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UK’s biggest-ever Selective Licensing scheme needs 130 people to run it

Birmingham council has been granted permission by the Department of Levelling Up, Housing and Communities to introduce a massive Selective Licensing scheme for all private rented properties in 25 wards in the city.

The council admits it will take 130 staff to deliver the scheme, which targets those wards where the private rented sector is above 20 per cent of properties and there are high levels of deprivation and/or crime. 

The scheme will be the largest in the UK, covering approaching 50,000 properties. It will last five years and come into force on June 5 next year.

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Councillor Sharon Thompson, Cabinet Member for Housing and Homelessness for Birmingham Council, says: “The new scheme will help us drive up standards across the private rented sector. It was approved after extensive consultation and 130 new jobs will be created to deliver the scheme. 

“We want to ensure that private properties in our poorest wards are providing fit and proper accommodation and that landlords are adhering to their legal responsibilities. While many already do, the introduction of licence conditions that cover a range issues including waste bins, references and tackling anti-social behaviour will ensure the council is in a position to engage and regulate this sector appropriately.

“The Selective Licensing Scheme will allow Birmingham Council to work with all landlords to drive up standards across all private rented sector properties and join up with other services such as the police to tackle issues such as the high levels of crime that have blighted these wards for too long. Improving standards in the longer term will lead to safer and more stable communities, enabling more tenants to fulfil their potential especially children ”

The authority says it undertook extensive consultation before progressing the scheme. This included meeting with councillors, focus groups and a flyer drop at all 125,000 properties in the 25 wards. 

Out of all that, just 800 responses were received from landlords, residents including tenants, and businesses and organisations. 

The council claims there was “significant support for the scheme from residents and businesses/organisations.”

The cost of a licence to landlords will be £700 for up to five years

Want to comment on this story? If so...if any post is considered to victimise, harass, degrade or intimidate an individual or group of individuals on any basis, then the post may be deleted and the individual immediately banned from posting in future.

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    Are PRS tenants less law-abiding than any other type of resident? If this is anything like the Lewisham proposal it will be based on biased presumptions and shoddy data. Oh, and a penchant for tax by stealth. I'd wager there's no 5-year success criteria for the scheme, so it will simply rumble on forever.

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    You will find the 'less law abiding' in social housing, now that is fact

     
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    Welcome to your rent rise for nothing tenants of Birmingham :(

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    Another tax take driving up rents, driving up costs making housing more unaffordable, especially now above all at a time the Country is in the most serious economic crisis in decades and a war on, creating homelessness for the lower paid and Tenants the poorest section of Society who allegedly they say they are helping but it doesn’t wash. They are the end users (end users always pays the price) some friends levelling up turned out to be, levelling down to the ground more like, leaches in disguise.

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    Well it must be all 'right & proper' as Birmingham CC are ,and have been, bang on with every other policy that they have ever implmented ....oh wait.......

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    What happened to a bonfire of red tape ? 130 jobs at an an verage of £30k plus over heads equals £500k at least.

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    Edwin, correction - £ 5 MILLION per annum = £ 25 MILLION over the 5 year life of the project ..... and they'll want to keep that gravy train rolling on so expect indefinite renewals. Oh, and top of that the extraordinary gold plated final salary pensions that will arise in the future

     
    George Dawes

    John Major pontificated about getting rid of red tape

    Then set up over a dozen unelected and overpaid quangos to investigate it

    smh

     
    Andrew Murray

    John Major. We will not leave the European exchange rate mechanism.
    A week later, We are leaving the Exchange rate mechanism.

     
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    Grumpy Doug, the amount raised is actually £35 million....50,000 properties times £700 !
    This equates to £7 million per annum for the council to spend on extra employees etc. Methinks the council is after a huge profit. If they were truly interested in improving the housing stock on offer to tenants then perhaps more improvement grants should be offered to landlords, who are facing ruin given government policies!

     
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    Hi Geraldine, I was referring to the salaries and overheads at an average of £38k per head. That leaves an extra £10m for the council slush fund. No doubt they'll use it wisely !! ...... (not)

     
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    John Major, now there's a man, he won a GE ? no he didn't Neil Kinnock lost the election that should at the time been won by Labour, even the loony left were never going to vote for Kinnock as PM, these days Major would be well advised to keep his nose out, the man's a fool

     
  • George Dawes

    Flyer drop ?

    Haven’t these wasteful councils heard of emails ?

    The only paper mail I receive these days are from public sector , everyone else use the internet

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    That's clearly not 'inclusive' enough...

     
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    Edwin or is it £3.9 million pa

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    Disgraceful behaviour by a Council and should resign immediately.
    So called extensive consultation my foot, based on only 800 to include landlords, Tenants and the General Public who have no input whatsoever to get the answers they want. How many actual landlords did you consult if any, even if they were all landlords it wouldn’t be a Consultation only 800 out of 50’000, properties and more than one person certainly live in each property.
    So £700.00 per license x 50’000. Properties = £35’000’000. God help the Tenants, where is Alicia, Generation Rent and Sheltered in all this are they totally inept.

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    It’s surprising Birmingham have not taken note of the unintended consequences schemes of this size create. As we have seen in Nottingham the selective licensing scheme has delivered increased rents, increased homelessness, landlords selling up or going to Airbnb and an admittance by the council that there has been no reduction in complaints made about anti-social behaviour over the last 4 years.

    Most of the benefits that Birmingham expects to attain from selective licensing are likely to be obtained through the White Paper, rendering the selective licensing scheme a costly and pointless exercise.

    This is one of the points EMPO will be relaying to the new Secretary of State, Simon Clarke when EMPO instructs the UK’s top property lawyer to write to him objecting to Nottingham’s selective licensing renewal application.

    Support your regional landlord association by joining today.

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    Is the PRS the only industry where the authorities believe they can get a different result from repeating the same actions as elsewhere? Rent controls have repeatedly failed, Scotlands no-fault eviction ban & periodic tenancies are blighting the rental sector & SL results in higher rents for no improvement across the country - yet we keep having them proposed again & again as the solution to the housing crisis.

     
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    Definition of Insanity = repeat the same action and expect a different result!

    Not surprising since the Lunatics are running the Asylum!

     
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    Don't forget vat at 20,%will be charged. I was referring to staff overheads ie sickness, NI pensions, but the council could lob a lot more on for their overheads.

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    I don't understand what benefits these licencing schemes are to tenants. Aren't there already regulations in place for housing conditions and lawful behaviour? The problem is in enforcing the regulations. The rogue landlords will just ignore the scheme anyway.

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    John,correct. Unfortunately they are too busy dealing with hate crime and don't answer 999 calls.

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    Anyone that thinks it going to stay at £700. It’s not when it was introduced in certain Boroughs in London I paid £560, in 2006 now £1’550. an increase of nearly £1’000.
    So you had 16 years grace you don’t know you were born.

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    Who are all those Rogue Landlords. There are 2m or 2.5m landlords take your pick ? but the Register lists the number of Rogue Landlords as 57 my goodness it not even a percentage and a whole lot of legislation being pushed through Parliament, based on what ?.

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