CIEH expert member highlights lack of clarity in new rule on housing hazards to Senedd committee

A Chartered Institute of Environmental Health (CIEH) expert member has highlighted a lack of clarity in a new rule on hazards in social housing to members of a Senedd committee.

Dr Henry Dawson, a member of the CIEH Housing Advisory Panel who is also a Senior Lecturer in Housing and Public Health at Cardiff Metropolitan University, was giving oral evidence on behalf of CIEH to a Local Government and Housing Committee inquiry into hazardous disrepair in social housing in Wales.

The new rule, set out in an addendum to the Welsh Housing Quality Standard and due to come into effect on 1 April, requires social landlords to respond to hazards which may present a “significant risk” to the tenant or occupier within specified timescales. The timescales depend on whether there is an assessed likelihood of “imminent harm”.

CIEH welcomes the new rule and believes the timescales will provide additional accountability in relation to the handling by social landlords of complaints about health and safety issues in their stock.

The organisation is concerned, however, about a lack of clarity over what constitutes a “significant risk” and “imminent harm” and over who is competent to make the required assessment.

Dr Dawson indicated that in the statutory guidance accompanying the rule the definition of “significant risk” was vague and there was no definition of “imminent harm”.

He highlighted, in particular, the absence of any requirement for the person making the assessment to be qualified in the use of the Housing Health and Safety Rating System (HHSRS), which is the risk-based evaluation tool used by local authorities to assess housing hazards.

CIEH is concerned that the lack of clarity on these points will reduce the impact of the new rule.

The written evidence submitted by CIEH to the inquiry can be found here and the oral evidence given by Dr Dawson can be viewed here.

Mark Elliott, President of the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health, said:

“We welcome the new rule as a means of providing additional accountability but want to see a much greater focus on enabling local authorities to enforce existing legislation.

“We also want to see more awareness and better resourcing of the crucial role played by environmental health practitioners in tackling poor housing conditions in all types of tenure and thereby preventing and reducing ill health, and saving lives.”