Authors:David Ormandy and Stephen Battersby
Created:2024-01-10
Last updated:2024-01-24
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David Ormandy and Stephen Battersby highlight further concerns raised over the forthcoming revised Housing Health and Safety Rating System.
In the September 2023 issue of
Legal Action,
1‘Dumbing down and weakening the HHSRS’, September 2023 Legal Action 15. David Ormandy argued that proposed revisions to the Housing Health and Safety Rating System (HHSRS)
2See Housing Health and Safety Rating System: operating guidance (Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, February 2006) for the original guidance. will severely reduce its effectiveness, helping landlords but making tenants’ lives worse. Recent correspondence has raised further serious questions about the HHSRS review commissioned by the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC). Of particularly importance is how the result of the review will help local authority environmental health practitioners (EHPs), who need updated data to help them make reasonable assessments of the risks from hazards in the dwelling.
Extracts from this correspondence gives background to the weakness of the evidence supposedly supporting the ‘updated’ version. On 16 November 2023, an email was sent to the main author of the ‘revised’ version of the HHSRS operating guidance. This included:
We saw the piece in EHN
3EHN is the magazine of the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health, issued to all its members. stating that ‘As part of the HHSRS review, [you] headed a small team that updated the evidence base and the national averages the system uses.’ From what we have seen so far this is a little surprising. Perhaps you could tell us which data sources of housing condition and of health were used, how they were matched and analysed and how this compares with the methodology used originally? If there has not been any comparable analysis to update the national averages perhaps you could take steps to have this statement corrected or clarified. The following reply was received on 17 November 2023:
I ran a small team at Cardiff Met which dealt with updates for the national averages for likelihood and the literature reviews used to update the hazard profiles. We drafted the updated operating guidance.
I am afraid as this was done under a contract for […] and ultimately DLUHC I am unable to discuss the updates in any level of detail until DLUHC decides to make the information public. I don’t have a clear date on which they will do this.
On 21 November 2023, the following response was sent to the main author:
Thank you for your response. However, what you wrote is at odds with a statement made by DLUHC in a letter dated 21 November.4The DLUHC letter was sent to a member of the Healthier Housing Partnership. In this the DLUHC states that ‘… the review did not consist of a comprehensive review of the statistical evidence which supports the HHSRS process.’ And, that ‘… a review of this evidence would be valuable at some point.’ We would welcome your comments and clarification. The lack of a clear response from you […] that either confirms or denies the DLUHC statement and gives some details of the sources, evidence and methodology, means that doubts hang over the review and any new guidance. The main author replied on 24 November 2023, stating:
I understand your concerns and I appreciate your desire to see more detail over the updates. I am unable to discuss the updates in any level of detail until DLUHC decides to make the information public.
[I] am sorry I can’t be more helpful to you at this time.
As the statements made in the DLUHC letter are not denied (or cannot be), we can only conclude that there are doubts about the existence of supporting evidence and so doubts about the value of the review and any new guidance.
We know that an attempt has been made to reduce the number of hazards by merging some, although it now seems that there will be no up-to-date statistics to give ‘national averages’ to inform assessments of the threats to health arising from the deficiencies in dwellings.
EHPs use the HHSRS to assess housing conditions for various purposes, including to determine whether action must or could be taken under Housing Act 2004 Part 1. Such an assessment tool should be robust and sound. Since its introduction, relatively few appeals against action have related to the HHSRS assessment itself, but we can see this changing should this new guidance be introduced.