Scottish Government

A REVIEW OF THE FIRST YEAR OF THE MANDATORY LICENSING OF HOUSES IN MULTIPLE OCCUPATION IN SCOTLAND

CHAPTER SIX HMO LICENCE APPLICATION PROCESSING, ADMINISTRATION AND JOINT WORKING

APPLICATION PROCESSING

6.1 All 32 local authorities provided information on their progress in processing and approving applications in the first year of the scheme, from 1 ^st October 2000 to 30 ^th September 2001. In this period, HMOs with more than 5 qualifying persons had to be licensed. Table 6.1 provides a breakdown for each authority and for Scotland as whole, of applications received, the different outcomes of licensing applications and of the numbers of applications not determined in the first 12 months. The category 'being investigated' refers to HMOs that were not in the decision-making pipeline but were identified and recorded either for failure to licence in the first year or in preparation for the future year's licensing.

6.2 Local authorities reported that they had received 1326 applications in the first year of the scheme, 206 of which were approved within the first year (Table 6.1). Forty four percent of all approvals were by the City of Edinburgh Council. The overall approval rate was 16% (rounded up), reflecting the various problems that delayed the full implementation of the scheme. The preceding Chapter identified the difficulties encountered due to generally inadequate promotion of the scheme in most authorities. Subsequent Chapters address other factors that have influenced the efficient operation of the scheme.

6.3 The licence approval numbers included those that had conditions attached. Local authorities identified a wide variety of conditions such as completion of outstanding fire safety works, restrictions on occupancy numbers, submission of tenancy agreements, submission of electrical or gas safety certificates, need for adequate insurance, provision of more refuse containers, common stairs to be brushed and cleaned on a regular basis and the provision of additional cooking or sanitary facilities.

6.4 Seventeen authorities (53%) had approved no applications during the first year of the scheme. Only six applications were recorded as refused. Four were in Glasgow, the reasons given, being a " failure to comply with standards and address the committee on reasons for non-compliance". The other two refusals were explained as due to the unsuitability of a workshop conversion to HMO (Dumfries & Galloway) and because " the applicant was not sufficiently prepared" (Midlothian). Over 1600 HMOs and possible HMOs were under investigation i.e. not in the decision-making process, the majority, 61%, had been identified through Edinburgh's intensive street-by-street survey work and existing database.

Table 6.1 Progress in processing licence applications from 1 ^st October 2000 - 30 ^th September 2001

Source: local authority postal survey. Local authorities in italics are classified as rural authorities

* Includes licences approved with conditions

** The figures in columns 3,4 and 5 do not exactly equal column 2

Updating licence approval progress

6.5 The great majority of applications in Table 6.1, 1030, were still in the pipeline at 30 ^th September 2001 and their outcome - resources permitting and problems resolved - could be expected to considerably boost the approval rate in the second year of the scheme. Prior to publication of this report, the official statistics on processing applications for the year ending 31 March 2002 were released (Scottish Executive, 2002b). Although the data presentation format and time frame of the official statistics and the postal survey are not identical, (the official statistics covers the second six months period of the first year of the scheme and the first six months of the second year of the scheme) for all practical purposes, comparisons can be drawn.

6.6 Over the 6 months from 1 October 2001 to 31 March 2002, the number of licences approved by all local authorities increased from 206 to 710, an increase of nearly 250% in just six months (Table 6.2). The official figures in the bulletin for individual authorities (not reproduced here) indicate that more authorities were beginning to make a dent in their poor first year performance. A significant contribution to the overall improved performance was due to Glasgow City Council, which say its number of approvals rise from 29 to 142. The number of local authorities that had approved no applications by 31 March 2002 had reduced by half (from 17 to eight) since 30 September 2001, though it would appear that those eight authorities still had problems to resolve, even if their HMO sector is very small. The volume of cases being processed at 31 March 2002 had also increased, rising by 16%, indicating a continuing very high workload demand facing officers in many authorities.

