What consideration has the Welsh Government given to amending the guidance on the Welsh Housing Quality Standard which permits compliance in spite of acceptable fails, such as housing stock not meeting one or more standards?
The Welsh Housing Quality Standard (WHQS) aims to ensure that all social homes in Wales are of good quality and suitable for the needs of both existing and future tenants.
The comprehensive WHQS measures 42 individual elements of a home, within 7 categories. Full compliance refers to homes where the WHQS is achieved for all 42 individual elements. However, given the diverse range of homes and locations across Wales, there are situations where achieving the standard for an individual element is just not possible. Such situations may include residents choosing not to have the work done or where there are physical and constraints to the work such as having to flatten a garden, set into steep valley landscapes. In these instances the landlords may record one or more element as ‘acceptable fails’. Where a home contains one or more Acceptable fails but all other elements are compliant, the home is deemed to be “compliant, “subject to AFs”.
The latest published WHQS statistics, including details of AFs, may be found at: