Agenda item

To receive a report from the Director of Finance, Resources & Customer Services outlining a Call-In received for consideration by Overview & Scrutiny Committee on the following reason: (Report No: 246).

 

Decision by Cabinet (9 April 2014): Proposal to Implement a Borough-Wide Additional and Selective Licensing Scheme for Private Sector Landlords.

 

Decision included on Publication of Decision List No: 78/13-14 Key Decision 3886 (List Ref: 2/78/13-14) issued on 11 April 2014.

 

It is proposed that consideration of the Call-In be structured as follows:

 

·             Brief outline of reasons for the Call-In by representative(s) of the members who have called-in the decision.

·             Response to the reasons provided for the Call-In by the Cabinet Member responsible for taking the decision.

·             Debate by Overview & Scrutiny Committee and agreement on action to be taken.

 

This item was moved to Item 4 on the agenda.

 

The Chair invited Cllr Neville to outline his reasons for the Call-In, given as follows:

 

·       Cllr Neville did not wish to defend bad landlords or landlords as a sector of the community; the purpose of the Call-In was to examine the merits of the proposal.  Good landlords were needed in the Borough.

·       Only one other London Borough had adopted the legislation implemented in 2005; and it had taken this Borough until 2013 to do so.  Three other Boroughs, Waltham Forest, Brent and Barking & Dagenham were considering implementing schemes but these were not good comparators for Enfield.

·       The proposal implies that ASB is ‘rife’ in the Borough; Cllr Neville was far from satisfied that this was the case.

·       Nowhere in the papers provided to Cllr Neville had he seen a clear, concise explanation of the benefits of the scheme in relation to ASB.

·       ASB is endemic in society; it is not ascribable to any one sector or class (the summer riots in 2011 and the student riots in 2010/11 illustrate this).  The suggestion that it is ascribable to one sector of the community is therefore a false premise.

·       Regulation is already in place under the provisions of the Housing Act to deal with such issues as noise, rubbish dumping etc.

·       All that the proposal does is raise money and identifies landlords in the Borough.  However, Cllr Neville argued that the only landlords that would be identified would be the ‘good guys’.  Bad landlords would not participate.

·       Cllr Neville referred to a Scottish scheme where only 75% of landlords had registered as at 2013.  There seemed to be, therefore, much bureaucracy for little return.

·       Cllr Neville then referred to the NKM report and stated that there were numerous caveats, for example, at page 5.

·       Other sectors of the community were not referenced in the [NKM] report.

·       The Cabinet report had selectively extracted information from the NKM report; Cllr Neville referred to pages 5 and 14 in this respect.

·       Cllr Neville stated that the proposal was not a comprehensive enquiry and that the scheme was simply ‘revenue raising by the back door’.  Cllr Neville had grave doubts as to the motives for the proposal.

·       In addition, new ASB legislation gave new grounds for possession to landlords which included a large range of offences – it therefore gave greater powers to landlords to act against bad tenants anyway.

·       Cllr Neville felt that Prof. Mayhew had been asked to produce a report that was tailored to what the Council wanted to achieve, with the appropriate professional caveats inserted.

·       Cllr Neville also stated that he felt the NKM report had been ‘hidden’ from the meeting and only his intervention had ensured that it had been properly circulated.

 

The Chair invited Cllr Oykener to respond, as follows:

 

·       In previous reports it had been made clear that the scheme could not make a profit, and therefore was not raising revenue.

·       The Opposition had previously been in support of such a scheme.

·       Cabinet and the Administration had taken expert legal advice and had proceeded at all times in accordance with the law.

·       The Council recognised the need to encourage good landlords.  Cllr Oykener strongly believed that the scheme would help build that relationship.

·       Cllr Oykener stood behind the decision that Cabinet had made – it was clear and justified.

 

Ray James, Director for Health, Housing and Adult Social Care, also responded as follows:

 

·       Officers had gone to considerable lengths to ensure that the report had been compiled in a balanced fashion and challenged the opinion that it had been compiled selectively.

·       He disputed that the NKM report had not been made openly available; it had been referenced in the published Cabinet papers of 9 April and was on the website and had therefore been transparently and publicly available.

·       Independent experts had been engaged to compile the research and legal opinion had been sought to confirm that the level of correlation in the research was strong enough.

·       He reiterated that it was reasonable of Cabinet to have taken the decision on this basis.

 

The Chair then invited Members of the Overview & Scrutiny Committee to make any comments or ask any questions.

 

Cllr Smith responded to Cllr Oykener that he wished to clarify the Conservative position on implementation of a licensing scheme.

 

He confirmed that when Conservative Councillors had talked to officers they did express a concern at the increasing level of private landlords in the Borough.  However, they were not aware at the time that Central Government was already looking at the matter and the Department of Communities and Local Government had produced a report in this respect.  He was astonished that this had not been referred to in the Cabinet report.  The DCLG had consulted on this report; but no mention of Enfield’s response had been provided.  The consultation had outlined reasons why licensing was not always a good thing to do.  The Housing Minister had subsequently issued a press release to confirm that the Government was going to insist on its own private landlord registration scheme.  Cllr Smith asked why this extremely relevant information had not been fully covered in the Cabinet report.

