Background

The Competence and Conduct Standard has been introduced by the Regulator of Social Housing as part of wider reforms following the Grenfell Tower tragedy and concerns raised through the Social Housing Green Paper and Social Housing White Paper. Evidence showed that poor service quality, inadequate staff development, ineffective complaint handling, and a failure to listen to residents contributed to poor tenant experiences across the sector.

The Standard is intended to professionalise the social housing workforce, improve accountability, strengthen organisational culture, and ensure that tenants receive high-quality services from competent and appropriately qualified staff.

The Standard comes into force on 1 October 2026, with transition periods for qualification requirements.

Key Requirements

Registered providers must:

Ensure Staff Competence – Demonstrate that staff responsible for landlord services possess the necessary skills, knowledge, experience and behaviours to deliver good-quality services. This extends to relevant staff employed through outsourced service providers.

Maintain Workforce Development Arrangements – Have a documented approach to: staff learning and development, professional competence and continuing development, performance appraisal and management and addressing poor performance.

Implement a Code of Conduct – Develop or adopt a code of conduct and ensure it is embedded throughout the organisation.

Meet Qualification Requirements – Certain Senior Housing Managers and Senior Housing Executives must hold, or be working towards, recognised housing management qualifications. Providers will need evidence demonstrating compliance with these requirements.

Involve Tenants – Policies relating to competence and conduct must be accessible to tenants, who should be given opportunities to influence and scrutinise their development.

Recommended Next Steps

Immediate (Next 3 Months)

  • Commission a gap analysis against the Competence and Conduct Standard.
  • Identify all potentially in-scope roles, particularly senior housing managers and executives.
  • Create a qualifications register for affected employees.
  • Review existing policies relating to conduct, performance management and workforce development.
  • Nominate a senior responsible officer to oversee implementation.

Medium Term (3 to 12 Months)

  • Develop a detailed implementation plan with milestones, costs and resource requirements.
  • Enrol affected staff on recognised qualifications where required.
  • Update governance and assurance arrangements to provide regular reporting to the Board.
  • Engage tenants in the review of competence and conduct arrangements.

Ongoing

  • Monitor compliance progress through regular reporting to the Board and Audit and Risk Committee.
  • Maintain evidence demonstrating compliance with qualification, training and conduct requirements.
  • Incorporate the Standard into the corporate assurance framework and risk register.
Governance implication

For Boards and Audit & Risk Committees, a key assurance question is:

“How many of our in-scope senior housing managers currently rely principally on experience rather than recognised housing qualifications, and what is the plan to address any gaps within the transition period?”

For organisations that have not yet assessed this issue, that question should form part of the initial gap analysis, as experienced senior staff may represent the largest population affected by the new requirements.

Source – Annex 2 – Competence and Conduct Standard – GOV.UK