How many staff will need new housing qualifications?
New requirements mean that senior housing managers and executives will need to achieve housing qualifications. Inside Housing surveyed housing associations to find out how many staff need to be trained. Jess McCabe reports. Illustration by Patrick George
Doctors, solicitors, teachers, accountants, nurses – these professions all have one thing in common: to do the job, you need mandatory, professional qualifications. Soon, senior housing professionals in England will join their ranks.
Under changes brought in earlier this year, the government signalled that senior housing managers must achieve an Ofqual qualification equivalent to a Level 4 housing certificate, and housing executives will need the equivalent of a Level 5 diploma in housing, or a foundation degree from the Chartered Institute of Housing (CIH).
Part of the government’s response to Awaab Ishak’s death and the ongoing disrepair crisis, the aim is to raise standards in the sector.
“We know that many social housing residents are not receiving the service or respect they deserve,” Michael Gove, the housing secretary, said when he introduced the changes in February.
Ensuring housing managers are qualified will mean they “have the right skills and experience to deliver an excellent service and drive up standards across the board”, he continued.
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Inside Housing wanted to find out how large a task lies ahead for social landlords to make sure all their staff members who need these new qualifications have them.
The requirement for some housing staff to hold qualifications was included in the Social Housing (Regulation) Act, which became law at the end of July. At the time, the government estimated 25,000 people would need the qualifications. A Local Government Association (LGA) survey this spring found that English councils face costs of £17.9m in the first two years to make sure managers’ qualifications are up to scratch, then £3.7m a year on an ongoing basis.
Lack of clarity
But what about housing associations? To find out, Inside Housing sent out a snap survey. Twenty providers replied.
We wanted to know how many managers will need new qualifications. How much will it cost to train them? Will this have an impact on frontline services? The 20 respondents represent a mix of housing associations from different parts of the country and of different sizes.
First, let’s look at senior housing managers. The 20 associations that responded to our survey told us they had 803 senior housing managers, but several of these landlords are still trying to work out which ones need extra training and qualifications; 46,000-home Bromford, for example, was in the middle of a skills survey to pin this answer down.
Metropolitan Thames Valley, with 57,000 homes the largest landlord in our survey, is also still investigating how many of its 347 housing managers are not sufficiently qualified.
Of the landlords that could give us a number, we got a sample size of 359 senior housing managers. Of these, 69% are not yet sufficiently qualified.
Our 20 housing associations told us they had 145 senior housing executives. Three out of the 20 couldn’t answer the question of how many were qualified.
When we look at the remaining associations, we are left with 127 executives, of which 66% are not yet sufficiently qualified. These numbers suggest housing associations have a bigger job ahead in training staff than councils do. The LGA’s study, based on responses from 42 local authorities, found that 66% of senior managers and 54% of senior housing executives weren’t yet sufficiently qualified.
Corrina Hembury is managing director of Access Training, one of a handful of organisations already tooled up to provide the training. She points to the figures for housing apprenticeships, one of the ways in which landlords will be able to train staff.
It is an attractive route in some ways, because of the potential for landlords to use their apprenticeship levy to pay for it. But in the past three years, fewer than 300 people a year have started a Level 4 housing apprenticeship – and many of them are training to work in the private rented sector and for estate agencies.
In the context of the figure provided by the government (25,000 staff needing qualifications), it raises questions about the training sector’s capacity to qualify so many people.
Inside Housing understands a consultation is going to be released by the end of this year, which will go into the ground rules and clarify many of the outstanding details of the new requirement. But, for now, there are rumours swirling about how the new rules will be applied.
One of the questions that remains to be confirmed is how long landlords would have to train up their staff. The legislation says staff must either have the qualification, or be “working towards it”. What “working towards it” means, and how long staff could be in the process of achieving qualifications, are not clear.
To complete a Level 4 qualification with the CIH, which is the requirement for housing managers, takes about 18 months to two years.
Katherine Sinclair, legal director at law firm Anthony Collins, asks: “What if it’s not so structured, and you’re doing it part-time? What happens if the individual has to take time out for family reasons and defer, or fails the exam and then has to retake it?
“Is there a cut-off point at which point you would expect the individual to have that qualification?”
Standard practice for other awarding bodies is that qualifications must be completed within three years, or they would need to be registered again by their training provider. But will there be a regulatory cut-off point? Or will it be up to organisations to make the call?
