Moving the goalposts

On 7 April, the Equality Bill passed through the House of Lords and received royal assent. It sets out to strengthen protection, advance equality and simplify the discrimination laws and will impact on social landlords in a number of ways.

Socio-economic duties

The bill will introduce a new strategic socio-economic duty to reduce socio-economic inequalities, due to come into force in 2011. The Government Equalities Office has recently published guidance on how this might operate in practice and where local authorities may have to think again when taking decisions about cutting funding for social housing.

For example, in the instance that an individual is seeking social housing based on his opinion that he suffers more socio-economic disadvantage than other people, he would not be able to bring a case against his local authority based on this new duty.

While not applying directly to social housing providers, the new socio-economic equality duty will apply to the Tenant Services Authority and the Homes and Communitites Agency. It is anticipated that it will be reflected in the way they fund and oversee social housing providers.

Statutory guidance is expected this summer, which will give us a good idea on how effective the duty will be.

Disibility-related discrimination

The bill will also introduce the concept of discrimination arising from disability. The purpose of this will be to recast the concept of disability-related discrimination to avoid the effects of the House of Lords’ decision in the London Borough of Lewisham v Malcolm.

Mr Malcolm, who has schizophrenia, sub-let his rented flat without obtaining the permission of his local authority, the London Borough of Lewisham. This was in contravention of his tenancy agreement and resulted in the council bringing possession proceedings against him.

There are three duties described in the bill which aim to ensure a disabled person does not suffer substantial disadvantage. These duties include making reasonable changes to the built environment for the disabled person.

Those who let premises and those who are responsible for the common parts of let premises are required to make reasonable adjustments where a disabled tenant, or someone on his/her behalf, requests so. Once the landlord has decided to carry out the request, an agreement must be entered into with the disabled person who has made the request regarding who will pay for the work and any other costs arising from the work and each party’s responsibilities in relation to restoring the property to its former condition if the disabled tenant moves out. In this instance, it will be reasonable for the landlord to require the disabled person to pay all of these costs.

Chris Syder is partner at Davies Arnold Cooper csyder@dac.co.uk

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