Evaluation of the Private Rented Sector Leasing Scheme pilot
Alma Economics was commissioned by the Welsh Government in February 2020 to undertake an evaluation of the Private Rented Sector (PRS) Leasing Scheme Pilot. The scheme seeks to support Local Authorities in discharging their housing duties to help people who are homeless or threatened with homelessness, and to expand the choice of good quality, affordable housing options available to prospective tenants. For these purposes, the scheme enables residential properties to be leased by Local Authorities from private landlords for a fixed duration of 5 years. The Local Authority pays rent to the landlord at the level of the applicable Local Housing Allowance (LHA) rate for the term of the lease, with a 10% management fee deducted from this for managing the property.
The aim of the evaluation was to understand how the scheme is operating in the pathfinder Local Authorities: initially in Cardiff City Council, Carmarthenshire County Council and Conwy Council in March 2020, and extended to Ceredigion, Newport and Rhondda Cynon Taf (RCT) in September 2020 as a response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
We held semi-structured interviews with representatives of the pathfinder Local Authorities as well as tenants and landlords who had already joined the scheme at the time of the evaluation. The evaluation activity with Local Authorities was split into two phases:
Phase 1 (January and June-July 2021): to understand experiences of implementing the PRS leasing scheme in the pathfinder Local Authorities.
Phase 2 (June 2021): to understand the impact of the PRS leasing scheme once operational in the three initial pathfinder Local Authorities only, as well as the experiences of the landlords and tenants who had joined the scheme.
The three additional Local Authorities that were added as an extension to the pilot in September 2020 – Ceredigion, Newport and RCT – participated only in Phase 1 interviews, due to the short period of time in which they had joined the scheme.
We carried out interviews with tenants and landlords from the Local Authorities that had already tenanted properties between June and July 2021. Overall, nine landlords and six tenants were interviewed.
This evaluation aims to inform future decisions about the pathfinder scheme and, furthermore, the development of a national scheme. It resulted in several recommendations regarding the local implementation of the scheme by the pathfinder Local Authorities and the planned national rollout. These recommendations include:
Local Authorities: Local Authorities with previous experience in owning housing stock and utilising it to provide social housing are generally better placed to implement the scheme. Local Authorities will face different challenges in implementation, depending on the characteristics of their local areas and their respective housing markets. The support provided to Local Authorities while rolling out the scheme will need to vary and be adjusted to their local needs and competences.
Tenants: Further practical support should be given to tenants, including during the moving-in stage, providing initial budgeting and tenancy support. This support needs to be outlined in an accessible manner and as soon as possible. Tenants should be also made aware of the scheme’s aims and objectives, and expectations for all parties involved (tenants, landlords and Local Authorities) should be clarified at the first point of call.
Landlords: The process of bringing a property on board, and particularly all documentation, certificates and checks/surveys necessary, should be clearly outlined to landlords at the early stages of contact. Nonetheless, the time frame required for this process to be completed will need to be reduced if the scheme is to become attractive to a range of landlords.