Question
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, with reference to the recommendations of the National Audit Office's report entitled Regulation of private renting, published in December 2021, what steps his Department is taking to improve the (a) quality and (b) availability of data on regulation of the private rented sector to support decision-making and best practice at national and local levels.
Answer
The Department utilises a range of data from a variety of sources to inform policy decisions. This includes Department-commissioned research, such as the English Housing Survey (EHS) and English Private Landlord Survey (EPLS). The EHS provides data at national and regional level, and the Department is currently exploring local authority level modelling to inform our insight into private rented sector quality as part of the EHS.
The Department also regularly engages with other Government departments, local authorities and stakeholders to enhance the Department’s insights into the sector.
The Department is working to further develop its approach to data, considering what additional data is needed to support its private rented sector reform programme and ensure effective regulation of the sector. The Department is conscious, however, of the need to balance reporting requirements on local authorities to enable robust oversight of the sector with the associated local resource implications.