Table 6.2 Comparison of HMO approvals between 30 September 2001 and 31 March 2002

Source: local authority postal survey and Scottish Executive statistical returns to 31 March 2002 (Scottish Executive, 2002b)

ESTABLISHING LOCAL AUTHORITY HMO WORKING GROUPS

6.7 A key part of 'getting HMO licensing right' depends on efficient working arrangements, effective co-ordination and sound communications across the different departments and agencies required to deliver the scheme's national objectives. Joint working is an essential component of the organisational arrangements because the operation of a local licence scheme requires policies on the standards to be adopted, a consistent approach by inspecting officers and good lines of communication and information flow between the key officers and departments involved with the processing of applications. The Guidance recommends authorities set up an " implementation working group" to lay down the administrative and operational framework for the implementation of the licensing scheme (Scottish Executive, 2000b: 11).

6.8 Joint working was examined through the 8 case study authorities. In all eight authorities some form of inter-departmental group had been established at, or, before October 2000. Groups sought to establish the role and contribution of different departments and professional officers. Though mostly short-lived, authorities identified various benefits of their joint working groups (though not all shared by all authorities)- setting policy, agreeing procedures and rules, resolving issues of relaxations and exemptions, setting out officers' roles, the authority's fee scale, and setting or recommending the final standards to apply. These were not easy tasks. As one authority's lead officer noted:

" The drawback is that each group can have its own agenda - but a benefit of the group is that it can sort out these disagreements before they get to committee" (Glasgow City Council, lead officer)

6.9 The research found working groups were multi-disciplinary with representation commonly including officers from environmental heath, building control, licensing (i.e. legal & administration or corporate services), housing and externally, the fire service. Planning, finance, the police and occasionally social work provided other less common inputs. There was no evidence that voluntary sector organisations or the local office of Scottish Homes (as was) contributed to the development of local licensing schemes at the pre-introduction period.

6.10 Despite the difficulties that attended the introduction of scheme, with notable exceptions in Glasgow and Edinburgh, the groups tended to be disbanded or placed in abeyance soon after the scheme had started in October 2000. In Dumfries & Galloway, the implementation group was disbanded as " once there were delegated powers to Housing, there was no need to carry on with it". Similarly, the groups in Aberdeen and Fife were disbanded and the Stirling group was " in abeyance" with little support from planning and housing. In South Ayrshire the group met regularly around the set up period and afterwards, but meetings thereafter became much more infrequent although it was planned to reconvene it to ' fine tune' (i.e. trouble-shoot) some of the roles within the group and sort out differences over the fire safety benchmark standards. In Highland, the group was a central HQ group that linked to 8 local offices. It met much more frequently in the early days of the scheme than latterly but still convened to discuss relaxations and exemptions.

6.11 Authorities said that further joint working depended on informal officer liaison - often only at inspection visits. This meant only a few officers of the original working group continued to liaise together. The Guidance had advised differently:

"It will be useful for the working group to continue in existence for liaison purposes, to promote a corporate and consistent approach, to provide a forum for HMO policy development, and to clarify professional responsibilities…" ( Scottish Executive, 2000b: 12)

6.12 However, Glasgow and Edinburgh retained their groups after implementation. In Glasgow, an HMO unit composed of environmental health and building control officers was set up to ensure close co-ordination between these two key professional inputs to licensing. An HMO liaison group also operated with cross-departmental representation and met to deal with policy and review the effectiveness of everyone involved. However, it only met every 3 months and had only recently incorporated the fire brigade and police. In Edinburgh, there was a monthly meeting of a Technical Working Group to deal with policy matters and cases but an officer noted that it was not always easy to do justice to both as each meeting tended to last only two hours. Edinburgh was the only council that had a members-officers working group to whom the technical officers group reported. The lead officers saw this political engagement with HMO licensing as having benefits, namely, support for officers taking policy proposals forward to committee, but drawbacks as well - members' expectations outstripped what was possible.

