held at the Nottingham Council House on Friday 3rd October 2008

Sponsored by:


(papers given at the conference can be accessed from this page on the links provided)

Seventy five delegates gathered in Nottingham for the Annual Conference, accompanied by a further 52 delegates for part of the agenda that were taking part in a parallel set of sessions as part of a DASH (Decent and Safe Housing) regional event. The partnership ensured that over lunch there was an excellent networking opportunity between those who worked for Local Authorities and other accrediting bodies and landlords from the East Midlands.

The conference opening with some remarks from Cllr Alan Clark, the Executive Board member for Nottingham City Council with responsibility for housing and planning. He welcomed delegates to Nottingham, pointing out that a few achievements were immediately visible: the Council House, the trams outside and the recently refurbished Market Square (that was currently hosting a German Christmas Market).

He outlined the important regeneration implications of developing housing in Nottingham, drawing attention to a £200m PFI bid.

He stressed the Council's commitment to accreditation, both locally (in supporting the Unipol/DASH Code) and regionally with the East Midlands Landlords Accreditation Scheme (EMLAS) that was being launched at the conference later that day.

He also drew attention to the results of a significant survey of student housing in Nottingham that had been supported by NCC that had reported in October 2008 which had stressed the importance of community for all the residents in Nottingham, both insisting students and the host population.

He wished the conference well.

The Opening address and Welcome was given by Tom Toumazou who thanked both the RLA for their sponsorship and support and Nottingham City Council for hosting the event.

He informed delegates that ANUK’s membership, finances and governance were all healthy and that ANUK was active with some significant developments on the Core Values, training and the Sec 233 National Codes.

He made reference to the misunderstanding of what accreditation is and can achieve in the Law Commission and Rugg reviews. He stressed that accreditation in isolation can only deliver limited results and that schemes need to be developed as part of a self-regulation strategy with ownership independent of Local Authorities, recognising that Landlord Associations should be active scheme operators. He warned that schemes must now not look to the public purse for funding due to political and funding uncertainties that this presents, and that there should be a consistent move towards self-financing of schemes largely by the industry.

He also informed the conference that he had handed in his notice as Chair to the Executive and thanked all for their support over the years.

The session on the Rugg Review was opened by Martin Blakey Chief Executive of Unipol Student Homes who summarised the niche markets identified in the report and looked at the six "Policy Directions of Travel". Martin also extracted a number of references to accreditation that were in the report.

Ian Fletcher, from the British Property Federation then commented on the Review. The Rugg Review recognised both the importance of accreditation and saw its limitations, in that it was a good way of recognising and improving good practice but could not tackle the worst properties and landlords where enforcement would be important. It could, however, lift unnecessary regulation from the better landlords, allowing accurate targeting of enforcement powers ion those who needed this (not what had unfortunately happened under licensing where the suspicion was the better landlords were those that had applied to and adhered to licensing conditions).

The Review had, however, not included accreditation within its "Directions of Travel" and had not mentioned trying to establish any definition of accreditation. Nor had it taken on board ANUK's four core values. There were some contractions where accreditation was flagged as enforcing property standards, and verification through viewing was regarded as important but elsewhere there was talk of professional development which would be a skills, rather than a property based criteria. The Review therefore reflected the prevalent confusion about what accreditation actually was.

There was unequivocal support for an extension of Assured Shorthold Tenancies by lifting the £25,000 ceiling to a more realistic level. Ian not also raised the tenancy implications of this limit removing tenants from the protection of ASTs but also highlighted that in certain circumstances landlords were also at risk from a tenant's entitlement to be consulted about the possibility of purchasing the property.

Ian was pleased with the overall Review and conclusions but the report was very light on accreditation whilst stressing consistently the value of engagement and incentives for the private rented sector to improve.

A panel session discussed the future of Accreditation. Chris Town from the RLA felt that his Association and better landlords in general were right behind accreditation, but it was important to define what that was. Accreditation was also important inn developing light-touch regulation for those who met standards. He was also strongly supportive of skills-based improvements under accreditation. Landlords welcomed professional development, but it had to be relevant and of high quality.

