We can and must do better on flooring standards

We estimate the additional funding required to begin installing floor coverings in all social housing would be £494.7m in the first year, which would reduce in subsequent years to £486.2m in years two to five and £346m annually from year six onwards. The reduction in funding for later years is due to lower turnover of lets from improved standards and the floor covering programme moving to replacement only. 

While these can seem big figures, research from End Furniture Poverty has found that the social return on investment from floor coverings, as part of a wider package of furniture provision, may be worth as much as £7,673 in 2024. The cost of funding will be recovered through increased trade value for floor fitters, increased employment, increased productivity and increased tax receipts.

“With the focus on consumer standards, health and safety and housing quality, we ask whether you would live in a home with no floor coverings?”

From our case studies in our third learning report on the landlord perspective, housing associations and local authorities can expect to see returns from lower void turnover, less void loss and reduced rental arrears.

There is also the impact on tenants. One of the case studies in our second learning report on the perspective of tenants shows the issues a lack of floor coverings can cause around debt and community ties. For example, Fiona moved into a new social rented home and was surprised it did not come with floor coverings. Her previous social rented property with carpets “felt more homely and safe, which meant I was able to settle in more easily”.

Fiona explored different ways to source carpets, including her landlord and the local Citizens Advice. She asked for quotes from a local carpet company, which came in at over £1,000 and she was “unable to afford or want to go into debt for”. Fiona shared how the lack of floor coverings “drags me down quite a bit. I feel quite ashamed about having people round to my home”. Having cut her feet on the floorboards, she wears shoes all the time in her new home. 

Removal of floor coverings, or inappropriate floor coverings (such as no underlay), can also create tension between neighbours through noise issues, as the 2022 noise complaints Spotlight report from the Housing Ombudsman highlighted. 

Our final report discusses the wide-ranging challenges from not providing floor coverings. This includes domestic abuse survivors being more likely to return to perpetrators, people experiencing homelessness being less likely to sustain tenancies, and even young people potentially engaging in risk-taking behaviour, such as gangs, because they spend more unsupervised time out of a home when it is not fully furnished.

During the course of our research, tenants told us that not having floor coverings results in additional stress and can lead to debt. This might detract from addressing, or simply add to, other issues they might have in their life. 

“We know the operating environment for social landlords is tough, which is reflected in financial forecasts. This is why we believe government should not expect landlords to pay for an improvement in standards”

With the focus on consumer standards, health and safety and housing quality, we ask whether you would live in a home with no floor coverings? How would you feel if you looked round a home to buy or rent and then, when you moved in, found the floor coverings had been removed? This is the reality for an estimated 760,000 UK adults in social housing who are living without floor coverings. MRI Software’s Resident Voice Index found over three-quarters of tenants (77% of 7,955 social housing tenants) moved into homes with partial or no floor coverings. 

We can, and must, do better than this, and we want the government and the sector to step up. 

We know the operating environment for social landlords is tough, which is reflected in financial forecasts. This is why we believe the government should not expect landlords to pay for an improvement in standards. But we also want social landlords to explore their floor covering practice and standards.

We are asking social landlords to stop the practice of removing good-quality floor coverings from homes unless the incoming tenant has asked for them to be removed. If landlords don’t provide floor coverings in all rooms at point of let, then we recommend they explore the impact of doing so through running a floor coverings pilot, using the business case and research tools in our final report.

We also want landlords that do provide floor coverings to talk more about the benefits of doing so. 

We believe a change in standards would deliver widespread improvements for social housing tenants, staff and homes, and we want to work with the sector to achieve this. We understand there is a financial cost to provision, which we want the government to fund, yet there is also a moral case – shouldn’t we be proud of the homes we rent, homes which reflect our sector’s values?