Agenda item

Joint Report of Portfolio Holder for Housing and Planning and Portfolio Holder for Community Protection

The Board considered a joint report of the Portfolio Holder for Housing and Planning and the Portfolio Holder for Community Protection on the implementation of a new scheme of Additional Licensing of Houses in Multiple Occupation to operate for a period of 5 years from 1 January 2019.

RESOLVED that:

(1)  having considered the Consultation Analysis (Appendix IA) and also the responses regarding objections to the consultation proposal (Appendix IB) of the report, the Board was satisfied that:

(a)  a significant proportion of HMOs in the proposed designated area are being managed sufficiently ineffectively as to give rise to problems (such as disrepair, noise and litter) either for those occupying the HMOs or members of the public; and

(b)  making HMOs in that area subject to Additional Licensing will significantly assist the Council to deal with those problems;

(2)  the area designated on the plan attached to the proposed Designation in Appendix 2 of the report be made subject to Additional Licensing, with the  Designation to come into force on 1 January 2019 and to run for a period of 5 years with applications being accepted from 1 December 2018;

(3)  the Director of Legal and Democratic Services be authorised to make the Designation;

(4)  the Corporate Directors for Development and Growth and Commercial and Operations be authorised to take all necessary steps (statutory or otherwise) to publish and advertise the Designation;

(5)  the Standard Conditions of Licence for both Additional Licensing and Mandatory Licensing outlined in Appendix 3, be adopted for licences granted on or after 19 September 2018; 

(6)  delegated authority be granted to the Director of Community Protection to make changes to the operational delivery of the scheme during its five-year lifetime, which includes changes to the expenditure from within the agreed overall budget, recruitment, licence conditions, structural service change and fee review. Such delegated authority is to be exercised in consultation with the relevant Portfolio Holder, where appropriate, and/or in accordance with constitutional requirements;

(7)  the resources and operational model detailed in Appendix 4 of the report are agreed;

(8)  the outcomes from the scheme be monitored and a full evaluation take place during the duration of the scheme with the results of the evaluation to be reported to Board in approximately 2021/22 to enable Board to take a decision as to a proposed course of action prior to the Designation expiring on 31 December 2023;

(9)  the establishment of the scheme over the five-year period be approved, with an estimated value of £3,309,210 and that the spend as detailed in sections 4.6 of the report from 1^st January 2019 until the end of the Additional Licensing scheme on 31^st December 2023 be approved.

Reasons for Decisions

The decisions will help:

• raise standards of HMO accommodation and ensuring effective management through more extensive control;
• protect the health, safety and wellbeing of tenants and communities;
• improve neighbourhoods  and prevent and control anti-social behaviour;
• identify rogue landlords more easily and enable action to be taken to respond to this behaviour;
• complete a full suite of private sector licensing schemes, allowing for a consistent and robust approach to raising standards.

Other options considered

Not to adopt a scheme of Additional Licensing:  rejected as because Additional Licensing has provided means of proactive engagement and delivered outcomes that would not otherwise have been achieved. 

Seek to achieve the required improvements via accreditation schemes: rejected because accreditation can only ever be voluntary and will not capture those landlords who continue to mismanage their properties and do not engage.