only apply to damp and mould, with further hazards introduced after one year and all hazards after two years. We, as a sector, are busy preparing for that and are fully committed to complying, but it does require a change to systems, processes, and we've had just over three months' warning ahead of that. So, it is a challenge, but we are fully committed to it.

Okay. Firstly, I'd like to pick up with regard to how we undertake repairs. We've got targets. It's triaged by our customer call centre, who are technically trained with regard to identifying hazards and diagnosing repairs. So, we've got emergencies, which is within 24 hours; urgent, which is seven days; and then we've got routine repairs, which are four to six weeks. In CCHA, we have approximately 1,000 emergencies on an annual basis, which probably represents around 13 per cent of the total of around 7,000 or 8,000 repairs. So, by default, you could almost say that they are—. Because it's an emergency, they're classed as 'significant harm'. So, we get out, undertake those works and, on average, we will complete all of our emergency repairs within seven hours.

What we do differently with regard to your question is that, when we do have a diagnosis with regard to damp or mould, that gets brought out of the repair-type system and is addressed with a surveyor. So, the surveyor will then—. The call centre will look at if there are vulnerabilities, and if they recognise that there is significant harm, we'll even get out there in one day. But we have said that we will survey the property within 10 days and then remedy the work within five days. So, what I'm trying to say is that because damp and mould takes a lot of diagnosis in regard to these quite complex matters—it could be a heating issue, a ventilation issue; I mean 25 per cent of them in Cardiff are nineteenth century, old houses—it does take quite a lot of work, so we do separate that damp and mould out. So, to answer your question in regard to the damp and mould, yes, we're certainly ready, because we've been doing it for three years.

We obviously report it to the Welsh Government on a quarterly basis in regard to our damp and mould cases. So, yes, we're certainly ready, as of 1 April, because we're doing it anyway. In regard to other identification of hazards, like I said, we've got 1,000 emergencies. We are undertaking the work within 24 hours. We are getting those hazards done. The only difference is that we're probably not identifying it, labelling it up as a HHSRS sort of hazard, but the timelines, we are achieving those to complete those hazards. So, that's what the only difference is. We haven't labelled up other hazards, and also we haven't needed to identify whether it was significant risk or whether it was significant risk with imminent harm. So, potentially, for 1 April, you'd have to have nearly 1,000 emergencies and look at what hazards they were. It would take a lot of resource to look at the systems to try and get that undertaken. That's all. Like it did with damp and mould; it took us quite a while to get into the process of identifying damp and mould.

Okay, Siân.

I think Clarissa—

Could I just add—? I think what you've heard from the landlords in this—. Sorry, I'm getting an echo. I think what you've heard from the landlords in this session is that this isn't a sector that's been sitting on its hands. A huge amount of work has been undertaken and is ongoing. We are weeks away from the implementation of this new addendum, and we are still receiving advice, clarifications and changes to how it's going to work in practice, and I think Andrew set it out really well, which is that we want this to work—it's really important—but actually the detail of how you package up the systems and the processes is the thing that's causing a challenge, not for damp and mould, but for the other hazards. And we're pleased that the Welsh Government is taking a slightly more pragmatic approach around data reporting, but we only got clarification around that yesterday. So, it's all quite late in the day in terms of getting your systems in a space where you're going to be able to report in the particular way that Welsh Government require with confidence. That's different from, 'Is the work being undertaken?', I think.

Maybe Cardiff—

Yes, Naomii or Claire, would you like to give us your thoughts?

Yes, I'm happy to come in, Chair, thank you. Our approach isn't dissimilar to what Andrew's described at CCHA in terms of our existing repairs and damp and mould approaches and what we're doing to prepare, but exactly like Clarissa said, our biggest challenge is what we need to report and how we're going to be able to do that from April, because we haven't had that detailed clarity. But we've got things we can do, and we're already reporting on damp and mould; it's just a slightly different approach to combine all the hazards.

