The evolution of housing competence and conduct standards

As the sector's professional body, the Chartered Institute of Housing (CIH) exists to promote the art and science of housing. An endeavour that includes, but also goes beyond, qualifications and training.

One of our core roles is to provide a key link between the sector and government to ensure the legislation around housing is meaningful, accessible, and effective. This has included, from the initial discussion stage up to the present day, working with government to help inform their work on professionalism in housing and updating the regulatory regime.

It's encouraging to see professionalism being taken so seriously by government as they take concrete steps to support its growth and development. The Competence and Conduct Standard consultation encompasses a number of new changes for the sector, such as mandating qualifications for senior housing professionals and introducing the requirement for regulated landlords to have a code of conduct, emphasising the importance of social housing in relation to other vocations providing front line services – like social work, teaching, health and care services.

While qualifications are an effective way of ensuring professionals have the required knowledge and skills, at CIH we have been clear - professionalism is more than a qualification; it’s about following a code of conduct and ethics, displaying the right behaviours, attitudes, and empathy, while engaging in regular continued professional development (CPD) to ensure that we remain current. It is reassuring to see this message mirrored in the Competence and Conduct Standard consultation, highlighting the important role housing professionals play in tenants’ lives that cannot be measured by qualifications alone.

However, with change comes challenges, and questions.

We are not blind to the many challenges the sector and our members are facing in relation to time, resourcing, and cost of living pressures. Whilst we welcome the steps the government is making in mandating qualifications to enhance our sector’s standing and ensure people in key roles have the right knowledge and skills, we understand that it will add further pressures.

The Competence and Conduct Standard consultation provides an essential opportunity to ensure the sector’s voice is heard and the correct balance is struck. It provides an opportunity for us, as a sector, to have our say and ask questions.

We are determined to support our members and the wider profession as we collectively respond to the government’s interpretation of professionalism for the housing sector. CIH have organised a number of lunch and learn events, with a range of speakers including officials from the Department of Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, to enable our members to ask questions, find out more about what the Competency and Conduct Standard will mean for them, and feedback their thoughts.

We are encouraging all our members and housing professionals to feed into the consultation to ensure the legislation around professionalising our sector is meaningful, accessible, and effective.

Right now, we are the generation of housing professionals who have an opportunity to shape and influence the legislation that will support ourselves, our colleagues, and future generations to be the best professionals they can be. Ensuring that tenants and residents have access to good quality, affordable homes; that they are treated with dignity and respect; and that their voices and views are heard and taken account of in decisions that affect them, their homes, and the communities they live in. And that as a sector we have the tools and colleagues around us to provide the services and homes so desperately needed.

I’m proud to be a housing professional and I know this is a sentiment that can be echoed right across the sector. However, we must all be alive to what it means to work in this ever-changing industry, whilst also considering the transformational impact we can have on the individuals and communities we work with and for.

This article was first published in Housing Today on 21 February 2024.