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A REVIEW OF THE FIRST YEAR OF THE MANDATORY LICENSING OF HOUSES IN MULTIPLE OCCUPATION IN SCOTLAND

CHAPTER SEVEN DATA COLLECTION AND MONITORING

7.1 Knowledge underpins successful HMO licensing. In Chapter 4, the need for good, reliable information about the external environment - the number, size and location of HMOs - was seen to be important in assessing the effectiveness of licensing in terms of its impact on supply and the extent to which licensable HMOs had been brought in to the scheme. This Chapter considers knowledge from an internal organisational perspective. It looks at how much knowledge local authorities have about HMOs, the sources of information authorities use to identify HMOs, the contribution of survey work to information gathering, access rights or restrictions to housing benefit data, information management and performance monitoring of licence scheme activity.

HMO KNOWLEDGE AND INFORMATION SOURCES

7.2 The research had intended to construct a profile of the number of 3, 4, 5 and 5 plus HMOs that would be encompassed within the licensing scheme at each stage of its implementation. For each year of the scheme, such figures would provide a rough baseline to assess the proportion of licensable HMOs the scheme had actually licensed and the impact that mandatory licensing was having on HMO numbers. Given the dynamic activity and complex nature of the private rented HMO sector, it was recognised that local authority information would at best be approximate but would still be useful. However, the information provided via the postal survey was so incomplete that no reliable figures could be published. The poverty of knowledge about the HMO sector was significant. As Table 7.1 shows, knowledge was skewed towards the larger HMO sizes. Even there, only 22 authorities provided information on the number of HMOs with over five qualifying occupants. It was unclear if the figures provided, represented all HMOs or only those in the private rented sector. As occupancy size decreased, knowledge diminished to the point that only five authorities (Dundee, East Lothian, Glasgow, Renfrewshire and Stirling) could provide any figures for the number of 3 person HMOs in their area.

Table 7.1 Number of local authorities with knowledge of the size of their HMO sector

Source: local authority postal survey

7.3 Even where figures were supplied, they could be partial and drawn from different bases, as revealed by the case study interviews. Edinburgh reported that it only recorded the numbers held in its HMO database. Aberdeen only recorded 74 HMOs and indicated that they were from the previous discretionary scheme but admitted there were probably " over a thousand" HMOs in the 3s and above. The treatment of student accommodation was not consistent, with some authorities including university owned accommodation while Glasgow stated that it had excluded the 6452 'units' of university student accommodation in the city. Stirling, recorded 129 three person HMOs but these referred only to the number in its long established registration scheme and from university off-campus lists: " the number is actually much bigger".

7.4 The great majority of authorities had no previous experience of dealing with HMOs before mandatory licensing and indicated that no additional resources had been invested in intelligence gathering since the introduction of the scheme. Authorities were asked how they investigated the location and numbers of HMOs in their area. The postal survey revealed a variety of methods - and no method at all - in collecting data about HMOs.

7.5 The Guidance refers to local authorities " identifying the required information" about HMOs from internal council records, national data sources such as the census, voluntary organisations, university accommodation lists and 'field visits' (Scottish Executive, 2000b: 11). In fact, sources used by authorities were even more numerous, though it was clear there was no standard approach adopted across authorities. Each operated with its own methods and preferences; some authorities were quite casual and reactive in their approach and others more systematic and proactive. Methods identified included

• Records held by various council departments including in some cases, access to housing benefit data
• The personal knowledge of officers involved with HMO licensing (frequently reported)
• Complaints from the public, community councils and councillors
• Reports by tenants about problems
• Newspaper and shop window adverts
• Links with homelessness sections who used the private rented sector for temporary accommodation
• University lists of private rented sector flats recommended to students
• The electoral roll
• Checking building warrant applications
• Mail shot to the assessors office, health boards, estate agents and other council departments
• Sometimes from HMO landlords identifying other HMO landlords
• Registration scheme and discretionary licensing scheme names and addresses
• Street surveys (rarely)

Surveys

7.6 Glasgow and Edinburgh city councils had a more staff intensive approach to identifying and building a data-base of HMOs compared to other authorities. They were the only authorities that had carried out any survey work during the first year of the scheme. They had both allocated financial resources and staff to institute 'door knocking' ward surveys. Glasgow had targeted a number of wards that it considered priority areas for investigation but had no plan to survey the whole city. It selected areas that it thought had expanding numbers of student flats as students sought alternatives to the high rents level in the West End of the city. It had found the work demanding but fruitful with over 130 previously unknown HMOs identified (at the time of the research) in the Woodlands area of the city. The HMO team in Edinburgh had commenced a street-by-street survey of all wards in the city on a ward priority basis. It estimated it would take four years to complete the city survey. Incorporated in the licensing fees of both authorities were the survey and investigative costs and thus, a charge against owners who had applied for a licence.

