Housing Qualifications

Within the next two years, everyone working in social housing will need housing qualifications. Years ago, job seekers had to be qualified to get a Local Authority housing job, but we abolished it. I, and many others, felt being “chartered” appeared to be exclusive, and having a good general education plus life skills was more useful than knowing the history of social housing, for example.

Why are qualifications back in vogue again? At one level it is obvious. We expect teachers, social workers and nurses to have undergone a year or more of training before they are allowed to teach our kids, take our blood or supervise our parenting skills. Why should housing be any different?

In all these people-facing roles, qualifications are one thing, but experience is something else. Support and supervision on the job something else again. And, to me, experience with effective support (which includes on the job training) is more important than the emphasis on everyone getting specific qualifications.

I first want to recruit people who have a genuine empathy with the resident and an identification with the social housing mission. In addition, we need staff with the right personal skills – people who are open, curious, honest, flexible, creative and able to work effectively with others.

Secondly, housing staff need knowledge. This would include the legal and regulatory frameworks; safety and compliance; finance, technology and data management; and most importantly, in my view, housing staff need to know about buildings. Understanding the homes that we are managing is core if housing staff are going to be useful to the resident. The CIH qualifications are very light on this, with general skills being prioritised.

Thirdly, experience is priceless. In social work and teaching “newly qualified” is a real thing. Inexperienced staff are supported by colleagues who have done the job for years, and effective managers help the newbies reflect and examine their day to day work, help them process their feelings and learn from what has happened. The team observes how the newly qualified behave, and what they say, looking for sucess, signs of confusion, stress and failure. This is the training that matters. We all learn best from our mistakes through doing and by practising our skills.

Unfortunately in teaching, social work and housing, supervision is not always caring, expert and helpful. It can be perfunctory, hurried and inconsistent. When managers are very busy, on the job training is often sacrificed and this is where I would see the problem rather than the knowledge base (which can be learned from books or the internet). It is sometimes difficult to sustain commitment to the tenants and the job when things get tough, and this is where supportive management comes in.

The reason why qualifications are now mandatory followed the growing feeling after the Grenfell tragedy that staff were incompetent. Listening to the evidence one would have to conclude that the sorry story of buck passing, memory lapse and defensiveness was incredibly disappointing. But going from there to CIH Level 2 to 5 of CIH qualifications doesn’t seem adequate to me.

There are much deeper issues at stake about leadership, accountability, and organisations providing the psychological safety so that concerns can be heard. But at a practical level, right now, housing staff need to get to grips with the buildings that they own and manage – the homes that they are responsible for. There is a gaping knowledge gap here. We don’t all need RICS qualifications either, but we do need a course of training that takes us through how a house or block of flats is constructed, what can go wrong, how to diagnose the most common issues and what the range of remedies should be. This is what I would mandate if I were Michael Gove. This is the knowledge base that is missing and it shows.