Tim Thomas

Published last month, the review report included recommendations for strategic and sustainable cross-cutting approaches focusing on prevention and early intervention resolutions; partnerships; and support for victims, communities and people involved with antisocial behaviour (ASB).

The proposed actions for the housing sector included:

• Review and enhance situational response tools available to local authority antisocial behaviour teams and social housing providers, recognising that robust incremental enforcement tools can stop escalation into more serious behaviours whilst initiating longer term supportive and preventative measures.
• Develop housing allocation policies that pre-emptively avoid potential conflicts by considering compatibility factors (e.g. known antisocial behaviour issues), ensuring that the needs of victims and affected communities are prioritised while remaining mindful of fairness and avoiding discrimination.
• Consider priority timescales within the current court backlog for criminal cases with linked Housing or Antisocial Behaviour team cases to be heard at court. Consider special sittings in civil courts for serious housing antisocial behaviour cases seeking legal actions to be progressed, with increased weight given to victim impact statements.
• Adopt a spend to save upstream prevention and investment approach for social housing providers to provide floor coverings of a quality standard which could alleviate further noise transmission complaints and offer savings in terms of negative follow up contacts.
• More systematic data collection around housing-related antisocial behaviour, including key demographics relating to those causing antisocial behaviour and victims - expanding indicators already reported on to the Scottish Housing Regulator.
• Investment by social housing providers in preventative tenancy support programmes prior to new, first or ‘failed’ tenancy allocations to equip young tenants or tenants with a history of antisocial behaviour with life skills and resilience to sustain a tenancy without becoming entrenched in antisocial behaviour.

Professional membership body Propertymark, which took part in the review, welcomed many of the recommendations, but expressed disappointment that there was limited focus on the performance of the First-tier Tribunal for Scotland (Housing and Property Chamber) system that deals with possession cases linked with antisocial behaviour referred by social and private landlords.

As part of its contribution to the review, Propertymark advised the Independent Group that decisions on anti-social behaviour cases for the private rented sector were too slow, allowing perpetrators to continue causing misery for landlords and fellow tenants.

Propertymark also provided evidence outlining that tenants who cause anti-social behaviour often improve their behaviour before the case is heard at the First Tier Tribunal. Furthermore, because the process is lengthy, the body said judges are dismissing cases as the behaviour appears to have improved but often continues after the hearing. Many judges also accept apologies for tenants who cause anti-social behaviour with little mechanism in place to ensure their behaviour improves in the future, it added.

According to Propertymark, positive recommendation for reform include reviewing the tools and procedures of local authority anti-social behaviour teams, which Propertymark suggested had become increasingly difficult to access for letting agents and landlords following the Covid-19 pandemic and reduced local government resources.

Propertymark also welcomes recommendations to improve data collection to foster multi-agency approaches between local authorities, Police Scotland, and other stakeholders to reduce anti-social behaviour, but this must involve property agents and their landlords. The professional membership body also welcomed priority timescales within the current court backlog for criminal cases with linked Housing or Antisocial Behaviour team cases to be heard at court.

The organisation has written to Angela Constance MSP, cabinet secretary for justice and home affairs, highlighting the need for further engagement with letting agents and landlords and a focussed piece of work on anti-social behaviour in the housing sector in Scotland.

Tim Thomas, policy and campaigns officer at Propertymark, who took part in the review, said: “We were very pleased to support the Scottish Government by taking part in the Independent Group’s review. However, given the stress on the private rented sector from the shortage of social housing in Scotland and the added pressures from rent control measures, there is now a clear need for the Scottish Government to review anti-social behaviour in the housing sector.

“Furthermore, while we welcome the recommendation for the First-Tier Tribunal to prioritise the most serious cases of anti-social behaviour in the private rented sector, and the possibility of special hearings in civil courts, the performance of the First-Tier Tribunal must improve to give landlords and their property agents the confidence and tools to seek possession in serious anti-social behaviour cases.”