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

ANNEX ONE DETAILS OF RESEARCH METHODOLGY

Local authorities: the postal survey

1 A 76 question postal survey designed to gain both factual and opinion data about all aspects of the mandatory scheme - key policy issues, operational procedures, effectiveness and impact was sent to all 32 local authorities. It covered:

• Numerical progress in approving licence applications to 30 Sept. 2001
• Knowledge of the HMO sector
• Administration and joint working
• Links with fire, police and procurator fiscals' offices
• Information and advice to owners and tenants
• Investigations
• Inspections
• Benchmark standards and planning
• Tenancy management standards
• Costs of the scheme to authorities
• Costs and fees to applicants
• The fit and proper person assessment
• The effectiveness on the mandatory Order
• The effectiveness of the Guidance
• The impact and wider result of the scheme

2 All 32 authorities returned their questionnaires. The answers received varied in quality reflecting the different priorities, knowledge and co-ordination across authorities but they provided a useful platform to develop more in-depth understanding of how the schemes were working locally.

Local authorities: the case studies

3 Eight local authorities, a quarter of all Scottish local authorities, agreed to participate as case study authorities. This involved detailed interviews with the HMO lead officer or officers. In selecting the eight authorities, two criteria were applied:

• Four should have operated a discretionary HMO licensing scheme and another four should not have had that platform of prior experience
• There should be a mix of city, urban and urban/rural authorities across Scotland

4 Under the HMO Licensing Order 1991, seven authorities had a discretionary licensing scheme: Aberdeen, Dundee, Edinburgh, Falkirk, Glasgow, Midlothian and South Ayrshire. Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Glasgow and South Ayrshire agreed to be case studies for the mandatory licensing scheme. Edinburgh and Glasgow city councils possessed the great majority of HMOs in Scotland and the two authorities had developed considerable experience from dealing with HMOs over the previous 20 years. Both were university cities with considerable student accommodation in both the private rented sector and in halls of residence. They also had numerous housing association properties, some of whose shared accommodation was likely to fall within licensing requirements. Minutes from the HMO Benchmark Group meetings indicated that Edinburgh had at least 183 licensed HMOs and Glasgow had at least 105 by November 2001. Both authorities involved interviews with more than 1 lead officer. Aberdeen City Council provided similarities and contrasts to the two main cities. It was also a university city but was outside the Central Belt, had fewer private sector HMOs and, historically, a relatively lower level of engagement with HMO regulation. South Ayrshire Council offered an urban/rural mix based on the town of Ayr, with its teacher training campus and student accommodation but with a rural hinterland of smaller settlements, agriculture and country estates where shared private rented provision might be found. Neither Aberdeen or South Ayrshire had approved any applications in the first year of the scheme.

5 The other four authorities did not have a discretionary licensing scheme. With 25 authorities to choose from, various combinations could have been selected. To provide further contrast to the other four authorities, consideration was given to rural authorities, to authorities with a large geographical area to administer and those with an urban/rural settlement mix. The authorities approached and agreeable to participate were Dumfries & Galloway, Fife, Highland and Stirling councils.

6 Taped, face-to-face structured interviews were carried out with the lead HMO officers in Edinburgh and Glasgow. In Edinburgh, a supplementary telephone interview was held with a senior housing officer. With the other six case studies, the lead HMO officer, or an officer designated by each authority, was interviewed by telephone. Several interviews were required at Highland Council due to the geographically decentralised nature of the council's structure. The questions posed were developed from the answers in the returned postal survey and therefore varied between authorities. On average, each authority was asked about 50 questions. The quality of data obtained was variable.

Interviews with 10 owners of traditional private rented sector licensed HMOs

7 The owners of licensed HMOs provide a valuable user perspective on the effectiveness and the operation of the mandatory licensing scheme in its first year. Resources restricted to 10, the number of private owners of licensed HMOs that could be interviewed. They were drawn from four authorities ensuring an urban and rural mix: Edinburgh (3), Glasgow (3), Dumfries & Galloway (2) and Highland (2). One HMO, owned by a trust was managed by a second trust. The senior member of staff of the management trust agreed to be interviewed as he had been most deeply involved with the licence application. All interviews were based on a consistent set of 75 questions, conducted by telephone and lasted between 25 to 45 minutes. The topics covered were:

• Property ownership portfolio
• Business rationale for renting HMOs
• Awareness and views about the local authority promotion of the scheme
• Contact with the authority about applying for the licence
• Documentation required
• Experience of HMO inspection process
• The assessment of tenancy management standards
• Upgrade works required to meet benchmark standards
• Views about the fire safety standards applied
• The decision to award the licence and attendance at the licensing committee
• Impact of the licensing standards on personal HMO management
• Views on the wider impact of the licensing scheme

8 To be selected, the owners had to have an HMO licensed within the first 12 months of the scheme. Each authority provided a larger pool of names and contact details than required for the number of interviews. In each authority area, the researcher made the decision on whom to approach from the list of owners. In all cases, the interview focused on only one licensed HMO even where an owner had more than one licensed in the first year or during the second year of the scheme (which was quite common).

9 A point to note about the representativeness of the data from the private owner interviews is that owners in the first year of the scheme were most likely to have applied for a licence voluntarily, if reluctantly, when required to by their local authority. To that extent, they may represent the more willing, knowledgeable and 'law abiding' HMO owners and may well not be representative of the owners of the larger six and above HMO sizes who had evaded licensing or been unaware of it. However, they still provide a rich source of qualitative data to compare with that of local authorities and tenants.