I think one thing in terms of our preparing that we have been looking at is the new requirement around communication and transparency with the new amendment, which is really positive. I think we recognise that when things do go wrong, more often, communication is one of the reasons for residents feeling dissatisfied, so our goal is very much to ensure that people are informed and that we can help meet their expectations. So, across north Wales, the north Wales landlords—ourselves, Adra, Grŵp Cynefin, ClwydAlyn, and Cartrefi—have come together to collaborate on an engaging piece of communication for our tenants around the new rule. So, this work aims to improve the housing awareness reporting, support transparency on the new response times, be consistent and strengthen our residents and tenants' confidence in us.

Ultimately, we want people to feel safe raising concerns, confident that we've got the best response for them, and being sure that their homes are safe. So, for us, moving away from the compliance framework and what we're going to report, actually, we're seeing the communication requirement as an opportunity to really build that relationship and trust with our residents. And being able to do that across north Wales as one piece, I think, is a real positive. 

Thank you. And Naomii.

So, I guess I think it's important to note that we were all prepared for the incoming damp and mould, and potential reporting and everything else. So, I think, as a sector, like I said, damp and mould, it is fine. I think the late-in-the day part came for the other hazards. Now, we'd all changed the way that we approached damp and mould, so, actually, it wasn't so much of a transition to be able to meet the addendum. But, for other hazards, often they're simple repairs. So, if somebody's got an electrical fault, often that can mean imminent harm, and we would go out and respond to that within 24 hours and do that work.

In terms of Cardiff Council, our current repairs system doesn't allow us to easily identify which individual cases we haven't responded to in order to get a summary plan out in that time. So, I think, although it's absolutely positive, like Claire said—and I think we all want to work in this way—to get there is going to take a little bit longer, and a phased approach in terms of the other hazards would be welcomed, although I appreciate that's not on the table at the moment. So, we are preparing for this in Cardiff Council by trying to look at our repairs and identify which would come in which category, to ensure that we do respond within the timescales. And we're pretty confident that we will be able to do that by April, and then we'll be able to report on that. 

I think, like I said, the challenge with us comes with the summary plans, because we're not equipped to do that with the systems that we've got. And, in terms of the numbers, like we said, in the year to date—and I think I produced this report in February—we had 6,844 emergencies, 30,834 urgent that could potentially require summary plans. That is the issue for us, I think. We're absolutely getting a change in our response timescales, to ensure that we get there in time. So, at the moment, we're looking for a five-day response, rather than 10-day response, so it actually gives us that bit of flexibility if we do fall short, that we've got some room there to be able to still meet the standard. So, we are trying to actually improve on the timescales that have been given in the addendum, which I just think reflects and shows how seriously and how valuable we think that this is. 

But, like I said, summary plans are the challenge for us at the moment. 

Okay, Naomii. Siân. 

Is the problem a lack of clarity around the reporting requirements, or is the problem the lack of clarity in the actual guidance?

So, we've had clarity on the reporting requirements now. The initial proposed data requirements were concerning. They were asking for a huge of amount of data on each report, which would have been extremely difficult to give. We know that the Welsh Government are now planning to collect more high-level indicators of compliance, which we'll able to report against.

I think the main concern is around the guidance that's available. So, the addendum is a two-page summary of the requirements. We've seen much more substantial guidance prepared and issued in England. And whilst, as a sector, we feel fully prepared in response to damp and mould, the lack of guidance around how to respond to hazards and then undertaking those health assessments for each of those hazards reports is a gap in guidance, and that would have been welcomed.

And is there a feeling that it should have been more, like in England, concentrated on the damp and mould, and, as you say, phase in the other hazards, I suppose? Is that what you're all saying?

That's certainly the feedback that we've received and that we've provided Welsh Government, that that phased implementation approach, that test-and-learn approach as well, to refine and amend systems, would have been preferred.

But I suppose, from the tenant's point of view, having a broader scope and a requirement for the timescales to be quickened is better for the tenants.

Absolutely. One of the main drivers for this new role was to create consistency across the sector, and actually providing more guidance in how landlords should interpret that and more of a steer can only help, really, in providing that consistency.

Okay, thank you. Diolch.

Diolch yn fawr. Okay. Lee Waters.

