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Minister suggests housing associations will be required to share fire safety information
The housing minister has suggested the government may support proposals to require social landlords to give more fire safety information to tenants, in an interview to mark Housing Day.
Kit Malthouse, housing minister since July, was interviewed by Leslie Channon, chair of the steering group A Voice for Tenants, with Inside Housing present.
The minister revealed the government is considering incorporating proposals from a recent private members’ bill which would require landlords to share fire safety information and risk assessments at annual meetings.
It came as a number of large London providers told a London Assembly committee this week they intended to start publishing fire risk assessments for their tower blocks.
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Currently, these assessments are kept private and are not provided to residents on request except in a small number of cases.
In March, Conservative MP Maria Miller responded to constituents’ concerns about this with a bill which would have obliged social landlords to hold annual meetings where the block’s assessment was discussed with tenants.
Mr Malthouse said: “There have been a number of proposals, from [Ms] Miller… Some of that thinking might be woven into what we are doing. And definitely we think landlords have a duty to make sure that people know how they can make themselves safe.”
Inside Housing’s Never Again campaign and Dame Judith Hackitt’s review of building regulations both call for risk assessments to be made available to tenants.
At a meeting of the London Assembly’s Housing Committee last week, executives from Metropolitan Thames Valley, Catalyst, Network and L&Q were grilled over whether or not they would release risk assessments to tenants.
David Montague, chief executive of L&Q, said: “We are sharing assessments on request and we are planning to put them on our website. It’s just a matter of finding the best way of doing it.”
Helen Evans, chief executive of Network, added: “We are not publishing fire risk assessments currently, but we are preparing to start publishing them and if people ask for them we will hand them out.”
The Information Commissioner’s Office told housing associations they should publish risk assessments “proactively” and “in full” in August last year.
As they are not public bodies, associations are not caught by the Freedom of Information Act, which means they cannot currently be compelled to release the documents.
When Inside Housing requested risk assessments for an article in June, it received responses from 82 councils and ALMOs but only 13 housing associations.
Never Again campaign
Inside Housing has launched a campaign to improve fire safety following the Grenfell Tower fire
Never Again: campaign asks
Inside Housing is calling for immediate action to implement the learning from the Lakanal House fire, and a commitment to act – without delay – on learning from the Grenfell Tower tragedy as it becomes available.
LANDLORDS
- Take immediate action to check cladding and external panels on tower blocks and take prompt, appropriate action to remedy any problems
- Update risk assessments using an appropriate, qualified expert.
- Commit to renewing assessments annually and after major repair or cladding work is carried out
- Review and update evacuation policies and ‘stay put’ advice in light of risk assessments, and communicate clearly to residents
GOVERNMENT
- Provide urgent advice on the installation and upkeep of external insulation
- Update and clarify building regulations immediately – with a commitment to update if additional learning emerges at a later date from the Grenfell inquiry
- Fund the retrofitting of sprinkler systems in all tower blocks across the UK (except where there are specific structural reasons not to do so)
We will submit evidence from our research to the Grenfell public inquiry.
The inquiry should look at why opportunities to implement learning that could have prevented the fire were missed, in order to ensure similar opportunities are acted on in the future.