Collaboration, communication and understanding tenants’ needs are the key to making progress on housing disrepair in Islington. That is one of the key findings in Tackling Disrepair in Islington, a new report by Ian Browne in partnership with the Advice Services Alliance.
The research was commissioned by local funders Cripplegate Foundation and Cloudesley as part of their role in the Islington Strategic Advice Partnership (ISAP). It examines housing disrepair in social housing across Islington, drawing on interviews with advice workers and social landlords, secondary research, and local data to understand the scale of the problem, its impacts, and the systems used to manage it. It recognises that tackling disrepair remains a complex problem, but one for which there are possibilities available to mitigate its impact.
The report highlights several recurring themes. Communication failures, repeated surveys, missed appointments, lack of access, and inconsistent follow-through all make disrepair harder to resolve and can erode trust between tenants and landlords. Vulnerable tenants are often hit hardest, especially where poor housing affects physical health, mental health, work, education, or caring responsibilities, and where digital or language barriers make it harder to engage with repair systems. The advice sector is an important resource for tenants who need assistance in managing their relationships with their landlord and understanding their rights. At the same time, the social housing sector is being subject to additional layers of regulation and must adapt its approach to addressing disrepair in its stock.
In response to these themes, this report makes the following recommendations:
- Better understanding and accommodation of tenants’ vulnerabilities: Tenants may have vulnerabilities, such as disabilities or language support needs, which might either heighten the risks they face from poor housing or negatively impact their ability to engage with their landlord to have the disrepair addressed. Recording, understanding and accommodating the particular needs of vulnerable tenants is therefore an important objective for social landlords as they aim to maintain the necessary standards within their housing stock.
- Careful development and adoption of technological tools: Technology, and especially
digital tools like online portals, offers potential improvements for the effective management of the landlord-tenant relationship. However, care must be taken to avoid exclusion of those who lack the relevant language or digital literacy skills and the overreliance on systems which might suit the needs of a large majority, but allow others to fall through the cracks. - More advertisement and encouragement by landlords of ways to report disrepair: Landlords should do what they can to ensure that tenants are familiar with their reporting and complaint systems, which would help to encourage early resolution of issues, avoid the resource implications of a dispute escalating and protect the trust and confidence within the landlord-tenant relationship.
- Better connection and collaboration between the advice sector and social landlords: The social landlords and the advice sector organisations in Islington have a shared aim in supporting local tenants, and should build on existing formal and informal relationships to collaborate on improving housing conditions within the borough.
- Reconsideration of the boundaries between the responsibilities of capital works and the repairs teams and budgets: Poor housing conditions can sometimes be the result of structural issues within properties, which require significant work to address. Often, this kind of remedial work will be beyond the scope of a social landlord’s disrepair service, which risks ineffective sticking plaster solutions, unless a more flexible approach is implemented.
- Further research into Islington Strategic Advice Partnership (ISAP)’s shared areas of focus: ISAP should utilise their collaborative partnership to identify further issues within Islington where research may assist with campaigning or policy development. A joint research strategy could allow for effective forward planning to address mutual priorities.
- Further research into the implementation and impact of Awaab’s Law: Awaab’s Law should make a significant impact on the way that social landlords respond to complaints of disrepair within their housing stock. This report offers some insight into how social landlords are adapting to the new regulatory requirements around damp and mould in Islington. However, further research would be beneficial to help understand how the new rules were being rolled out and implemented elsewhere, and to a broader range of disrepair issues.
- Reintroduction of Legal Aid for housing disrepair claims: The limited availability of Legal Aid for disrepair claims represents a significant problem for access to justice; either inhibiting tenants from using the law to help them address poor conditions in their home or pushing them towards controversial claims management firms and no-win, no-fee solicitors. The full reintroduction of Legal Aid would reduce the current problematic incentives around disrepair claims and allow for more proactive support to be provided by the advice sector.