Back in July, Housing Secretary Angela Rayner said the government would use “the next fiscal event to provide councils and housing associations with the rent stability they need to be able to borrow and invest in new and existing homes – while ensuring that there are appropriate protections for both existing and future social housing tenants”.

This year’s rent compliance conference will provide one of the first opportunities after the Autumn Statement for the sector to discuss and dissect the implications of the settlement as organisations look to sense check their approach to rent setting for 2025/26 and beyond.

The conference will also cover the key requirements of how to comply with the Rent Standard, analyse the regulator’s latest sector risk profile (out in the autumn) and look at what can be learned from recent regulatory downgrades.

Main topics:

Chaired by Emma Turay, Assistant Director of Rents and Service Charges at Notting Hill Genesis, our popular virtual conference will cover:

• What the new rent settlement means for social housing providers and rent compliance teams
• Legal updates – looking to the future and learning from past mistakes, notifications and judgements
• Best practice on communicating with and supporting residents on rent changes
• Implementation of the Rent Standard:
  • Recap of the rules and regulations for varying rent types and different tenures
  • Identifying the lessons learnt and best practice

• Sector risk profile to be published by the regulator in the autumn – what will this mean? What have we learned and implemented from prior publications?

Essential for:

• Executive directors and board members
• Finance, risk assurance and rent compliance teams
• Rent setting/review panels
• Income management and/or housing management teams
• Data governance teams.

10:30am Welcome and introductions

• Emma Turay, Assistant Director of Regulation and Policy, Notting Hill Genesis

10:40am Future rent policy

• Steve Partridge, Savills

11:10am The sector ask on rents

• Sarah Finnegan, Head of Policy, NHF

• Alex Sewell, Head of Housing and Planning, London Councils

Alex and Sarah will react to the much-anticipated government plans for rent stability for the social housing sector due to be announced at the Autumn Budget.  They will each set out the financial pressures their parts of the sector are facing as well as their asks from government to help them deliver more and better homes for tenants.

11:50am Break

12:05pm Regulatory and legal updates – insights over the last year

• Samantha Grix, Partner, Devonshires

Samantha will provide delegates with a review of the last year in terms of rent regulation and legislation.  She will provide a recap on current rent regulation as well as looking ahead at what we might have coming down the track.  She will provide a summary of issues referred to Devonshires by clients as well as any recent judgements to note.

12:35pm HQN rent compliance toolkit

• Emma Turay, Assistant Director of Regulation and Policy, Notting Hill Genesis

• Mark Henderson, Associate, HQN

Mark and Emma will take delegates through the HQN rent compliance toolkit, highlighting key issues to be aware of and recent updates.  Delegates will get the chance to see on screen how the toolkit works and ask questions of the authors to make sure they can make the best possible use of this practical checklist in their day-to-day work.

1:00pm Lunch

2:00pm Learning from past rent mistakes

• Alistair McIntosh, CEO, HQN

2:30pm Practical lessons from non-compliance

• Samantha Shimmon, Assistant Director: Housing and Homelessness, Communities Group, Cambridge City Council

Samantha will share her recent experiences of non-compliance with the rent standard.  She will discuss some of the key drivers behind non-compliance including service charge issues and complications caused by Affordable Rent.

3:00pm Financial modelling

• Ian Parker, Associate, HQN

Ian will consider the implications of September’s CPI figure for rent increases next April as well as the expected consultation on a long-term rent settlement.  He will look at affordability issues and the impact of rent rises on tenants whilst they are still facing high food and increasing fuel and heating prices.  He will look at likely scenarios on rent arrears, interest rates and other cost pressures to provide his advice on what to model and consider for both your business and the affordability of rents for your tenants and shared owners.

3:30pm Close

Emma Turay, Assistant Director of Regulation and Policy, Notting Hill Genesis

Emma works at Notting Hill Genesis ensuring that the organisation is robust in terms of regulatory and legislative requirements for the Rent & Consumer Standards and delivering clear policies and procedures and working with internal colleagues to ensure they are clear, meet the legislative requirements and have a positive impact on NHG’s customers.  Of equal importance, she oversees professional competency and onboarding for new operational colleagues to ensure they are well equipped to do their roles confidently.

In previous roles, Emma has led on the development of automated bespoke systems for Rents and Service Charges, designed to provide a platform to complete work compliantly, increase data integrity and provide insights for future decision making as well as implementing data structures ad reporting. Emma has nearly 20 years’ experience in the sector, has led on implementing an annual rent compliance conference and sector publications of the “Complying with the Rent Standard”.

Steve Partridge, Savills

Steve is a national expert in housing finance with over 25 years’ experience in public and private sectors in business planning, Investment appraisal, financing and development of new homes.

