The Social Housing (Regulation) Bill is a response to the Grenfell Tower fire in 2017 and concerns that the building was not adequately managed by our landlord, the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea (RBKC), and its management body, the Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation (KCTMO). We have pushed for professionalisation to form part of the bill for 5 and a half years.
We have campaigned for over five years to ensure this Bill is robust and delivers meaningful change for tenants. A part of that has been the professionalisation of social housing. The Government has now announced new legislation to professionalise the sector in what is the biggest reform to professionalisation the sector has seen in its history.
Our experience at KCTMO was that this organisation had no interest in having professional staff. Being on the receiving end of that was a very bruising, humiliating experience. That’s why it’s important that the sector encourages people who are interested in gaining a qualification and developing professional skills to work in this space.
In that role you have the capacity to make hundreds of people’s lives a misery, and the very least we should ask for is that the people who do it are qualified.
At every stage of this we were telling the government to think of the example of social work, teaching and nursing – similar vocational professions. If you say people who work in social housing don’t need a qualification, what are you saying about the people who live in social housing?
We really believe this bill now has the chance to make things better for people who live in social housing. We don’t want to be remembered for how we were treated, but for the change we helped bring about.