Communities and Local Government CommitteeWritten evidence submitted by Andrew Wernick
1. Please consider the harm that ad hoc blanket discretionary and additional licensing schemes such as in LB Newham cause. This scheme is an abuse of power as it will blanket licence the whole area of authority on the pretext of anti-social behaviour in the PRS. However, no data has been supplied to support the contention. I accordingly submitted a FOI request which I paste below:
Hi,
I wish to make a request under the Freedom of Information Act 2000.
The e-mail below contains the link:
www.newham.gov.uk/propertylicensing
which leads to the document:
Borough-wide Property Licensing Proposal report for consultation February 2012
On page 9 of this report are various statistics regarding anti social behaviour in the private rented sector. Please kindly provide the raw data on which these statistics have been compiled, including:
(1)
(2)
(3)
On page 10 of this report are various statistics regarding anti social behaviour in Houses in Multiple occupation. Please kindly provide the raw data on which these statistics have been compiled, including:
(1)
(2)
(3)
I attach the LBN reply. This provided no information and so the following was sent, but no disclosures were made:
Dear Sirs,
Thank you for your reply.
I am very surprised that the information I have requested is not readily available; I would have thought that this would have been part of the process for preparing the Borough-wide Property Licensing Proposal report for consultation February 2012.
I note that the FOI response states that data was provided by outside agencies such as the police and London Fire Brigade in addition to various council departments. However, this contradicts the consultation report which states on pages 9 and 10 that the data is based on the first hand experiences of LBN (ie “On average 27% of the Private Rented Sector in Newham has required an ASB intervention from a Council service in these two years”). It is now disclosed that the data is NOT based on “council service” interventions, thus raising concerns as to:
cross checking;
reliability;
due diligence; and
reliability and accuracy.
It is therefore in the public interest for the raw data to be disclosed for independent scrutiny as the licensing proposals could well be based on misleading information. Furthermore, the licensing proposed will have a huge impact throughout the borough on tenants, landlords and the local economy so it is vital that the case put forward by LBN is sound, honest and transparent. as for addresses being “personal data”, surely if this is the case then the house or flat number could be withheld.
In view of the above:
(1)
(2)
(3)
(4)
(5)
I look forward to hearing from you asap.
Furthermore, there is no way to challenge this imposition other than judicial review, which is prohibitively expensive. Therefore there exist no effective checks and controls on local authorities (abuse of) powers. The main justification given for licensing was that unlicensed landlords could have rents confiscated under the proceeds of crime act. However, this has been overturned by Sumal & Sons v Newham Council:
http://www.accommodationforstudents.com/view_landlord_guides.asp?id=235
My view is that licensing is the wrong instrument for tackling rogue landlords and poor housing conditions. local authorities have a wide range of existing powers to tackle these problems but lack the will due to funding issues and limited fines. rather than punishing all landlords with the cost and burden of licensing, the emphasis should be on THE OFFENDER PAYS, ie with greater fines going direct to the local authority to self-fund more enforcement action.
2. Any rent controls will be an unfair restriction on free trade, interference with supply and demand and result in an exodus of investment from the PRS. The result will be a shortage of supply and a decline in standards and the increase in rogue landlords charging black market rents. ie all the things that present policies are seeking to prevent.
January 2013