Access to housing benefit records

7.7 A potential aid to identifying HMOs at the lower end of the private rented sector is access to housing benefit data to find out at what addresses, multiple housing benefit payments are paid. However, this is a sensitive issue because of the potential infringement of the Data Protection Act 1998. From the postal survey returns, there was a division between authorities in their understanding of their entitlement to access to housing benefit data and in their take-up of access. In half of authorities, the HMO licensing officers said they had access to addresses where multiple housing benefit payments were paid, with a further three (9%) stating they could access the number of payments as well as addresses (Table 7.1). However, the remaining 13 authorities (41%) had no access to benefit records either because access had been refused or had not formally been requested.

Table 7.2 Access by HMO officers to housing benefit records

Source: local authority postal survey

7.8 Case study examples illustrate the different access understandings. In one authority, the council solicitor had informed HMO officers that information could not be taken for one specific purpose and used for another. In another authority, the lead HMO officer was aware of access restrictions but had secured access after signing a declaration that all housing benefit data was to be used for identifying potential HMOs and would be stored securely with all irrelevant data destroyed and the system's security checked by the data protection officer. A third authority had initially obtained access to housing benefit records but had stopped due to concern about entitlement rights. Subsequent advice from the data protection manager was that if the information was being sought for the purpose of the detection or prevention of a crime (e.g. evasion of licensing obligation) HMO licensing officers could request information about property addresses considered HMOs. In a fourth authority, the lead officers said they had no access to housing benefit records but could informally ask the benefit section if it was making payments to a specific address and if so, how many.

7.9 It is apparent there was no consistent understanding across councils of the legal entitlement of officers responsible for HMO licensing to access housing benefit data or of particular conditions under which access could be granted. The Guidance is non-specific on this issue, advising authorities to operate " within any limitations imposed by the Data Protection Act 1998".

DATA MANAGEMENT AND MONITORING

7.10 The HMO licensing process attracts data from a wide range of sources related to licence administration, technical inspections, reports, the property and the owner. Inputs can come from licensing sections, environmental health, building control, housing, planning, finance, police and the fire brigade. Obtaining, recording and integrating licensing data from such diverse sources is a major task. Investigative work on unlicensed HMOs adds a further dimension of data input. With this diversity of data content and sources, issues arise about the integration of key information on each HMO and its licence application, the use of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) and the extent to which performance monitoring had been developed.

7.11 These topics were examined in the case studies and the overall picture was of very limited data integration, some basic computerised support and minimal performance monitoring. Authorities did keep HMO records but because of the inter-disciplinary or departmental framework of HMO licensing, records could be kept in housing, licensing, environmental health and other departments. Recurring themes from lead HMO officers were the lack of inter-departmental data integration and the inability to access the HMO related data held by other departments via internal computer networks. The development of key performance indicators was limited, as were broader monitoring procedures. There appeared to be no political involvement in reviewing the scheme's efficiency and effectiveness.

7.12 The lead HMO officers in the case study authorities illustrate the problems faced. In Aberdeen, environmental health had its HMO computer database derived from the previous discretionary licensing scheme " but it only holds names and addresses". The reports by the Fire Master and from building control were stored as hard copies only - and " nothing goes to committee". In Glasgow, the picture was mixed. There were three different data systems. One, a manual system was in the licensing section, the second, a combination of computer and manual filing systems for tracking the progress of cases in the HMO unit and the third a system in another part of the same department as the unit holding information about notices on properties and part of a council wide system. Glasgow had two performance indicators with targets both measuring key timescales. No monitoring reports went to committee. In Edinburgh, all the departments involved operated separate databases that were not inter-related. Officers admitted that with so many databases there could be " discrepancies in factual knowledge". Edinburgh used three performance indicators focusing on application numbers, processing timescales and expenditure. A progress report went to every members/ officers group. Highland Council had " a paper system in Corporate Services' with no integration across departments and " each [of 8] area office holds its own data". No reports on HMO licensing progress went to any committee. The lead officer in Fife highlighted the difference between simply storing facts and monitoring performance:

"Each department deals separately with its information needs. Legal & Administration will have its system related to its licensing role. In environmental health we have computer input of written inspection reports and dates and times of visits to properties but there is no monitoring capability re timescales, etc" (Fife Council, lead HMO officer)

SUMMARY OF KEY FINDINGS

In the first year of the mandatory licensing scheme:

• Local authority knowledge on the size of the HMO sector and the number of HMOs of different sizes within their area was very poor, particularly for the smaller 3 person HMOs
• Local authorities employed a wide variety of methods to identify HMOs but there was little evidence of a systematic approach to data collection and investigative work having been adopted
• The city councils of Edinburgh and Glasgow were the only authorities where evidence was found of systematic street-level, survey work to identify HMOs
• The costs of investigative survey work were incorporated in licence fees and therefore charged against owners who had made applications for a licence
• There was an inconsistent and muddled position regarding rights of access by HMO officers to housing benefit records in order to identify potential HMOs
• Virtually no integrated HMO/ licence data-base management existed in the case study authorities. The use of key performance indicators appeared limited to Edinburgh and Glasgow City Councils. There was no evidence of any performance monitoring of the licensing scheme at members level.

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