 

Cllr Savva commented at this point that, in his casework experience, he had heard from a number of tenants, many of whom were vulnerable people, living in unacceptable conditions.  He had listened carefully to all the points made but could see no alternative way of dealing with the issue.  The Council wished to join forces with landlords to ensure the health and safety of their tenants.  Prevention was better than cure and the Council was there to protect vulnerable people.

 

Cllr Sitkin confirmed he had had similar experiences to Cllr Savva at his surgeries and that the Council had a fiduciary and ethical duty to raise this issue.  He added that the basis for questioning the proposal seemed to be the NKM report findings and the consultation undertaken.  Cllr Sitkin pointed out that a significant percentage of those consulted agreed with licensing landlords; and he wished to be reassured of the validity of that figure.  He further added that Prof. Mayhew was a figure of stature with a long professional record; and that no doubt should be cast upon his credibility.

 

Cllr Neville responded that he had not doubted Prof. Mayhew’s credibility but had only pointed out that there were a number of caveats within the report; which he agreed was an appropriate professional approach.

 

Cllr Oykener then commented that he echoed Cllr Savva’s experiences and that both sides were aware of the need to improve housing conditions for some tenants. 

 

Sally McTernan, Assistant Director of Community Housing, responded that the consultation undertaken had been a key part of the Cabinet report.  It had been undertaken by an independent company to ensure fairness of approach.  Prior to Christmas 2013 a ‘listening’ consultation had been undertaken where an invited group of landlords had met with the Council to test various hypotheses, of which Prof. Mayhew’s report formed only part.  A second, full scale, phase of consultation had been approved by Cllr Oykener and undertaken in January of this year. 

 

The methodology used had been a web-based survey and a weighted telephone survey, which has statistical relevance.  Three invitation workshops were also held in two areas of the Borough (Bowes and Edmonton).

 

Consultations had been made available at different times of the day and had been scheduled to avoid particular days when landlords would be processing rent accounts.

 

The consultation had found that most landlords were opposed to the Scheme, but most residents were in favour.

 

Cllr Rye commented that he recognised the issues involved but that he thought using a piece of legislation to address ASB to ‘fish’ for other information on private sector landlords in the Borough was wrong (which is what he thought the proposal aimed to do).  He recognised the validity of Cllr Savva’s comments but the Government would be tackling such issues more directly.  He added that only a minority of people cause a problem in private sector housing and that any issues with problem tenants could be resolved in other ways.  He proposed that the most sensible course of action would be to refer the proposal back to full Council, or the Cabinet Member. 

 

Cllr Simbodyal asked officers how many landlords they had engaged with during the consultation and how their concerns had been addressed.

 

Cllr Oykener responded that, for example, the Council had listened to landlords’ views on the cost of licensing and had therefore offered the early bird option.  As well as this, in response to landlords’ concerns at the level of bureaucracy involved in registering for the Scheme, Cabinet had agreed that an online submission should be offered, which would take no more than 30-40 minutes to complete.

 

Sally McTernan responded to the point raised by Cllr Smith on why there appeared to be no reference to the DCLG consultation in the Cabinet report.  She commented that officers had responded to a large number of housing consultations so could not give a definitive answer at the meeting but would come back to him on this point ACTION: Sally McTernan.

 

Sally McTernan also responded that the consultation and engagement with landlords had been very lively and very interesting.  She referred to s.4.24 of the Cabinet report which listed the various suggestions and improvements to the Scheme as a result of this engagement.

 

Ray James reiterated the Council’s wish to work with responsible landlords, especially in order to help identify bad ones.  He added that it was openly acknowledged that you could not have definitive data (this was contested by the Lead Petitioner).

 

He also commented that any responsible piece of research would include caveats such as those in the NKM report and repeated that this report had been openly available.  The Cabinet report openly set out trends identified in ASB and that housing related ASB remained a persistent and stubborn problem which was borough-wide.

 

The Chair of the Committee then invited members of the public to put forward any questions or make comments, which were as follows:

 

A resident stated that he believed and agreed that everyone had a right to good quality housing.  However, he did not think that the proposal would meet the objective.  He referred to the advice from Counsel the Council had sought and asked how strong the correlation needed to be.

 

The resident then commented that there was information in the Mayhew report that had not been published and that, in fact, many residents did not support the Scheme; the majority of respondents to the consultation did but the sample size for this was only 1,000; the total population of the Borough was around 330,000.  He also commented that the framing of questions in any consultation would influence the kind of response you would get.  He stated that the Landlord Accreditation Scheme was already in existence; so could not see the purpose in introducing another similar scheme.  He also commented that self-certification would create a liability issue for the Council, which would have to be borne by all Council Tax payers in the Borough.  He ended his comments by stating that the Scheme would prohibit the parking of commercial vehicles on a tenant’s driveway – this would penalise any tenants who ran businesses that used such vehicles and prevent repairmen from parking on the property.

