Member

The second unnecessary barrier is that local authorities are not permitted to implement additional HMO or selective licensing schemes that last more than five years without repeating a time-consuming and expensive designation process. This does not make sense either, as local authorities introduced these schemes to bring about large-scale improvements, which are unlikely to be fully achieved within five years. Amendment 254 would address this issue by increasing the maximum duration of these schemes from five to 10 years. That increase would allow local authorities to advertise longer-term posts and include training of new staff in these schemes. It would also provide more time for local partnerships formed through such schemes��for example, to resolve antisocial behaviour—to become embedded and effective.