You've covered quite a bit of the area that I was going to focus on, but just picking up that last point about the need for more guidance—. Because I'm slightly confused by the weight of the evidence we're getting. It's, essentially, 'We've been doing this stuff for years anyway. We're good social landlords. So, you're not really asking us to do anything we don't want to do anyway' on the one hand, but also then saying, 'The bureaucratic reporting requirements are both late in the day and are going to be burdensome and will take time, and we're anxious that we're going to be able to do all of that in time.' But also we just heard then, 'We require more guidance for consistency.' So, I'm a bit confused as to what the overall message is. Perhaps somebody could help me out.

Clarissa, would you like to attempt that?

Yes, I can attempt. I think what we're trying to draw a distinction between is the work that is taking place anyway—. So, regardless of when the reporting takes place, housing associations are not going to stop responding to service reports that are flagged to them. That work will, of course, continue. But, as Hayley just said—and I'm sure Hayley will provide some more detail on this—the purpose of the addendum is to provide consistency at a national level and greater assurance nationally about the nature of the work that's taking place. And I think I said in my opening comments that we don't currently have that. We think that that's a helpful assurance tool. But I think our concerns are that the late-in-the-day nature—and, as I said, we got formal clarification only this week about a shift in the way that the data was going to be required to be reported—plus the extension to all of the hazards, does raise questions about how much confidence we can have in the early phases around that, because we're adapting. The systems are not set up to report in that way. They're all set up in slightly different ways. So, I recognise it's a kind of in-the-weeds and a kind of practical-type concern, but it's a concern about how much confidence can we have in those early phases of data. Hayley talked about a test-and-learn approach that is taking place in England, which has allowed them to learn from each other, to make sure that the data that is released we do all collectively have confidence in and it meets that policy aim, which is about having a consistent national picture. Hayley, do you want to add anything I've missed?

Yes, I just wanted to touch on what specific guidance might be helpful. So, particularly around examples of when a landlord should assess a hazard as 'significant' versus 'imminent and significant' risk, some examples would have been helpful across all hazards. We've also seen in England that there has been guidance produced on damp and mould in terms of what health assessments should be undertaken and what health conditions make a hazard more prevalent. That's been a really helpful resource, which we can pull on here in Wales as well. We don't have that similar level of guidance available for the other range of hazards. And that triage stage is really important. The addendum requires that landlords are proactively considering the health and vulnerabilities within homes, but front-line staff are not medical professionals, and any guidance that's available to help them with that assessment would be very helpful.

Okay. And Naomii. Naomii.

Hi. Yes. I was going to say exactly what's just been said. But, yes, there's also an issue around—which, personally, I think is a big one—what is within the landlord's control, so what is within and not within the landlord's control. So, some of these—. The addendum doesn't apply to something that is outside of the landlord's control, but there is no guidance around that. So, there is a real concern around the differences and what a landlord is going to believe is within and not within their control and therefore doesn't fall under the addendum, which, in my opinion, is perhaps a major flaw. And I'll give you an example of this. So, we did meet with Welsh Government around responding to hazards—and we do have a follow-up meeting—and one of the questions we asked was, 'If a tenant doesn't provide access, is that within your control?' In my personal opinion, and, perhaps, although we haven't made an official decision on this, the opinion of my organisation, that would be outside of our control. However, since then, the Welsh Government have come back and said, 'No, absolutely, you still have to follow the addendum, even if access is not provided.' So, there's just a bit of confusion, and, although they are individual words, they have a really big impact on the way you apply this addendum. So, for consistency purposes, yes, we all have reached out asking for further guidance and, unfortunately, that hasn't been given.

So—and this goes back to a discussion we had with the previous panel—TPAS were saying they'd just held a workshop to, quote, 'share good practice', which then raises the question of what is the sector doing to make sure it spreads and scales effective practice and helps each other figure out where the ambiguities are, but also challenges each other to pull up the laggards. Because the data already on the range of satisfaction in different RSLs is quite broad and no doubt there'll be individual reasons in each of those cases. But is the sector doing enough to both promote good working, but also challenge poor working? Rather than looking to the Welsh Government all the time, you have a role here.