David Pinceps, from the London Landlord Accreditation Scheme again was strongly supportive of accreditation and thought it had an important role in future housing policy. It was under developed and underfunded. He drew particular attention to the importance of raising its profile with tenants and empowering tenants to complain and give feedback to scheme operators.

Ama Uzowuru from the National Union of Students still felt that there were a significant number of poor landlords, often using managing agents. The NUS felt that accreditation for students, with the backing of the students' union and institution, could work well in badging better landlords and students could be advised only to rent accredited properties. Accreditation was underfunded and institutions perhaps put too much emphasis on housing first year students and too little emphasis on their housing experiences in subsequent years.

Caren Green, from Salford City Council, agreed that accreditation could not solve the worst problems in the private sector, but she saw accreditation as an important tool in enabling local authorities to take targeted enforcement action at the same time as using accreditation to improve management skills and this is what Salford were seeking to do. Ongoing secure funding for these initiatives were an issue.

There were several comments and issues raised from the floor. Keith Rose, from Nottingham City Council felt that it was important that Managing Agents were professionalised and the key to that was training.

In the afternoon, Neil Marsden looked at the interplay between Regulation and Accreditation. He wanted to extend the principles of the Government Approved Codes of Standards for Students, where those signing the Codes were excepted from licensing, to other landlords. This would mean that landlords could join accreditation and abide by its rules and become self regulating or they could opt into a regulatory and enforcement system.

He outlined an opt-in opt-out model and protocol and how this might work. He also raised the need to regulate managing agents and stressed the importance of landlords professional development.

The regional East Midland Landlord Accreditation Scheme (EMLAS) was then formally launched by Tom Toumazou and 50 EMLAS members, and a number of accreditation schemes from the region, were present at the launch.

After lunch Dennis Hopper and Colin Chapman outlined the new self assessment and verification system that had been developed for the Government Approved Larger Code for Educational Establishments (referred to earlier by Neil Marsden). This new scheme allowed for peer-to-peer review by members. They went through the on-line assessment and verification system which were designed to encourage review and improvement and build up a team of peer-to-peer reviews who were engaged in rolling out best practice.

Anne Rowland from Cardiff City Council and Phil Rowsby, the Project Director for Landlord Accreditation Scotland both gave a report on the development of two national accreditation schemes.

The Welsh scheme was a partnership between 22 Local Authorities and was supported by the Welsh Assembly. Local Authorities pay an annual subscription each to cover central administration, branding and marketing, maintain the website and co-ordinate the scheme.  The scheme is skills based, and in heavily based on the London Landlord Accreditation Scheme. This fits in with some Local Authorities who also have property based accreditation schemes for their specific areas.

The skills based course is a one day course based on the ANUK Development Manual and the training is undertaken by Training for Professionals (link coming soon).

The scheme was launched on 19th November 20008, so it was still early days by 39 landlords had been accredited on a trial. The main launch in Cardiff was planned for 16th march 2009.

Phil Rowsby from Scotland outlined their scheme which was a partnership between the Scottish Association of landlords, the Scottish Rural Property and Business Association and the Scottish Government (with all-party support).

The scheme had a Board of Directors and an Advisory Group. There had been four pilot scheme and Communities Scotland had deve4loped the Core Standards which formed the framework for landlord accreditation Scotland.

Each Local Authority pad a £2,000 fee annually which funded a local launch, branding, training (3 events), a dedicated page on the website (link). The scheme as free to individual landlords. Letting agents paid an annual membership fee. each delegate attending training paid £25.00.

Three courses were on offer: Property Conditions and Property Management, Tenancy management, Tenancy Agreements and Notices.

The scheme was launched on 1st April 2008 and now had 4,700 properties in it in 27 of the 32 local authority areas.

The conference was wound up by the Chair, Tom Toumazou, who announced his retirement from the Chair later in the year, so that this was the last time he would Chair the conference. He would, however, maintain a close interest in ANUK and planned to remain on the Executive. There were several thanks for the work Tom had undertaken from the floor.

Tom stressed the importance of joining ANUK and being part of a network to spreader best practice and provide mutual support and to continue the argument for better resources and for more consistent support to be given, at all levels, to accreditation.