Social Housing Health and Safety

Start with the consumer standards. Four standards took effect on 1 April 2024, being Safety and Quality, Transparency, Influence and Accountability, Neighbourhood and Community and Tenancy. The Safety and Quality Standard sets five required outcomes covering stock quality, decency, health and safety, repairs and maintenance and adaptations. Its health and safety outcome requires landlords to take all reasonable steps to ensure the health and safety of tenants in their homes and associated communal areas, to identify all applicable legal health and safety requirements and to complete the required assessments and remedial actions within appropriate timescales. RSH published revised standards on 9 July 2026, following a consultation that ran from 9 December 2025 to 3 March 2026. They come into force on 1 October 2026. The Competence and Conduct Standard becomes a separate standard in its own right and the Social Tenant Access to Information Requirements are folded into a revised Transparency, Influence and Accountability Standard, with transition periods for parts of both. On competence, senior housing managers need a Level 4 housing management qualification and senior housing executives a Level 5 or foundation degree, with three years to comply for large providers, four years for small providers and 12 months from starting for new in-scope staff.

Awaab's Law phase 1 has been in force since 27 October 2025, implemented by the Hazards in Social Housing (Prescribed Requirements) (England) Regulations 2025, SI 2025/1042, which insert requirements into the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985. For an emergency hazard, meaning any hazard presenting a significant and imminent risk of harm, you must investigate within 24 hours and carry out relevant safety work within 24 hours. For a significant damp and mould hazard, you must investigate within 10 working days, provide a written summary within three working days of concluding the investigation, carry out relevant safety work within five working days of concluding it and begin supplementary preventative work within five working days or take steps to begin it, with a physical start within 12 weeks. Phase 2 extends the duty to excess cold and excess heat, falls, structural collapse and explosions, fire, electrical hazards, domestic and personal hygiene and food safety. Phase 3 extends to the remaining hazards other than overcrowding. Government guidance gives the years 2026 and 2027 for those phases and no more than that so we write them as expected rather than as fixed dates.

The condition standards moved as well. The New Decent Homes Standard policy statement was published on 28 January 2026 with five criteria. Criterion A is safety from Category 1 hazards under HHSRS. Criterion B is state of repair. Criterion C is core facilities and it now requires child-resistant restrictors on all windows presenting a fall risk. Criterion D is thermal comfort with minimum energy efficiency standards. Criterion E is freedom from damp and mould. Full compliance in the social rented sector is set for 2035, with MEES stage 1 by 1 April 2030 and stage 2 by 1 April 2039. Underneath it, the new Housing Health and Safety Rating System came into force on 23 June 2026 under SI 2026/571, the first major revision in 20 years. It reduces 29 hazards to 21, introduces a new scoring methodology, new descriptive terms and new baseline indicators and comes with statutory Operating Guidance and Enforcement Guidance both dated 23 June 2026. From 22 June 2026 councils can issue a £7,000 civil penalty for failing to fix serious hazards in rented homes.

Electrical safety is the duty most often missed in a compliance calendar built before 2025. The private rented sector regime has been extended to social tenancies in England. The requirements are inspection and testing of the fixed installation at intervals of no more than five years by a qualified person, an EICR issued to the tenant within 28 days of inspection or before a new tenant takes occupation, remedial work completed within 28 days and in-service inspection and testing of any electrical appliances the landlord supplies as part of the tenancy at a risk assessed frequency, evidenced alongside the EICR at a minimum of five yearly. Commencement runs from November 2025 for new tenancies and May 2026 for existing tenancies. Local housing authorities enforce, with a maximum financial penalty of £40,000 and a landlord is not in breach where all reasonable steps have been taken but access cannot be obtained. One honest caveat. We were unable to verify the final statutory instrument number or the exact commencement day from a primary source and several secondary sources give 1 November 2025. The five year interval, the 28 day rules and the £40,000 ceiling come from the government response and are reliable. The precise day is worth confirming against the instrument before you write it into a policy. Our fixed wire testing and EICR page covers the inspection itself.

We work to the compliance calendar and the board assurance report you already produce, rather than issuing a parallel document set nobody has time to read. Where work needs a registered electrician, an engineer surveyor or a laboratory, we scope it, appoint the right specialist, interpret the results and turn them into an action plan you can actually deliver.

• Fire risk assessment programmes across general needs, sheltered and supported stock, recorded in full to meet section 156 of the Building Safety Act 2022, with actions prioritised and tracked to closure.
• BAFE SP205 third-party certified fire risk assessments, independently certificated by SSAIB, where your board or your insurer wants certificated assurance.
• Fire door inspection programmes structured to the annual flat entrance and quarterly communal intervals that apply above 11 metres.
• Compartmentation surveys and stay put strategy review, including the evidence base for moving a block to simultaneous evacuation.
• Residential evacuation plan implementation, covering identification of relevant residents, person-centred fire risk assessments, evacuation statements and the building emergency evacuation plan.
• Awaab's Law readiness, mapping your triage, inspection, notification and works processes against the 24 hour, three, five and ten working day and 12 week requirements, then testing them against live cases.
• Damp and mould technical investigation covering ventilation adequacy, whether mechanical extract actually performs, thermal performance, fabric defects and condensation risk, with reports written to show cause rather than symptom.
• Building safety case reports and Accountable Person support for higher-risk buildings.
• Statutory compliance gap analysis across the big six and electrical safety, aligned to the Tenant Satisfaction Measures you report.