Yes. So, I guess the information to clarify, the clarification, from the Welsh Government came back on—

Yes, sure; I'm not asking about that.

Yes, but what I'm saying is, since then, I think that's where the decision lies: 'Right, okay, we need to go away and have conversations between our own organisations', that that's where we need to go. 

But that's a slightly separate issue to the broader point I'm making.

Okay.

Maybe this is one for CHC.

I think you're absolutely right: of course, certainly CHC has got a role, and we try not to, as a rule, ask the Welsh Government for lots of detailed advice. As independent organisations, housing associations should be able to take informed decisions in their professional opinions. But I would just go back to the purpose of the addendum, which is around consistency and confidence in the data that we have. So, that is why, on this specific occasion, we are saying, 'Actually, we're not sure you've gone far enough, and there are specific issues that we think need to be dealt with.'

But on your substantive point about what should you do—what should we do—I agree, and we have been trying very hard over the last few years to work with our members to provide space for members to come together to share good practice, but, more importantly, to be honest, things that they're finding difficult. How do we do that? We do that through the quarterly communities of practice that Hayley runs; we've got a very, very active housing management WhatsApp group where people are sharing day-to-day issues that are coming up; our conferences—we're bringing in speakers from outside of the sector and from across the UK, to challenge the sector and to share—and our regular member communities. So, yes, we are trying to play our part. There will be more that we can do, I think, when this addendum comes in.

How much rigour is behind that? Because some of that sounds almost incidental. Holding conferences, for example, that's not really systematising the take-up of effective practice or helping each other resolve ambiguities, is it?

I think there are two things. There's using the platforms we already have to mainstream the discussion about this, so, using our conference platforms to be able to make sure that, where you’ve got the sector and the sector’s leadership in the room, we’re talking about damp, mould, disrepair, culture change. We had a governance conference earlier this week where we certainly had a good conversation about culture change. However, you’re absolutely right that there’s more specific work that we’ve been doing as well, and I would point to the communities of practice that meet quarterly on this particular issue, which is a new thing over the last few years, which is in addition to, as you say, the incidental work that we would just be doing day in, day out. But mainstreaming this discussion I think is valuable and important in addition to that.

In the communities of practice—I think that’s a really good initiative—how do you make sure that there is—? Because that’s a conversation where we share, isn’t it, and we say, ‘We’re having this problem’ and so on. There’s no rigour to that necessarily, so how do you put a bit more grit into that process?

As part of that, we’re definitely using that as an opportunity, and increasingly as well to highlight where we have seen more proactive and more ambitious approaches taken by certain landlords in responding—quicker timescales and taking a more proactive approach. I think I’d also add to that that we’ve been working really closely with other housing stakeholders as well who have been working with the sector to provide challenge on their approaches—so, bringing in TPAS Cymru to give some steer on what they would see as effective tenant engagement and the learnings from that; also engaging with Tai Pawb to talk through the approaches to cultural awareness and vulnerabilities as well. So, we’re not undertaking that work in isolation and just drawing on landlords’ experience—we’re bringing in challenge and good practice learning as part of that as well.

Where you see poor performance, how are you challenging that? Because I guess part of the weakness of that approach you describe is it requires an RSL to acknowledge that they are not performing as well as they should and to be willing to do something about it. And I guess the nature of these things is that laggards tend not to be so alert to that.

I guess there are two things. Of course, CHC as a membership body has engagement bilaterally with organisations if there are challenges and issues; of course, we absolutely do. But there's also—. I would reflect on the experience that the sector has had on ending evictions into homelessness as an example of, actually, how the weight of a sector moving in one direction and the power that comes with that, actually, about moving an entire sector, including perhaps those members of the sector that are initially more sceptical about the deliverability of something. So, I think there is something about that collective space. Obviously we’re not the sector’s regulator; we’re their membership body. And we have a part to play, but we work closely, as Hayley said, with the ombudsman and the regulator, and we hope that we are playing that part. But I do take your point, Lee, about making sure that there is challenge and grit in those conversations, and it’s not just a soft conversation about sharing where things have gone well.

