Government funded training scheme for social housing residents launched

The UK government’s Department for Leveling Up, Housing and Communities announced on 19 April the launch of a government funded know-your-rights training scheme for social housing residents. The scheme, otherwise known as the Four Million Homes programme, aims to empower social housing tenants to take an active role in how their homes are managed and understand their rights in order to hold landlords to account on issues such as damp and mould, and anti-social behaviour.

The training scheme, which is backed by £500,000 of government funding, will begin holding events in May and will run for the next two years. The programme will include face-to-face accredited training held in Newcastle, Liverpool, Birmingham and London and monthly webinars on specific housing-related topics. The Four Million Homes website, which currently provides a variety of resources for social housing resident rights and the services landlords are required to provide, will also feature freely accessible online training videos from September.

The launch of the training programme is part of the government’s wider efforts to ‘rebalance power between residents and landlords,’ which includes the new Social Housing Regulation Bill that is currently being considered in Parliament. Recent amendments to the Social Housing Regulation Bill including Awaab’s Law, which places an obligation on all social landlords to fix health-related hazards like damp and mould within specific timeframes.

Minister for Social Housing, Baroness Jane Scott, said: “Tenants deserve better and this training programme will help people up and down the country demand a high-quality service from their landlord. We are driving up standards in social housing through landmark legislation and making sure residents’ voices are heard with digital advertisement campaigns. The Four Million Homes programme is the latest part of our plan to drive a culture change right at the very heart of the social housing sector.”