Lead role and co-ordination

6.13 The Guidance recommends that authorities appoint a lead department for HMO licensing to raise political awareness of the issue, to bring relevant departments and agencies together and to ensure a proper reporting structure is established (Scottish Executive, 2000b: 11-12). A variety of departments and professions had the responsibility for leading the HMO licensing scheme (Table 6.3). Environmental health professionals were the most commonly quoted 'lead' (in 45% of authorities) followed in about a third of authorities by officers responsible for licensing administration. Housing professionals had the lead role in only 4 authorities (13%). Three authorities explicitly identified 2 departments or professional groups as joint leaders. Glasgow had a combined building control and environmental health lead role, Perth and Kinross and West Lothian both had environmental health and legal/administration.

Table 6.3 Lead department/ officer role in HMO licensing

Source: local authority postal survey * 1 missing case

6.14 The Guidance presumes that the lead department will be responsible for "the actual operation of the licensing scheme" and " the [HMO] section would also co-ordinate the local authority's actions on HMOs" (Scottish Executive, 2000b: 12). However, such a clear-cut responsibility to one department or professional officer as implied by Table 6.3 was not always the practice. The case study interviews and telephone contacts to pursue late returns of the postal survey indicated a more diffuse, shared lead role than conveyed in the survey return.

6.15 It was evident that in a number of authorities there was a de facto dual lead role between the officers responsible for HMO licensing administration and those responsible for HMO inspections and technical recommendations. In some authorities, the presumption that environmental health officers had the lead role was only true in relation to the inspection process and the technical reports. However, commonly, owners would submit applications to licensing sections and licensing officers would distribute copies to the various different departments and the fire brigade. Licensing officers would coordinate the recommendations to the licensing committee, the timing that applications were put to the committee, the agenda and the dissemination of the committee's decisions to all involved. Conversely, there were authorities where licensing officers had the designated lead role but knew very little about the inspection process, the properties, the standards or any of the wider HMO issues. This division of responsibility and power was evidenced in the 2 major cities. In Edinburgh, Environmental & Consumer Protection Services was the designated lead department. However, lead HMO officers clarified that the licensing section/ department controlled the overall administration process including the committee agenda and notification of the outcomes of committee decisions. Sometimes, the formal notification of the outcome of applications had not been processed through to the HMO files in the lead department. Similarly, in Glasgow with its joint environmental health and building control lead role, once the technical recommendations for approval of applications were completed, the timetable for decisions was not within the control of the HMO lead officers. That was a licensing responsibility. Because of the time it sometimes can take for licensing to send out the combined report to owners, the HMO unit send out a letter about their own requirements but this does not cover the fire safety conditions. The lead officers would only receive the Fire Master's report " when papers come out for the sub-committee that E & PS receive".

JOINT OPERATIONAL WORKING

6.16 Since few authorities maintained a formal joint working group after the commencement of the scheme, the weight of effort of processing applications and of co-ordinating the various technical assessments of standards, fell to informal working arrangements amongst officers, underpinned by agreed joint working procedures. The postal survey data revealed various combinations of professional officers involved in HMO licensing across authorities - most frequently environmental health, building control, housing and licence administration officers, with officers from the fire brigade. A few authorities mentioned an input from planning, finance and social work officers and one indicated a contribution from trading standards officers.

Inspections

6.17 The central element of the licensing process is the HMO inspection(s). Not all of the officers involved in licensing are involved with inspection visits. The trio of environmental health, building control and fire brigade officers was the most common inspection team, adopted by 19 authorities (59%). Across the other 13 authorities, five different officer combinations were deployed (Table 6.4).