Okay, thank you. Chair, just one final question, just on the costs that you anticipate from complying with the new regulations. Are you able to quantify that and what the opportunity cost of that is? 

Who would like to provide an answer to that? 

In regard to—. Obviously, cost to physically undertake the works, just as an example, we probably spend just over £0.25 million just on damp and mould repairs, and we spend £2.4 million on repairs, so obviously that’s not going to stop. In regard to implementation, we’ve already implemented the damp and mould procedures. I think, if we have that specific guidance on how we want to report, then there’s probably going to be quite a bit of system changes in regard to identifying what hazard, which HHSRS hazard, it is. However, Clarissa just mentioned that, yesterday we had further information from Welsh Government that potentially we might not have to identify the individual hazard—it’s just a hazard with significant harm or significant risk with imminent harm. So, I can’t put a cost on it, but it would be system changes, either system changes in regard to your target repair times or system changes amending the software that you use.

Anybody else able to help us further with probable cost?

We're not aware of a sector-wide thing that's been—. There's no assessment that we're aware of that the Welsh Government has undertaken to understand the cost, but, as Andrew stated, the main costs lie in system changes, training, potentially also making sure that more contractors and surveyors are available for some associations to meet those timescales as well. So, those are the main areas.

Okay. Claire.

I was going to offer the same in terms of—. I think there are some practical upfront costs, which have been mentioned, and then some possible ongoing costs to implementation, which could be additional resources to investigate and remedy a potential higher proportion of disrepair claims. And one thing we're aware of is that we might over-identify hazards within the new law, which could have a knock-on impact on our other programmes of work later down the line. So, I think there are definitely some practical upfront costs, and those are potentially ongoing and are difficult to quantify at the moment.

But, of course, we know as well the costs will differ between landlords, depending on stock, age, condition—existing volume of damp mould and repair, for example. We know across Wales there are lots of differences in stock profiles, rural communities with ageing stock, and climate and geographical factors in coastal areas that make moisture levels different and worsen stock condition in certain areas. I think that's going to be an impact for some landlords more than others as well.

Yes, just to add on to that, because I think it's pretty—. I think a big part of it is the admin around reporting, around trying to case manage these repairs in terms of that follow-up summary plan and making sure that that's correct. Because, again, some of that information you may or may not be able to just lift and send, so therefore it's automatic, so it may take somebody actually writing out those letters for however many repairs that are needed. So, there is that as well.

Okay, thank you. Thank you, Lee. Joel James.

Thank you, Chair. Thanks ever so much for coming in this afternoon. I'm sorry I can't be there in person. It's just really the one question I have, Chair, and it touches upon previous discussion from Lee's question. One of the issues that always gets brought up with the committee, when we've taken evidence about this in the past, is a lack of joined-up thinking from the Welsh Government. Obviously, now we have the new Welsh housing equality standards rule coming in, and I just wanted to see if you felt that there could be any tensions or maybe even trade-offs between those rules now, and then any other ambitions that the Welsh Government might have in terms of social housing or any other policies or announcements that they've announced. I just wanted to get an overall picture of that, if that's okay. [Interruption.] Thank you. Sorry.

That's okay, Joel. Thank you. Clarissa.

Thank you. I'm happy to start us off. I think, on the issue of the safety and quality of our existing homes, it's not an either/or issue. This will always take priority. And I think if you look at the investment levels from housing associations, you can see that. We can't ignore that cost pressures are increasing, and certainly our global accounts show double digit year-on-year increases in costs of responsive maintenance. So, is this becoming more expensive to do? Yes, it is. But will we continue to fund it? Of course. The latest data that we have shows a 37 per cent increase in the costs of responsive and planned maintenance between 2023-24 to 2024-25. So, this is a significant set of costs for the organisation. We are seeing that cost inflation bear down on operating margins, and the global accounts do show that housing associations are trying to drive efficiencies and value for money elsewhere across the board.

