A scheme to drive up standards in private rented homes across Nottingham may be missing the “very worst” landlords, a councillor fears.
Labour-led Nottingham City Council has been running the scheme, called Selective Licensing, since August 2018.
The aim is to make rented properties safer for tenants by requiring landlords to meet certain standards while paying a fee and registering for a licence.
During a meeting to discuss its effectiveness Cllr Jane Lakey (Lab), who represents Bulwell, said she had doubts about whether it was targeting rogue property owners.
“My worry is that we are still missing the very worst of them,” she said.
Under the current scheme 32,000 properties must have a licence and without one, landlords can be fined or prosecuted.
It will legally expire in July 2023 and a new scheme has been drawn up in its place.
Under the Local Audit and Accountability Act 2014, objections concerning the accounts of local authorities can be made by electors, and this means they can ask an external auditor to produce a report in the public interest.
Auditors Grant Thornton received an objection and produced a report, which was discussed at an Audit Committee meeting on Friday (February 24).
Andrew Smith, a director for Grant Thornton, said: “Unfortunately we did find a number of issues.
“We found the planned number of inspections weren’t being carried out.
“There was some evidence found as well to back up the concerns raised… we were seeing rent increases across the city.
“But what was very hard to do during the review was say that was purely due to the licensing scheme itself because obviously there are lots of factors to rent.
“The good news is officers we spoke to recognise these issues and there is evidence lessons were being learned in the design of the second scheme.”
Some councillors spoke in support of the adoption of another scheme, but others raised concerns.
Cllr Lakey said:
“My concerns are two-fold. One is that Selective Licensing schemes are basically funded by good landlords, and my worry is that we are still missing the very worst of them.
“The second thing is, if I’m being honest, I have had far more cases of damp and mould in social housing than I have in private housing.
“Now, equally, you have to be careful because my particular ward has a lot of social housing.
“But it nevertheless is a concern that are we hitting the right targets here? And I think the problem is we are not necessarily able to evaluate that.”
Pete Mitchell, head of regulations for the council, replied:
“I’d agree with you there are a lot of good landlords out there, we’ve got good landlords, letting agents who have driven the market forward in terms of standards.
“But then we have another group at the bottom who probably are the target audience of Selective Licensing. But we have got to look at it in the round and cover the whole area and it applies to everybody, just like an MOT applies to everybody.
“If you’ve got a car and you say it’s fine, it still has to go through some sort of inspection and pass regulation to be fit for the road.”
A total of 666 improvements were made to 446 properties under the first scheme, which the council described as a success.
Some landlords however said the policy was “highly bureaucratic” and not good value for money.
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