10 A profile of the 10 owners elicited from the telephone interviews is summarised in Annex Table 1.1. Almost all managed their properties themselves. Their experience in the residential letting business varied from one year to over 30 years with 4 owners each having over 30 years experience. Six owned fair-sized portfolios (not all HMOs) ranging from eight to over 40 properties. Most of the licensed HMOs that were the focus of the interviews were flats although some were houses.

Annex Table 1.1 Profile of private sector HMO owners

Source: Interviews with private sector HMO owners

Interviews with five non-profit, institutional HMO owners: three universities and two housing associations

11. Shared accommodation provided by non-profit landlords is included within the mandatory licensing scheme, unless otherwise exempt. Accommodation based on housing need or a non-profit- making service raises different issues from those of private rented sector owners. During the first year of scheme, some universities with halls of residence and student residence blocks and some housing associations that owned very sheltered housing schemes had expressed their concerns about how the scheme, its costs and standards were impacting on them.

12. Five non-profit HMO owners - the universities of Glasgow, Edinburgh and Dundee and Hanover and Servite Housing Associations agreed to participate in the research. Telephone interviews were conducted with managers using a structured set of questions but with Hanover Housing Association, a face-to-face interview with three staff was conducted. Interview schedules were individualised to accommodate the particular situation of each organisation but common issues included licensing problems, standards and fire safety issues, upgrade costs, fees and views about extending exemptions.

Interviews with thirteen tenants in licensed HMOs

13. User benefits depend ultimately on the knowledge, understanding and appreciation of those who live in licensed HMOs. A tenant's perspective on HMO licensing was obtained by face-to-face interview with 13 HMO tenants each in their HMO accommodation. In Glasgow, seven interviews were carried out and in Edinburgh, six. Addresses of licensed HMOs were obtained from the two authorities. As with the private sector HMO owners, officers in the lead department of each authority provided a larger list of premises than was necessary, but the researcher decided the selection of addresses to visit. In Edinburgh, the address list was supplemented by two additional addresses provided by a residential lettings company, Braemore Property Management that operated in the middle to upper end of the Edinburgh residential lettings market. To maximise the success of 'cold' door knocking, an environmental health officer accompanied the researcher to all but the Braemore HMOs. None of the tenants declined to be interviewed. The topics covered were:

• Personal housing history
• Awareness that the property had a licence
• Views about the property standards and the landlord's management
• Awareness of any changes in the HMO as a result of licensing
• Leases and rents charged and changes in rent increases
• Views about the advantages and disadvantages of licensing

14. A problem that limited the quality of the responses was that seven of the tenants had moved into their HMO around the time, or after the licence had been approved. As a result, the interviews were of variable quality.

15. Annex Table 1.2 provides a basic profile of the tenants interviewed and their type of HMO. All but one of the tenants interviewed were single person households. Most lived in shared flats or houses. Interestingly the one family (mother interviewed) was a homeless family placed by North Lanarkshire Council in a larger Glasgow bedsitter house. Most of the interviewees were male. Although a majority were young, there were a few tenants over 40 and one over 60. Employment status varied. Some were, working, others unemployed with only three students and one retired male. While some had been resident for less than six months, nearly half had been in the same HMO for over a year.

Annex Table 1.2 Profile of HMO tenants interviewed

Source: Interview with HMO tenants

Interviews with three owners of three person HMOs

16. A recurring concern expressed by landlord organisations and property letting agents, echoed in the interim report of the Social Justice Committee, was that owners of 'smaller' HMOs may leave the sector rather than face what they may consider disproportionate property upgrading and expensive licensing costs. As it would be interesting to glean a sense of how owners of three person HMOs were thinking about impending licensing requirements, within the timescale and resources available, telephone interviews with three owners were carried out.

17. In order to identify three private sector HMO owners, Glasgow City Council was approached and from its registration scheme database of addresses, a selection of 6 names and phone numbers were provided. Of the three owners who agreed to be interviewed, two were owners of three apartment flats that had been bought for children at university. The third owner rented three or four modern ex-council flats in the centre of Glasgow, to students. Issues covered were:

• How many properties they had
• The standard of their HMO (s)
• Knowledge about the licensing scheme
• Attitude to the future licensing of their property
• Probable response to licensing when it applied to them

Interviews with nine 'key player' organisations

18. Mandatory HMO licensing has attracted the interest of a wide variety of organisations. By incorporating the knowledge and views of a selection of representative and special interest groups, the review could gain a potentially wider perspective than available from the more directly involved participants in licensing. A balance was sought in the selection of organisations between those generally supportive of mandatory licensing, particularly of private sector HMOs, those critical of the scheme's value and effectiveness and those offering a specialist professional perspective on licensing that may or may not have had been supportive of its structure for implementation. Nine organisations were approached and all agreed to participate by a structured interview with an appropriate member of the organisation who was knowledgeable about HMOs and their licensing issues. Seven telephone interviews and two face-to-face interviews were carried out with:

• Abbeyfield (Scotland) representing 73 Abbeyfield Societies
• The Association of Residential Letting Agents (ARLA) representing 30 members in Scotland
• The Chief and Assistant Chief Fire Officers Association (CACFOA) representing senior fire officers in Scotland
• The Royal Environmental Health Institute in Scotland (REHIS) representing professional environmental health officers
• The Scottish Association of Landlords (SAL) with a membership of over 200 landlords
• The Scottish Council for Single Homeless (SCSH), a membership organisation including voluntary agencies, local authorities and individual members and representing the interests of homeless people
• The Scottish Federation of Housing Associations (SFHA) representing over 250 housing associations and co-operatives
• Shelter (Scotland) a campaigning organisation on behalf of homeless people
• Woman's Aid (Scotland) representing affiliated, local Woman's Aid organisations throughout Scotland.

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