Table 6.4 HMO inspection teams

Source: local authority postal survey * rounding up

6.18 An important part of the inspection process is co-ordination - ensuring that all relevant officers visit HMOs together. In the postal survey, two thirds of authorities (21) said that good co-ordination of officers for inspections was the norm. The remaining 11 authorities reported some co-ordination problems, not necessarily, major, in achieving efficient inspections. Problems highlighted covered workload pressures, insufficient staff in various departments making it difficult to agree inspection dates and relationships with the fire brigade about standards, availability and role.

Joint working with the fire brigade

6.19 Joint working with the regional fire brigade for each area was an integral feature of all licensing schemes as each brigade was a statutory consultee on fire safety standards for HMOs. Where working groups continued to operate after commencement of licensing, generally, fire officers were members, but their core contributions to licensing HMOs, across all authorities, were in fire safety inspections and the submission of written recommendations to the local authority. From the postal survey, joint HMO inspections with local authority officers was the normal basis of working although in some authorities, fire officers made independent inspections. Relationships between local authorities and fire brigades were varied (Table 6.5).

Table 6.5 Working relationships between local authorities and fire brigades

Source: local authority postal survey * rounding up

6.20 Just over half of local authorities (53%) said they their working relationship with regional fire brigade colleagues was good and problem-free but 7 authorities (22%) indicated some problems existed with coordinating visits with fire officers. One authority said: " The fire authority officers appear to have an excessive workload and cannot arrange visits as early as council would like". Another authority felt that the fire brigade had originally not given HMO inspections sufficient priority:

"There were problems getting access to fire officers as they disappeared for weeks on training, operational duty, acting up, pressures of other commitments, etc. Initially this disrupted joint visits but it has been worked through and now there is a good working relationship" (lead HMO officer)

6.21 Five local authorities (16%) had problems with fire brigades due to differences of view about the standards recommended by the fire brigade. A local authority has total responsibility for all the standards attached to its licensing scheme but where fire safety is concerned the influence of the fire brigade is considerable because of its primary interest in this issue and its views way heavily with councillors and local authority officers. Chapter 5 described the problems Glasgow City Council had in agreeing fire safety standards with the fire brigade. Another west of Scotland authority confirmed a similar experience " there were serious initial problems in co-ordinating as the role of the fire authority could not be clarified in view of the dispute". In Chapter 9, a more detailed review is presented of the differing views between authorities and fire brigades on the most appropriate fire safety standards for HMOs.

6.22 The problems described by authorities were not necessarily permanent as authorities and fire brigades sought to resolve differences. The Chief and Assistant Chief Fire Officers Association (CACFOA) accepted there had been issues in their relationship with local authorities over the first year of licensing when everything was new. It thought that departmental politics and territorial possessiveness played a part but that fire brigades were:

"only concerned in ensuring they are properly consulted on matters of fire safety and on putting forward the correct standards for fire safety to facilitate the processing of licences. In achieving this, they are extremely sensitive to the approach they must adopt in dealing with landlords and local authorities". (CACFOA representative)

6.23 The issue of fire brigades charging for their inspection visits and administrative overheads was a vexed question for local authorities, with contradictory positions across Scotland. It is left open in the Guidance for the two parties to reach an understanding on fees:

" [local authorities] will want to discuss with the fire authorities whether to make payment towards their costs and if agreed, the level of charges that would be appropriate" (Scottish Executive, 2000b: 13)

6.24 Two authorities referred to specific problems with fire brigades seeking to charge a fee for their inspection report about which the authorities were unhappy. Overall, 18 local authorities (56%) stated they were charged a fee by their fire brigade but 13 (41%) were not (1 missing case). Fees ranged from 35 to 94.20 for up to 5 persons although Dundee indicated a sliding scale related to occupancy numbers that allowed for a fee of 125.60 for 6-20 occupants. In some authorities the position, either way, was still in dispute at the time of the survey. In a few others, the local authority refused to pay the fee requested by the fire brigade as the brigade was considered to be under a duty to provide a report and therefore could not apply a charge. The indications from the returns and the case studies were that where a fee was charged, it was passed on to the licence applicant through the licensing fee.

