Issue - meetings

The Panel considered the report of the Scrutiny Manager concerning Southampton City Council’s approach to enforcement of the private rented sector.

The Panel received the following representations:

Steven Hayes-Arter, Service Manager for Private Sector Housing and Port Health, Southampton City Council outlined the Council’s approach to enforcement. Key points raised in the presentation included the following:

·  Reactive inspection of properties using Housing Act 2004 Part 1 powers (HHSRS) - only where tenants have made complaints or raised issues. This includes HMOs (not covered by licensing) and all other private rented accommodation.

·  All work is carried out across two teams – Private Sector Housing and HMO Licensing. The PSH Team consists of 3.5 FTE, the HMO Licensing Team of consists of 6.5 FTE funded by licence fees. Therefore there are ten FTE covering enforcement of a sector of approximately 28,000 properties.

·  Demand for services and lack of resources means that all PSH service requests are triaged. Aninspection is only carried out where a likelihood of significant hazard (Cat 1, HHSRS) is identified.

·  There were only 489 complaints in 2022/23 and 2,180 complaints since 2019/20. Only 88 of the complaints led to an inspection in 2022/23 (18%).

·  In 2022/23 only six enforcement notices were served by the PSH Team and 72 in total since 2019/20.Notices are generally issued after required work is not completed. No Civil Penalty Notices (CPNs) were issued by the City Council.

·  There is a legal requirement for local authorities to license larger HMOs in their area, namely all HMOs with five or more residents from two or more households. In the City there are between 2300- 2500 mandatory HMOs, which require licensing every five years, out of approximately 6000-7000 HMOs.

·  The majority of the HMOs are situated within the central wards of the City, predominantly in Bevois, Bargate & Portswood.

·  Regulations impose certain mandatory conditions that HMOs and licence holders must meet. Southampton City Council has its own published HMO standards that cover all HMOs in the City, including those not requiring licensing.

·  Every HMO is inspected prior to a licence being issued by either a City Council HMO surveyor or an Accredited independent Surveyor (CIEH or RICS certified).

·  Failure to comply with any condition is a breach of the licence and can result in enforcement action and ultimately the revocation of the licence. Fifteen HMO landlords have been prosecuted since 2014, but none for eight years.

·  Southampton City Council has also operated three additional HMO licensing schemes in certain wards within the City over the past ten years. Additional licensing schemes allow local authorities to licence smaller HMOs, and ‘cluster flats’ within purpose-built student blocks, any HMO with three or more persons forming two or more households. Schemes have covered the four central wards of Bevois, Bargate, Portswood and Swaythling and also the western wards of Shirley, Freemantle, Bassett and Millbrook. The most recent scheme covering the central wards ended on 30^th September 2023. Additional schemes can only run for five years and  ...  view the full minutes text for item 11