News

Intro
Despite the pandemic the company has grown significantly. During the year we welcomed 7 new members to the RHE Global team, including Tony Lewis formerly a senior executive at the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health (CIEH) and Alison Thomas formerly Principal EHO Housing Enforcement at Nottingham City Council. 

We now serve a significant number of housing associations to tackle anti-social behaviour. Our flagship RIAMS platform, used by almost every local authority in the UK, will soon be ready for housing associations with a new Community Safety library to support anti-social behaviour teams. These and several other new appointments mean that you will see more and better services being provided to support regulatory and enforcement professionals along with the public they serve.

We have adapted to the pandemic with flexible and remote working and are really pleased with how the talented and dedicated RHE Global team have negotiated a challenging year with significant growth.

Training
Our fantastic training team transitioned our training portfolio almost completely onto digital formats without dropping the quality of our courses. Feedback from delegates about our digital courses is very positive, most prefer the ease of joining from home or the office, while the interactivity of the courses makes it a value added experience. Throughout 2021, demand for our courses soared especially with Private Water Supplies, HHSRS, Community Protection Notices, Public Health Act Funerals, Statutory Nuisance and Neighbourhood Noise; to name a few. In 2022, we are looking to focus on better online content directly accessible from our platforms to support new courses in Noise Acoustics, Food Safety, Housing and Community Safety.

Digital products
The big product release in 2021 was The Housing App, which is a game changer for housing inspections. The year also saw big improvements to the RIAMS platform with better search and accessibility upgrades. Branded legal notices on RIAMS are in the pipeline for early 2022, so keep your eyes peeled for more information.

We have begun a complete rebuild of The Noise App for a ‘version 2’ release later in 2022. We are working with a user group of local authorities and housing associations, and have appointed a technical panel of noise, acoustics and community safety experts to ensure The Noise App remains highly relevant to our customers’ needs. We also began a major project to introduce machine learning and data science to deliver more advanced acoustic measurement and assessment applications for The Noise App. This work is being co-funded by the UK and Welsh Governments’ Innovation programmes to support a partnership with The Acoustics Research Centre, University of Salford. We will keep you posted on this exciting and groundbreaking project.

Consulting
Our main strategic project in 2021 was the HHSRS Review. This is a very important project informing the Department of Levelling Up, Housing and Communities on the future of the HHSRS. We have engaged with hundreds of stakeholders and are working with universities, experts and practitioners to deliver a wide array of policy, legal and practical changes to make it fit for the future.

RHE Global was also invited by the Welsh Government to review and update the Welsh Housing Quality Standard (WHQS) which will continue through into 2022. Alongside these strategic projects, we have begun providing local authorities with expert support to deliver BEIS funded Minimum Energy Efficiency Standards (MEES) projects to engage private sector landlords to decarbonise their properties.

Looking ahead
Net zero and decarbonising the housing stock are strategic challenges for the UK and RHE Global will be positioning itself to support local authorities in tackling this challenge. We are anticipating the exciting launch of Whitedocs, our new digital platform for landlords to apply for mandatory HMO and selective licences, landlord accreditation and ultimately managing private sector housing data. Whitedocs was developed with DASH and we are making it available for accreditation in the first quarter of 2022.

Thank you to all of our customers for your continued support and from all of us at RHE Global, we wish you a Happy Christmas and best wishes for the New Year.