 

A second resident then asked why the Council did not simply use its existing enforcement powers to address any instances of houses in disrepair.  He asked why the Council was not applying the scheme to its own properties in order to deal with its own problem tenants.  He disagreed that the scheme would help to prevent ASB and argued that the sample size and frame for the consultation had not been adequate.

 

A representative of the National Landlords Association commented that the NLA and the Council had common ground in seeking to improve conditions and raise the professional standards of landlords. However, the Council had failed to approach the NLA for their contribution during its consultation, despite its large membership.  He felt that the consultation questions had been framed in such a way as to obtain the answers the Council wished to receive and it had not pointed out to consultees the negative aspects of introducing such a scheme; such as the fact that rents would be likely to rise or that Assured Shorthold Tenancies would be reduced as landlords would want any tenant with any history of ASB out of their properties as soon as possible.  He thought the Council was not applying the powers it already had to deal with ASB.  He also commented that, according to his information, Newham Council were going to drop their scheme as it was unaffordable.  He concluded by commenting that the Scheme would simply penalise good landlords.

 

A third resident informed the meeting that he was a member of the Accredited Landlords Scheme and had been attending meetings in this regard for many years.  He commented that he was a landlord of a number of properties, had a number of Homefinder and Housing Benefit tenants and consequently had a good working relationship with many officers in the Council; but that no-one from the Council who attended ALS meetings was present that evening.  He expressed his dissatisfaction that no-one from the Council had made any mention of the proposals to the ALS until January of this year; even though the ALS was responsible for 4,000 properties in the Borough.  He asked why no-one had approached them to ask questions or inform them as to what was going on and that good landlords could work on the Council’s behalf in identifying rogue landlords.

 

Cllr Neville commented that Cllr Oykener had already previously acknowledged that the private sector was not the key driver for ASB and that landlords could easily be tracked via the Land Registry system.  It was suggested that Cllr Oykener’s earlier statement that the scheme ‘would not make a profit’ was a sweeping statement to make and if that was the case, where would the money generated be going?  The validity of the statistics was also questioned; data had not been included in the final report.

 

The Chair invited officers to respond to the various points raised.

 

Sally McTernan responded to the question of whether the NLA had been approached during the consultation and confirmed that a written submission had been received from them.  As well as this, a deputation had been given by a member of the NLA at the Cabinet meeting on 9 April.  The deputee had also been at a consultation event prior to Christmas 2013.  She therefore felt that the NLA’s views had been taken into account.

 

Ray James responded to the question regarding Counsel’s opinion on the degree of correlation.  He commented that Counsel’s opinion had been sought on the robustness of the research undertaken but there was not a definitive degree of correlation required in this context.  He could not provide any further detail on this point as the content of Counsel’s Opinion was legally privileged.

 

The response given to the point regarding degree of correlation was challenged; the resident felt that this point had not been answered satisfactorily.

 

Cllr Oykener responded that he wished to repeat his earlier comments; namely that he had listened to landlords’ concerns regarding the cost by offering the early bird option, that good landlords were needed and the Council wished to work with them and that the Scheme would help build a better relationship between landlords and the Council.

 

Cllr Neville stated that he would submit a Freedom of Information Act Request if he did not receive adequate responses to the questions he had raised, particularly as to whether or not all of Professor Mayhew’s report had been published.

 

Ray James responded that the Council had commissioned independent research without seeking to interfere with that research in any way and that, to his knowledge, no part of Prof. Mayhew’s report, as submitted, had not been published.

 

Cllr Neville replied that he still felt there were outstanding questions to be answered and whilst he was in no way suggesting any malevolence, the questions he had put forward had not been clearly answered.  He added that the proposed Scheme would not give any additional powers to the Council that were not already there (and would like to see how those existing powers have been used over the years).  If this was the case, what was the purpose of the Scheme?  He asserted that it would simply create a large amount of additional resource which was not fully quantified in the Cabinet report.  He added that there was a cost to any inspection regime and asked why this could not be done without the introduction of licensing.  He contested that it improved the identification of landlords and that this could be done anyway with existing powers.  The key to the success of the Scheme was its enforcement.

 

The Chair then asked Members of the Overview & Scrutiny Committee to vote on the decision.

 

Cllr Rye MOVED that the decision be referred back to the first full Council after the elections, to ensure mature reflection.

The vote was as follows:

 

Councillors Rye and Smith voted against the decision and for referral back to full Council;

Councillors Simon, Simbodyal, Savva, Sitkin and Robinson voted in favour of the decision.

 

The Chair confirmed the Decision as CONFIRMED.