The housing input to HMO licensing

6.25 The assessment of the Tenancy Management Standards is an integral part of the appraisal of licence applications and is discussed in Chapter 10. In the context of the housing contribution to joint working arrangements, Table 6.4 indicates that housing officers were involved in HMO inspections in only 8 local authorities (25%). In Edinburgh, housing officers did visit HMOs and carry out their own inspections, talk to tenants and deal with the lease. However, this was not necessarily the case in other authorities where the inspection role of housing was office-based. For example, Highland Council stated that owners' leases were forwarded to housing officers. Council solicitors were consulted if they have any queries. There was no visit to HMOs to talk with tenants. This may have been the more common method of working in some of the other 6 authorities that said housing was involved in inspection work.

6.26 It was noted in Table 6.3 that housing officers had the lead HMO role in only four authorities - Dundee, Dumfries and Galloway, North Ayrshire and Scottish Borders. However, the lead role is a co-ordinating responsibility. The more important issue is the nature and extent of the input to the licensing process by housing officers. Twenty-three authorities (72%) said that housing officers had an input to HMO licensing. The case studies revealed this was a very diverse and inconsistent role across the authorities. Apart from no involvement by housing officers, five types of housing input were identified:

• At the initial scheme planning and set up period only (in Stirling and South Ayrshire)
• In the technical officers group but not at HMO inspections or checking leases (in Glasgow)
• By checking leases (office based) but not in HMO inspections (in Fife)
• By checking leases and carrying out HMO tenancy management visits (in Edinburgh)
• As lead officer role (in Dumfries and Galloway)

6.27 The Guidance assumes the 'housing service' will make an important input:

" The role of the housing service in particular should be considered, to ensure that it plays a full part in all aspects of work relating to HMOs" (Scottish Executive, 2000b: 12).

Although these findings may not be generalisable, arguably, the housing role in mandatory licensing is not only variable but confused and unclear.

Different perspectives on the inspection process

6.28 The relationship between local authority officers, fire officers and owners can be gauged by how well officers and owners relate to each other through the HMO inspection process, which may involve two, three or four inspections. Inspections are the critical interface between the authority, the fire brigade and the owner. The lead officers in the local authority case studies thought that because most applicants in the first year of licensing had applied voluntarily, if reluctantly, they accepted the inspections with quite good grace. One local authority lead officer said: " Landlords are quite resigned and see it [the inspection] as just one of those things". Another officer thought that:

" in general, they [owners] are accepting - maybe resigned once they have paid the fee - though it varies from owner to owner. Some can be very reluctant" (City of Edinburgh Council, Lead HMO officer)

6.29 Resigned' and 'accepting' was not quite, how the 10 private sector HMO owners saw their position. All had different views, positive and negative about first year inspection visits and the way officers behaved. Generally, the owners thought the officers were friendly but could sometimes sound a bit officious. Inspections were considered to be quite efficiently coordinated and conducted by the officers involved. One owner of a number of HMOs noted improvements over time as " the early inspections were less efficiently conducted than later ones". Another owner indicated his appreciation of the 3 officers carrying out the inspection together as it was " much less intrusive" on his tenants to have them at once than in separate visits. However, there were criticisms of instances of a lack of co-ordination in agreeing standards, a lack of clarity in communicating what was to be done, and at times, fussiness to small detail that, to them, seemed trivial. References were also made to style problems - an inflexibility in officers' approach and an unwillingness to discuss issues.