On your point about being joined up and trade-offs across Government, if we look across the board, there are competing and extensive expectations on the social housing sector. Almost everywhere you look, almost in every policy area we look, there is a transformation coming, and the cumulative impact in terms of implementation and delivery is enormous. We would say to this Government and, indeed, the next that we would love them to seriously consider how to close the implementation gap that we have here. For us, that's around pragmatic phasing to make sure that the sector can manage competing pressures across a range of policy areas, and prioritise. In particular, we're here talking about quality today—we think the WHQS could do with a good look at it. Each property is—I think there are 133 data points for each property. The level of detail and breadth is just enormous. You know, let's think about an outcomes-based approach, let's prioritise what's really important. And I think, when you're seeing associations failing compliance on things like lockable storage, something is just not quite right there. And, indeed, let's think about prioritising around energy efficiency. We need warm homes, we need comfortable homes, but there is not a realistic delivery route to EPC A at the moment, so I would say that.

And then, I suppose the last point I would make, in terms of what might help, is a long-term plan with long-term funding, so reducing risk where it's possible, and that obviously looks like things like multi-year settlements, it looks like the rent settlement staying in place, and thinking about things like convergence. But joining up the kind of spaghetti across Government continues to be a challenge, and the cumulative pressure is the thing that housing associations talk to us at CHCA most about and that pressure across the piece. 

Thank you, Clarissa. Do any any of our other witnesses want to add anything to what Clarissa has just stated? No. You're all happy. Okay.  Well, thank you very much. Thank you, Joel. You will be sent a transcript to check for factual accuracy. But thank you all very much, those here with us in the committee room and online, for giving evidence to committee today. Diolch yn fawr.

Committee will break, then, until 1.15 p.m.

We've reached item 5 on our agenda today, which is a further evidence session regarding hazardous disrepair in social housing. I'm very pleased to welcome two Welsh Government officials here to give evidence to committee. Would you like to introduce yourselves for the record, please, and perhaps starting with you, Joanna, if that's okay?

Yes, thank you. I'm Jo Valentine, deputy director, social housing regulation and strategic business.

Prynhawn da. Tania Nicholson, deputy director for housing quality, so my interest today is housing standards.

Okay. Diolch yn fawr. I'll begin with some initial questions, then, firstly on the regulation of registered social landlords. Could you tell us briefly about the role of the housing regulation team and how you work with registered social landlords and, indeed, stockholding local authorities?

Yes, okay. I'm happy to answer that one. In relation to the role of the regulation team, they undertake the regulation function on behalf of Welsh Ministers under the Housing Act 1996, which sets out the regulatory powers, and we have a regulatory framework. So, there is a regulatory assessment model that sets out a number of areas of standards, primarily in relation to governance, safety of tenants, quality of housing, and then the other aspect is in respect of the financial viability. But the registered social landlords are independent organisations that are accountable to to their boards, so we practice a co-regulatory approach. My regulation team work very closely with their assigned registered social landlords. They have regular contact with the chief executives, the chairs, they attend board meetings, they observe them. They meet with tenants to collect that day-to-day information.

We also have interactions with policy teams across Welsh Government to get information in relation to the delivery of policies on the ground. We have the regulatory framework that we've just revised last summer. That puts in place a more robust framework, recognising the challenging operating environment that they're currently operating in. Under that, every RSL will either have a light-touch regulatory review or they'll have a full in-depth regulatory assessment, which comprises a self-evaluation against all of the standards, and then the team works with that triangulation of the evidence in order to hone in on the scope of the regulation, and then there's a robust regulatory process around that that then gives them the judgment for financial viability and governance. So, that's the day-to-day interaction.

There are also certain notifiable events that have to be notified to the team—whistleblowing incidents in housing, changes of senior team, things like that. We also gather quarterly information across a range of areas to monitor progress. So, that's how the regulation function works. 

And the stockholding local authorities. 

Stockholding local authorities we have no regulatory function in relation to. We undertake very little in respect of that. We do have quarterly data returns in relation to them, but that is a voluntary undertaking under the rent standard. So, we will monitor that information and we will look around at whether that looks broadly aligned with comparable local authorities and the RSLs, but we don't have any ongoing regulatory relationship there.

