Decent Homes Standard

The government is consulting on changes to the Decent Homes Standard, including introducing a Minimum Energy Efficiency Standard for social rented homes. Here, you’ll find the latest information for housing associations as this develops.  

The government consultation proposes a range of changes to the Decent Homes Standard, most significantly placing greater emphasis on the condition of key components rather than their age, requiring some new elements to be provided by landlords in all homes, and introducing a new damp and mould criterion. 

The Minimum Energy Efficiency Standard would require all social homes to reach EPC C by 2030, under reformed EPC metrics. Both consultations are open until 10 September 2025. 

The NHF will be submitting responses to both consultations on behalf of our members. To represent your views most effectively, we need your feedback.

Please log in to download the member briefings below and email us with any feedback.

Housing Health and Safety Rating System

The government will also be introducing changes to the Housing Health and Safety Rating System (HHSRS), a tool used to assess hazards in residential premises. The government commissioned an external review of the HHSRS, which concluded in 2022. Following this, changes will be introduced to simplify the HHSRS. This will include:

• Amalgamating some hazards assessed and producing a simpler means of banding the results of HHSRS assessments.
• Publishing baselines to indicate whether a property contains serious hazards, to make assessments easier to understand.
• Publishing new statutory operating and enforcement guidance and a comprehensive set of new case studies

New regulations will be necessary to bring the revisions to the HHSRS into force. These will be introduced after the conclusion of the Decent Homes Standard review. You can see further details of the HHSRS review on GOV.UK.

For more information about the NHF’s work in this area, please feel free to get in touch.