Issue - meetings

[Report of the Assistant Director for Environment and Community Safety. To be introduced by the Cabinet Member for Environment.] The report  will seek  agreement to the amount of penalty charge to be paid for non compliance of a remedial notice in relation to the Smoke and Carbon Monoxide Alarm Regulations 2015 and any concession for early payment.

The Cabinet Member for Environment introduced the report which set out the Smoke and Carbon Monoxide Alarm (England) Regulations 2015 which imposed obligations on the Council to inspect premises and enforce the requirements for landlords to provide tenants with smoke detectors and carbon monoxide alarms in their premises.

It was noted that this fire protection related regulation already applied to HMO’s and was now applied, through the new legislation, to all rented accommodation, including family dwellings, of which, there were a significant number in the borough.

Enforcement of this new policy would have huge resource implications for the Council.

Therefore there would be a sound communications strategy to alert landlords, letting agents and tenants of the statement of principles and penalty charges process for related to these mandatory regulations. During the early stages of the communications strategy, the Cabinet Member was recommending there be limited use of the penalty fines to allow landlords and letting agents the opportunity to be informed of the new legislation and to conform to the new requirements.

The report was also recommending a sliding scale of charges applied, reflecting the type of properties in the occupancies in rental sector.

RESOLVED

1. To adopt the policy statement set out at Appendix 1.

2. To agree that Penalty Charges Notices (PCN) administered follow the Statement of Principles as set out in Appendix 3.

Reasons for decision

A penalty charge of up to £5000 can be imposed for failure to comply with a Remedial Notice served under these regulations. However, as per Appendix 3 and the guidance provided by the legislation, officers were recommending a sanction which is based on a sliding scale and an early discount for not progressing to the review and appeal stage.

In keeping with this it was recommended that each landlord should be charged accordingly based on each individual offence, thus averting any challenges by landlords or variations following First Tier Tribunal hearings.

Any penalty charge should be set at a level which is proportionate to the risk posed by non-compliance with the requirements of the legislation and which will deter non-compliance. It should also cover the costs incurred by the Council in administering and implementing the legislation.  The authority has no other means of recovering the cost of remedial action than by imposition of a penalty charge.

Fire and Carbon Monoxide are two of the 29 hazards prescribed by the Housing Health and Safety Rating System and can result in death and serious injury.  In the case of fire, the absence of working smoke alarms in residential premises is a significant factor in producing worse outcomes.

As previously stated, the provision of smoke detectors and carbon monoxide alarms does not place an excessive burden on a landlord. The cost of the alarms is low and in many cases they can be self-installed without the need for a professional contractor. The impact on occupiers, damage to property and financial costs resulting from a fire or Carbon Monoxide poisoning event are far out of proportion to  ...  view the full minutes text for item 47