How many are in the housing regulation team? 

There are, I think, 15. I think there are 15 posts, and 12 filled at the minute. It's significantly increased in the last 18 months. 

Right. To reflect some of the recent changes and requirements. 

Yes, absolutely, to allow us that more robust scrutiny.

Okay. Is there anything else you would say in addition to what you've just told us in terms of how you can help ensure that the registered social landlords have an effective repair service and provide the high-quality accommodation that we would all want to see? 

Yes, absolutely. So, I guess, under the regulatory standards, there are three or four standards that are directly relevant to that, so the governance procedures that are in place to ensure that the board has that appropriate oversight and assurance function in relation to the delivery of that. There are specific requirements in respect of ensuring tenant health and safety. The revision that we've undergone has put very much a greater emphasis on the involvement of tenants and that engagement having a positive impact on outcomes. So, that's how the regulatory framework works.

We also have an ongoing relationship with the public services ombudsman, so if complaints are taken to own initiative, for example, we are notified of that directly by the ombudsman, and then we engage with the RSL to see how that complaint process is being dealt with. My team also, through the quarterly returns, collect information around the number of disrepair cases and damp and mould, and have that ongoing conversation for any anomalies. 

Okay, just in terms of that sort of relationship with the ombudsman, we heard earlier that sometimes there are what was described as low-level issues around repairs that are not dealt with at that low level, but there tends to be a wait, a delay, and then the problems escalate until they’re more serious, and it was felt by the ombudsman that it would be very useful to deal with the problems when they were still at that low level. And also, in terms of complaints, often nothing is done until somebody complains, and then, when they complain, the complaint procedures are often not everything they need to be. Do you recognise that? And if you do, is that part of your role, or your relationship with the ombudsman and others in terms of trying to get better practice?

So, we’re certainly in the process of working with the ombudsman to formalise some of that. We do have a good working relationship, but actually we’re in the process of developing a memorandum of understanding with the ombudsman, so that we can have more routine information sharing. In terms of complaints, I think my team primarily wouldn’t see them if they were low level, because that is the responsibility of the registered social landlords to do that. But what we would look at is the level of complaints and the complaints process, and seek that assurance from the chief exec and the chair that they have an appropriate complaints process in place and are handling things in accordance with that.

And how would you satisfy yourselves that, if you did raise that, the appropriate improvements were made?

So, I think through a co-regulatory approach. That’s something important to emphasise, that we very much expect RSLs to come to us, identify improvements that need to be made. The revised regulatory assessment model puts a big emphasis on self-evaluation against the standards, identifying areas that need to be improved, and then developing a continuous improvement plan. So, that’s where we would expect to see issues identified, and then we’d be able to monitor improvements through that.

Okay, Siân.

Thank you very much. So, there is a range of different sanctions under the regulatory framework and the supporting legislation. I think one of the principal ones in the first instance is the rating that is given to the RSL through that assessment model. We have a sort of green, yellow, amber, red rating system, where green and yellow meet regulatory requirements, and amber and red don’t. That’s a really important function in terms of providing assurance that regulatory requirements are being met. If someone receives an amber—or even worse, a red—there are required improvements in relation to that. There are implications in terms of funding from credit agencies. They pay a lot of attention to that; it has implications in terms of that. So, it is a really important function in terms of that credibility and the viability of the organisation.

But alongside that, there is a range of sanctions that are available to Welsh Ministers to exercise. So, if there’s a yellow rating, we can instigate an improvement plan that’s required; we can remove boards; we can remove chief executives; we can dissolve organisations; we can remove them from the register. So, there is a vast array of sanctions if it comes to that. But we, in the first instance, very much try to work with the organisation on an agreed plan for improvement and monitor that as it goes forward.

Any in the red at the moment?

None. There is one that is yellow at the minute. But I think we are expecting, as we go through a slightly more robust process, that we will see more granularity within those.

So, the process has become more robust, you think.