Steve specialises in working with housing providers to build their financial capacity, to assess options for, and then implement the delivery of, new and better housing through all routes including: “traditional” public and private finance, new housing companies and joint ventures, and innovative ways to bring new sources of private finance into affordable housing. His high profile roles have included: finance manager of £220m turnover landlord; senior consultant to hundreds of local authorities and housing associations; government adviser with key role in conceiving, promoting and then delivering council housing finance reform in England and Wales; private sector CFO raising £30m Investment via new models for equity funding and bank lending into affordable housing.

Samantha Grix, Partner, Devonshires

Samantha is a Partner in the Housing Management and Property Litigation team at Devonshires and has worked in the sector for almost 15 years. She was called to the Bar before cross qualifying as a solicitor and has worked at Devonshires throughout her career.

Samantha deals with all areas of housing management and specialises in rent regulation and the consumer standards. She regularly advises clients on compliance and forms part of their team when an issue is discovered to the point of resolution.

Alistair McIntosh, CEO, HQN

Alistair McIntosh is one of the social housing sector’s most respected and best known personalities.

As founder and Chief Executive of HQN, he is regarded as one of the foremost advisers on governance and regulation, specialising in VfM and stress testing. His hands-on approach sees Alistair leading on all HQN’s in-depth assessment mock exercises and support work, designing and running the popular Iron Grip sessions and chairing/speaking at conferences and events.

Career highlights include setting up and running the National Federation of ALMOs, leading the popular consultation on the regulatory standards for housing, and developing an approach to VfM that won praise from the housing minister.

A regular contributor to the housing press, Alistair’s columns are known for their humorous, pointed and painfully accurate assessment of the state of social housing.

Ian Parker, Associate, HQN

Ian has worked in the public sector for 40 years. During his career he has worked in senior positions in local government and has been the Finance Director at four RPs. Ian has worked as a consultant for the last eight years and during that period has developed HQN’s VfM metric model, provided advice to clients about the sector’s VfM agenda, undertaken in excess of 60+ mock In Depth Assessments (IDAs) and developed HQN’s merger model.

Ian is HQN’s Lead Finance Associate and in that role he provides advice to members of the Housing Finance Network and also ensures that they receive relevant news and technical updates.

Mark Henderson, Associate, HQN

Mark is an HQN associate who has worked across both our Rent Income Excellence Network and the Strategic Excellence Network (SEN).  He has worked in public service for almost forty years, starting in the finance department at Wolverhampton City Council. He moved into housing and worked in a number of operational and strategic capacities before he transferred to Wolverhampton Homes in 2005 when the ALMO was established. He was its Director of Housing from 2007 until taking early retirement in March 2016. The company received a three star, excellent prospects rating in January 2011 and was ranked in the Sunday Times top 100 not-for-profit organisations to work for. Throughout his career Mark has been recognised for innovation, excellent service, developing best practice and helping others in shaping their services.

Sarah Finnegan, Head of Policy, NHF

Sarah has been at the NHF since 2017 as part of the member relations team, before becoming Head of Policy last year. She previously held different policy and strategy roles in local government in London.

Samantha Shimmon, Assistant Director: Housing and Homelessness, Communities Group, Cambridge City Council

Samantha (Sam) Shimmon is Assistant Director for Housing and Homelessness at Cambridge City Council. Sam is accountable for managing council housing, preventing and reducing homelessness and rough sleeping, and enabling safer communities, including curating the ecosystem of local organisations that enable better housing outcomes.

Sam has 20 years of experience in the housing sector, working for both private registered providers as well as local authorities. She has a wealth of housing management experience, as well as transformation projects in other areas such as repairs and maintenance, asset management and digital.

Sam has experience of working with the social housing regulator on regulatory issues at both Cambridge City council and her former employer East Suffolk council. This involvement related predominantly the rent standard, relating to issues that went back to the early 2000s, but also included the consumer standards.

Alex Sewell, Head of Housing and Planning, London Councils

Alex is the Strategic Lead for Housing and Planning at London Councils. London Councils is the collective of local government in London, representing the 32 boroughs plus the City of London. London local authorities manage 390,000 council homes across the city and have started thousands of new council homes over recent years.

London faces some of the most intense housing challenges, with 1 in 50 Londoners homeless (including 1 in 23 children) and a need to raise standards within the social housing sector. Within the context, the financial health of the social housing sector is a vital concern for the boroughs, and London Councils has been monitoring and assessing the sustainability of Housing Revenue Accounts in London to make the case for the resources needed.

If you are unable to attend an event or public training course, please let us know in writing (email is fine) at least 48 hours before. Please email [email protected]

Otherwise, a cancellation fee of £60 plus VAT will be chargeable.

If you are using a package place to attend and do not inform us within the agreed time frame, then a place will be taken to cover your non-attendance.

Cancellations must be made in writing, and will be acknowledged by HQN Limited.