6.30 Some examples reflect these issues and owners' ambivalent attitudes. A Highland Council area owner agreed that an inspection with four officers (one from building control, one from environmental health and two fire officers) was efficient but the owner was frustrated by the fire officer's " fussy attention to small details possibly because the house had previously been brought up to standard under the registration scheme". An Edinburgh owner also confirmed that the HMO inspection involving five officers had been reasonably efficiently carried out bar one major grievance. On the doors of the flat and in his other HMOs he had used a certain type of fire resistant paint, which he had been told verbally by council officers was acceptable, A year after, with the paint applied by a specialist company he was told that it was not a type approved. A Dumfries and Galloway owner faced two inspections but the fire officer came separately from the housing officer. Dealings with the officers were straightforward but the housing officer went very much " by the book" rather than discussing things while the fire officer was efficient but had the attitude that he " had to find something wrong". A Glasgow owner, whose HMO required three inspection visits, commented that the officers had been helpful and she had got to know them over her years in the business but:

" If they had been more coordinated, it would have helped especially between the building control officer and the fire officer. It was difficult to tell who was in charge but it seemed like building control" (Glasgow HMO owner).

6.31 The HMO private tenants interviewed for the research were asked if they had any involvement with officers when the inspections took place, either about what was happening or about their leasing arrangements. Of the 6 who had been living in the HMO before the licence was approved, none had any contact with inspection officers.

Integrating inspection skills

6.32 The Guidance suggests that in the longer term:

" the best solution might be to have inspection staff adequately trained - with cross-training of professionals - to be able to carry out an inspection alone" (Scottish Executive, 2000b: 14)

yet still be able to call in an expert e.g. on fire safety, if necessary. The case study authority lead officers had mixed views about the viability of such an approach. Several agreed that while the inspection team would always be needed for the initial licence application, it would be feasible to use only one officer for renewals. The need for significant training was emphasised by Stirling and Fife while South Ayrshire highlighted the need to address the demarcation of roles before it would work, even with training. On the more critical side, Glasgow lead officers were much more sceptical because of the amount of knowledge and skills that one officer would need. Edinburgh officers " could not see environmental health officers as fire officers". The Aberdeen lead officer saw no need to move from its core team of environmental health and fire officers and the lead officer in Dumfries and Galloway summed up the problem faced in reorganising roles:

"It's very hard to see how one officer would do it. There are boundaries professionally and some officers might find it hard to accept someone else could do their job" (Dumfries & Galloway, lead HMO officer).

Joint working with the police

6.33 For local authorities, their relationship with the police did not feature as significant in comparison to the relationship with the fire brigade. Twenty-eight authorities (91%) reported no problems in obtaining police reports on applicants and 3 made no comment. According to case study lead HMO officers, the police did not participate in joint inspections. They operated independently and submitted reports on the applicant to the authority. Overall, they operated at arms length from the main licensing process while having an important input in ascertaining whether the applicant was a 'fit and proper person' to hold a licence.

The procurator fiscal service and prosecutions

6.34 When local authorities encounter evasion by owners in applying for a licence, the final step in the process of investigation is to establish sufficient evidence to submit a case to the Procurator Fiscal with a request to initiate proceedings to prosecute the owner. Very few local authorities had made contact with their local Procurator Fiscals office during the first year of the scheme. Therefore views by authorities about the support by Fiscals in dealing with the prosecution of licence evaders were very limited - but when voiced, were very critical of rules that they felt were a straight jacket round their ability to convince owners that licensing was 'for real'. A problem that Glasgow had recently identified was the requirement by the Procurator Fiscals Office that before a precognition can be made to the Fiscal, an application must be made for a Criminal Justice Registration Number from the Scottish Criminal Records Office (Scottish Local Authority HMO Benchmarking Group, 2002a). One of the forms to be completed requires the authority to supply the date of birth of the owner. This has emerged as a major obstacle in pursuing prosecutions.

