The new Competency and Conduct requirements in the Consumer Standards
Wednesday 1st of April 2026
What they are and why they matter for tenants.
From October 2026, social housing providers in England will be expected to meet new Competency and Conduct requirements as part of the Consumer Standards framework regulated by the Regulator of Social Housing. These requirements are designed to strengthen professionalism across the sector and ensure staff delivering landlord services have the skills, knowledge and behaviours needed to provide a high-quality service.
Importantly, the new requirements are not just about qualifications. They also introduce new expectations around transparency, tenant influence and accountability in how landlords develop and maintain their workforce standards.
For tenants, this represents one of the most significant changes to landlord accountability since the introduction of the revised Consumer Standards in 2024.
What are the Competency and Conduct requirements?
The new requirements come from powers in the Social Housing Regulation Act 2023 and will apply through the Consumer Standards framework from October 2026. They introduce a sector wide approach to improving professionalism in housing management services.
In practice, landlords will be expected to:
· Ensure relevant staff have the skills, knowledge, experience and behaviours needed to deliver good quality housing services
· Ensure contractors delivering landlord services meet the same expectations
· Adopt and maintain a written workforce development policy
· Introduce and embed a code of conduct for housing staff
· Ensure senior housing managers and executives hold, or are working towards, recognised housing management qualifications
· Keep policies and codes of conduct accessible and up to date
· Give tenants meaningful opportunities to influence and scrutinise these policies
These expectations reflect lessons from Grenfell and wider resident feedback about trust, communication and service quality across the sector.
Why are these changes happening now?
The Competency and Conduct requirements are part of a wider shift towards stronger consumer regulation following the Social Housing White Paper and the Social Housing Regulation Act.
Residents consistently told government that:
· Concerns were not always taken seriously
· Complaints handling could be weak
· Communication was sometimes poor
· Staff behaviour could feel dismissive
· Services were inconsistent across organisations
The new requirements aim to address those issues by strengthening professionalism and embedding a more respectful, accountable culture across housing services.
New tenant engagement powers within the requirements
One of the most important and sometimes overlooked elements of the Competency and Conduct requirements is the formal role tenants now have in shaping staff standards.
Landlords will be expected to involve tenants in shaping workforce competency policies, learning and development approaches and organisational codes of conduct.
This represents a shift from consultation as an optional activity to engagement as a regulatory expectation.
Codes of conduct and workforce policies must also be accessible and understandable to tenants. This strengthens transparency around what tenants should expect from their landlord.
Because competency policies must remain fit for purpose there is now a clear role for tenant scrutiny panels, resident boards and service improvement groups to review whether staff standards are delivering better services.
The requirements also recognise that professionalism is not only about qualifications. It is also about behaviour, respect and communication. This creates space for tenants to influence how landlords define respectful service and how expectations around responsiveness and frontline behaviour are applied.
What benefits could this bring for tenants?
If implemented well the Competency and Conduct requirements could make a real difference to the everyday experience of social housing services.
Staff working in housing management roles will increasingly be expected to have relevant qualifications and ongoing professional development, helping ensure more consistent service standards.
Tenants should be able to see what standards staff must meet, what respectful service looks like and what happens if those standards are not met. This supports accountability and confidence.
Because tenants must be involved in shaping conduct policies, they can influence communication expectations, service culture, responsiveness standards and customer service behaviour. This moves engagement closer to co-design.
One of the main aims of the new requirements is to rebuild trust following high profile service failures across the sector. A stronger professional framework helps create clearer accountability, more consistent decision making and more transparent expectations.
Codes of conduct linked to regulatory standards also strengthen expectations around fairness, respect, responsiveness and professionalism. This should support improvements alongside the Housing Ombudsman Complaint Handling Code.
What benefits could this bring for landlords?
Although the requirements introduce additional responsibilities, they also create opportunities.
These include stronger organisational culture, clearer expectations for staff behaviour, improved service consistency, stronger evidence for regulatory inspections, better alignment with Consumer Standards expectations and stronger relationships with involved tenants.
They also support landlords preparing for proactive consumer regulation inspections.
What should engaged tenants look out for next?
Over the next 12 to 18 months tenants may begin to see landlords reviewing workforce development strategies, consulting on staff codes of conduct, mapping qualification requirements, involving scrutiny groups in reviewing expectations, publishing clearer behaviour standards and linking engagement work more closely to service professionalism.
This is a key moment for tenant involvement groups to shape how these requirements are implemented locally.
Why this matters from a tenant engagement perspective
The Competency and Conduct requirements are not just a workforce issue. They are a tenant influence issue.
For the first time there is a regulatory expectation that tenants should help shape how landlords define professional behaviour across their organisation.
That creates a real opportunity to strengthen the link between tenant voice, service culture and regulatory accountability and to make professionalism something that is shaped with tenants rather than delivered to them.