We've strengthened it since recognising, I guess, some of the challenges from COVID and the pandemic, that actually organisations are facing maybe greater demands in terms of development, quality repair, and also increasing complexity to support tenants, and also the importance of health and safety of tenants, as we've seen through Grenfell and Awaab Ishak and so forth. So that, I guess, is reflected within the standards and the increased scrutiny on an annual basis now.

Okay. Lee Waters.

Thank you. We heard earlier from RSLs that the new reporting requirements that come into effect in a month's time have only just been explained to them in some instances. Why is that happening so late?

So, RSLs have been engaged in our task and finish group that looked to set this up for a number of years. We've worked with the sector to develop an approach that fits within our existing mechanisms, so within WHQS, rather than putting something else within it. We've also worked with the sector to build on some of the things that we already had in place. So, we already had reporting in respect of damp and moulds and disrepair, on a quarterly basis, to RSLs. We've built on that in terms of what are their timescales in order to address, identify and remedy disrepair.

So, the Cabinet Secretary made an announcement in respect of the written statement in terms of the decision that was made and the changes to the guidance that went out before Christmas. My team and Tania's team have been working with the sector since then to develop the detail of the processes, building on that. But we are intending to take an iterative approach around that, so, in the first instance, just pulling out the damp and mould aspects within disrepair.

Were you able to hear the evidence they gave us earlier?

No.

That's a shame, knowing that you were coming before us, it might have been a useful thing to do. They were telling us that the details had only just been revealed to them and that they're really struggling to be able to comply with them in time. So, that doesn't suggest to me that the approach you're taking is satisfactory to the sector that's got to implement it.

Well, we've got a series of further workshops that are being undertaken next week and a series of frequently asked questions have been issued to help with that. So, it's an ongoing process of engagement with them.

But don't they go live on 1 April?

The first quarterly reporting is in June, which builds on the existing quarterly reporting they have in place with the regulation team. The compliance reporting, in respect of the wider WHQS, the first reporting of that will be October 2027.

Yes, including the damp and mould, the new disrepair rule. We will start to track that, from a WHQS perspective, from—. Well, the first release will be in October 2027, so that we can capture a full year of reporting through that process.

That's reporting, but don't they come into effect on 1 April?

It does.

Okay. And don't you think the tail end of February is a bit late to be giving the detail of how they have to comply with that?

I think some of that was in order to be able to be responsive to some of the concerns that were raised. We have worked to clarify and simplify some of the reporting requirements, particularly in respect of the compliance monitoring.

So, you're not troubled by their concerns. Well, you didn't hear their concerns, but now that you know of their concerns, you're not troubled by that.

I've heard them directly as well, through the engagement sessions that Jo's referred to, and there will be lots more engagement as well through this next phase. I think the expectation is that this shouldn't be that unfamiliar to social landlords in terms of their own—

What's expected of them isn't familiar—that's the point they're making.

I think they would expect to have their own policies and procedures in place, which they will continue to follow, and so, we have been mindful of that in terms of developing the national approach that Jo's talked about, and we will continue to engage really closely with them and iterate the process as we go forward.

And I think—

It's just an odd approach to co-production.

Apologies, the aspect I was going to say about there is that we have been listening to the sector and engaging with them, and we have said to them that the first couple of quarters of data we will work with them to ensure that we understand the data, that we understand any anomalies with it and quality assure it, and that there will be no publication of that data until, collectively, we are content that it is capturing the right thing and we understand it. 

Okay. It's interesting that the tenant satisfaction results are lower for stockholding authorities than for RSLs. Why do you think that is? What's your take on that?

I am not sure why that is. Apologies, I primarily have engagement with the registered social landlords, because that is the area where our teams have responsibility. 

Tania. 

I'm not familiar with that, unfortunately. It's something we'd be happy to take away and come back to the committee on. We'll dig into it further and provide a written response, if that's helpful to the committee. 

Okay. Is this new information to you?

No. I have a different team that sponsors TPAS and has that ongoing engagement with them, and results are fed through across the directorate. 

Okay. I must say that I'm surprised that neither of you were able to answer the question. It's not a trick question. 

Lee, do you want—