6.35 Only 2 authorities - Edinburgh and Glasgow - reported that they had been engaged in preparing cases for prosecution against HMO owners for their failure to apply for a licence. In Edinburgh, 4 cases had been prepared but none reached court because the applications eventually came in. The authority said that it had expended much effort and resources in preparing the cases and while a positive outcome - submission of applications - had been achieved, it should not have been at such an expense. The council officers had argued that offences had been committed, but the Procurator Fiscals office had not deemed it to be in the public interest to proceed with the cases as applications had been received. The experience of Glasgow was similar. Eight cases against owners had been prepared but they all submitted applications before court proceedings. As the lead officer noted: " This whole process necessitates the commitment of considerable resources". Officers in Glasgow indicated that staff in the Procurator Fiscals office were supportive of the council's objectives but described the standard of proof required by the Procurator Fiscal before a case would be considered, as very onerous. The requirements and the problems were:

6.36 Edinburgh officers reported that the Fiscals office had said that tenants must be able to identify the owner in court. The council has to prove the property is an HMO and a minimum of two tenants must sign a statement that they are living at the address. The problems were:

SUMMARY OF KEY FINDINGS

6.37 In the first year of the mandatory licensing scheme:

• A very low proportion of HMO licence applications for HMOs of 6 or more persons was approved. Of over 1300 applications received in the first year, only 16% were approved within the 12 month period
• Comparison of the survey statistics with official statistics to 31 March 2002 indicates a marked improvement in processing after the first year of the scheme. The number of applications approved in the first 6 months of the second year of the scheme was almost 250% higher than in the preceding 12 months. The increase was from 206 to 710 in total
• The norm across the case study authorities was the establishment of joint interdepartmental working groups to prepare for the introduction of the mandatory licensing scheme
• Despite the acknowledged benefits of joint working groups, most authorities either disbanded or suspended them soon after their local licensing scheme began. Two notable exceptions were the HMO working groups of Glasgow and Edinburgh city councils which continued to operate to deal with continuing policy development needs and co-ordination across departments or with other agencies
• There was no unanimity of view by local authorities on which department or professional officer group was best placed to take the lead role for HMO licensing. The lead was most commonly taken either by environmental health professionals or licensing administrators in central services departments
• In some authorities, the lead role of one department was, in practice, split, with a loss of unified control of the processing and decision-making on applications. The consequences of the split responsibility for technical and administrative aspects of the licensing process can result in delayed decision-taking and poor interchange of information between key participants
• HMO inspections were universally based on informal arrangements between officers. The predominant core inspection 'team' was composed of environmental health, building control and fire officers
• Just over half of authorities had a positive, trouble free working relationship with their regional fire brigade. The remaining authorities reported some minor and major problems had arisen
• Minor problems between local authorities and fire brigades were mainly around difficulties in co-ordinating joint inspection appointments. Major problems arose in some authorities over the requests from fire brigades for the payment of a fee, the fire safety standards that should be applied to HMOs and who had the primary responsibility for fire safety standards - building control officers or fire officers
• The view of the senior fire officer's organisation (CACFOA) was that the primary interest of fire officers was to ensure they were properly consulted and that appropriate safety standards were applied to HMOs
• There was no consistent approach to the charging of fees by fire brigades for inspections and reports or the payment of fees by local authorities
• Other than where housing officers had the lead role and in the City of Edinburgh Council, housing officers generally played no role or a minor and variable role in HMO licensing
• The private sector HMO owners generally thought that the inspection process had been efficient and officers had treated them fairly but they were critical that officers were sometimes over-preoccupied by minor details, poorly co-ordinated in their approach to standards and rather inflexible in their unwillingness to discuss issues
• Private sector HMO tenants who had lived in their accommodation before the approval of its licence indicated they had no contact with any inspection officers
• Local authorities views were divided about the viability of looking to a future where HMO inspections could be carried out by only one skilled officer
• Nearly all local authorities had good relationships with the police in relation to the supply of reports on applicants
• Very few local authorities had made any contact with their Procurator Fiscals office
• Where local authorities such as Glasgow and Edinburgh had sought to have an HMO owner prosecuted for evasion of the licensing scheme, the standard of evidence required had proved very demanding and was considered a significant obstacle to achieving a successful prosecution