Multiple landlords told us they were not sure exactly which managers and executives needed to be trained up.
The act defines an executive as an employee or officer who has responsibility for the day-to-day management of the provision of services and is part of the provider’s senior management.
“What happens if the individual has to take time out for family reasons and defer, or fails the exam and then has to retake it?”
For senior housing managers, the government refers to the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education’s definition of senior housing and property management. This sums the roles up as “managing housing or property-related services, leading a team and taking responsibility for the cost-effectiveness and efficiency of their business area”.
It also provides a list of some “typical” job titles: neighbourhood housing manager, neighbourhood investment manager and assets manager being three of them. Leasehold managers, voids and lettings managers, and resident involvement and income managers all come under this umbrella.
But the list isn’t exhaustive and many staff members have a variety of job titles and scopes across the sector.
Only seven out of the 20 housing associations told us they were very confident they had identified all the staff members who will need to be qualified.
Futures Housing noted: “We remain unclear at the moment about what constitutes a ‘housing manager’ or ‘housing executive’ and would value clearer guidance on which roles should and shouldn’t be included.”
Service impact
Another area of confusion is which previous qualifications, training and experience will count as equivalent to the requirements in the act.
“We are struggling to understand what will be classed as ‘recognised prior learning’, as we have some of our managers who do have qualifications, but we are unsure if they will be recognised in this context,” said Cottsway Housing Association.
Some associations pointed out there was ambiguity about the extent to which “other” housing executives, whose roles perhaps don’t involve housing management functions directly, need to be qualified. It seems clear an executive housing director would fall under the definition, but does the whole executive team need to be qualified?
Most of the housing associations expected the new requirements to affect service provision negatively: 65% expected some or a big impact (see chart). Some of this will be because of staff having to take time off to train.
“We welcome opportunities to learn and improve our service delivery. Overall, the qualifications will have a positive impact on our service provision”
The costs could add up to a substantial amount: Metropolitan Thames Valley estimated it could be as high as £1m (this reflects the size of the organisation in comparison with the rest of the landlords in this survey). Abri, which has 40,000 homes, put the figure at around £300,000. For 5,000-home Coastline, the cost is likely to be around £25,000.
Although the LGA’s survey was able to come up with an estimated overall cost for council housing providers, our survey was not able to do so because of the amount of uncertainty regarding possible costs.
One option would be to use apprenticeships to train staff. This could mean the costs would be covered by the apprenticeship levy. But apprentices must be off the job and training for 20% of their time.
Ms Hembury says Access Training has received many enquiries about apprenticeships. “It’s definitely attractive, and we know that that will be the right room for some, but it’s going to be the minority,” she says.
Official guidelines on who qualifies for funding state that the apprenticeship should deliver significant new learning. “Maybe you’ve been in your role for five years. Actually, what you need is the piece of paper to meet these requirements; you [just need] the qualification,” Ms Hembury explains.
Other routes to qualification range from £2,250 to £3,275 per person in cost, according to various estimates sent to Inside Housing by housing associations, depending on the level of qualification required and the method of training.
‘Clawback’ clauses
Ms Sinclair from Anthony Collins says that if social landlords are going to invest the costs associated with obtaining the qualifications in education, they may try to introduce “clawback” clauses, so that part of the money must be paid back if the staff member leaves within a set period of time. “What you don’t want to do is invest in your key personnel and for them to then walk out the door, because then you have to start the recruitment process again,” she says.
“People who are very experienced and approaching the end of their careers may prefer to leave rather than do a qualification,” said Alliance Homes. The landlord has 17 senior housing managers, and 10 are not yet sufficiently qualified.
Although not stated by associations, it seems possible there may also be the risk that landlords do not want to invest in training staff who are close to retirement.
There are also broader questions for recruitment and HR. Should landlords already require new staff for these posts to have the qualifications set out in the act? How should landlords handle succession planning? What are the ongoing continuing professional development requirements going to be, once staff have qualifications?
The situation is far from all negative. Many housing associations told us they have already started sending staff for training, and some pointed out they were already doing this before the requirements came in. Some are also going further than the requirements and looking to train housing officers.
South Yorkshire Housing Association said the end result should be better services for tenants. “We welcome opportunities to learn and improve our service delivery. Overall, the qualifications will have a positive impact on our service provision.”
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