How the death of Awaab Ishak has spurred social housing landlords to do better

Social housing providers have backed Andy Burnham’s plans to tackle rogue landlords, saying they must do better after the death of Awaab Ishak. The two-year-old died in December 2020 after Rochdale Boroughwide Housing – which owns and manages the Freehold estate flat where he lived – failed to act when his family repeatedly reported mould and damp, a coroner concluded last year.

The housing association admitted assumptions were made about the lifestyle of the family by attributing the wet bathroom floor in the flat to ‘ritual bathing’. However, Awaab’s father told the court that this was not in his family’s culture.

The organisation will now be taking part in a ‘learning session’ with other social housing providers – including one on culturally sensitive services – according to Charlie Norman, chair of the Greater Manchester Housing Providers group. Representing 24 housing providers across the city-region last week, she said that the death of Awaab Ishak has ‘profoundly upset’ the social housing sector.

Speaking in support of Mr Burnham’s Good Landlord Charter, she agreed that this should be a ‘defining moment’ for the social housing sector. It came as the Greater Manchester mayor revealed plans for the new scheme which aims to drive up housing standards, but had initially focused on the private sector.

The first of its kind in the UK, the charter promises to single out bad landlords and withhold public money, such as housing benefits, from those not meeting standards. However, the move will require extra powers from the government.

Social housing providers will now sign up to the scheme as well following the death of Awaab Ishak, according to Ms Norman, who is the chief executive of Mosscare St Vincents. She said: “When we got the coroner’s report, we came together and we took firm action, we’ve got a firm action plan which is about how we share best practice, what we’re doing to get into people’s homes and looking at the condition of our homes together and how we’re involving residents in our decision making.

“Our response to the tragedy is about actions. More widely, we’re looking at working with health, looking at working with local government and our regulator and central government to help shape change nationally and locally.”

The aim of the Good Landlord Charter is to define a set of clear, practical, and accessible standards that would drive up the quality of renting in Greater Manchester. Following the model set by the Good Employment Charter, input will be sought from partners including registered housing providers, private landlords, local authorities, tenants’ groups and the NHS.

Currently, social housing providers are subject to a national set of regulatory standards, covering economic and consumer responsibilities, while a different set of standards applies to the private rented sector. Local authorities already have powers to tackle rogue landlords, but often lack the resources to enforce, according to Mr Burnham, who said the scheme requires government support.

However, the Labour mayor – who was optimistic about getting government support – said councils have already committed to the scheme, regardless of the level of support it receives. He said: “The truth is, we’re gonna do it anyway.

“But I think it’s not unrealistic for me to say, given the public statements of the Secretary of State, I think that we are serving him up a solution that actually might give his work a greater degree of public-facing awareness.”

Private landlords are not expected to have to pay to be part of the scheme, as they currently do with selective licensing, according to Salford mayor Paul Dennett. But he said that a number of changes are needed for it to work.

This includes increasing the level of housing benefit paid and allowing all local authorities to apply for funding to build affordable housing. It comes after Mr Burnham warned that punishing private landlords by withholding public money from them could exacerbate the existing housing and homelessness crisis.

He claimed that there is ‘an appetite’ from the government to ‘explore’ the idea of cutting of housing benefits off from rogue landlords. The ‘trailblazer’ devolution talks are still ongoing with an outcome expected early this year.

Addressing good landlords in Greater Manchester, the metro mayor added: “This is the way in which you stop being tarred with the same brush as people who are really giving what you do a bad name.

“This is a way of you getting the recognition for the good things you do and the exemplary way in which you treat your residents. You will have this recognition.

“That will take yourself away from this sort of attempt where people say all landlords are bad – because they’re not. It’s about separating the two and isolating the problem and us as a city-region becoming clearer about who are the people who won’t and where are the places where there’s a concentration of poor provision.”

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