Environmental health and housing regulation teams within local authorities have long spoken about their ongoing struggle to build capacity to effectively deliver all the varied duties and requirements of their roles. 

What data is there?

Within the profession, it is acknowledged that there is something of a resourcing crisis, not least in the discipline of housing regulation. However, while this may be generally recognised, quantifying and demonstrating the scale of the issue is another matter. Limited data has been collected on the subject, and certainly not with consistency or regularity to allow for any helpful analysis. That said, recent years have seen workforce surveys from the CIEH and LGA as well as research by Greenwich University.

What are the main challenges to building capacity?

Several factors will impact the capacity of an environmental health team. While not exhaustive and with their rankings varying across local authorities, commonly cited factors include staff numbers and recruitment, staff retention, the complexity and changes to the regulatory landscape and the financial situation. While each is discussed in turn below, in reality they are all closely interlinked, impacting and influencing one another, so they should not be considered in isolation.

1. Staff numbers and recruitment

There is an ageing workforce due to low numbers of new EHPs entering the profession. This is reflected in the difficulty local authorities have in recruiting appropriately qualified or experienced officers to fill vacancies or replace experienced staff upon retirement. As a consequence, workloads increase, and when trainees or new graduates are taken on, teams have less scope for the additional mentoring and support that is necessary. 

While in recent years there have been efforts to expand avenues to qualification beyond the traditional degrees through apprenticeship routes and advanced professional certificates, these new options still rely on local authorities being willing and having capacity within existing teams to support new recruits coming up through these routes. 

2. Staff retention

Alongside the issues of numbers and recruitment, for those able to fill posts within their environmental health teams, the issue then becomes one of retaining those staff and their level of experience and expertise within the organisation. Fairly few qualified EHPs are reaching strategic-level positions, indicating that within many local authorities, there is an issue around a lack of career progression, opportunities and defined, supported career pathways. EHPs are inevitably leaving their organisation (and sometimes the public sector entirely) in search of the career development they desire. This is equally true for salaries; many local authorities report difficulty being, or remaining, competitive on salary compared with other organisations and sectors, and this is believed to be a large driver of turnover within teams as well as in attracting applicants for vacant posts.

3. Complexity and changes to the regulatory landscape

As our previous blog, Housing Regulations: A review of the year and a look forward to 2026, demonstrated, legislation and regulations continue to be added, changed and updated with increasing complexity in the regulatory landscape in which EHPs work. With the enactment of the Renters’ Rights Act 2025 (RRA), EHPs not only find themselves with expanded local authority investigatory powers and the implied expectation of increased enforcement but also a new regulatory framework with additional duties and areas of responsibility, with more still to come into effect at different points over the coming year. However, constraints remain due to the existing high workloads, which limit the time or budget for staff to undertake the necessary training to enable them to stay up to date with changes to the regulatory environment.

4. The financial situation

Finally, as you may have noticed, a common theme running through the previous sections is finances. Local authorities have endured years of austerity and resulting efficiency measures, with environmental health and housing feeling the effects of this as much as other departments. Staffing levels in many teams have been reduced, budgets for services have been squeezed – with discretionary services reduced or cut altogether, and little is left for staff training and development. Many EHPs expect their service budgets to continue to be reduced, either through direct cuts or indirectly through fiscal drag.

What funding is there for change?

While increases to local authorities’ core budgets are extremely unlikely, there has been welcome consideration of the impact of recent regulatory changes in the housing sector on local authorities. It was encouraging to see that four EHPs were invited to give evidence to the select committee looking at the potential impact of the Renters’ Rights Bill (as it was then). This impact was reflected in the confirmation of New Burdens funding, with £18.2 million already provided to local authorities in 2025/26 and a further tranche to be announced and allocated for 2026/27. 

The RRA’s New Burdens funding is allocated based on the size of the private rented sector within an authority’s area, so the amount each local authority receives will vary. It can be used very flexibly, with the only stipulation being that the local authority must be able to demonstrate one of two things:

• It is helping build enforcement capacity, or 

• It is supporting preparation for the implementation of the RRA.

Looking ahead, there is Phase 3 of the act’s implementation, which brings in the extension of the decent home standard and Awaab’s law to the private rented sector. This might lead to a third tranche of New Burdens funding in connection with the RRA, but as fuller details of arrangements have yet to be announced for this phase, we can but speculate on whether this may be. 

Equally, the upcoming implementation of the HHSRS review recommendations, being a substantial update, has the potential to attract government funding. However, there is no official indication from the government on this point yet. If any money is provided, it would likely be less than for the RRA, given that it is a change (albeit a substantial one) to existing regulations rather than a completely new regulatory power or statutory duty. 

Any New Burdens funding is one-off support intended to help teams prepare and improve processes, thereby developing stronger routes for supplementary funding to deliver services. With the current RRA funding, particular emphasis is currently on enforcement and better use of financial penalties (with payments retained by local authorities), which have been strengthened and extended under the RRA. 

With the funding available to local authorities, the important thing is to ensure it is used as effectively as possible. Take time to review and reflect on what is most achievable with the funds available and what would be most beneficial to capacity within existing structures and teams.    

How might capacity begin to be increased?

Digital tools: One option is to utilise technology to simplify, standardise, and improve the efficiency of existing processes. This can be achieved by using a digital inspection tool such as The Housing App. Ensuring technology is utilised where it is most effective helps maintain a consistent approach and assessment across the team and harnesses time savings for individual officers and the team as a whole through streamlined inspections, reducing the need for task duplication and data entry. This also helps make the processes and decisions more robust, ensuring that when financial penalties are deemed necessary, there is less room for challenge or appeal. 

Strengthened resources: Making use of reliable information sources and procedures can increase capacity. Inconsistencies in a team’s work are reduced, as is time spent correcting errors, which in turn reduces the risk of challenges or appeals to notices or enforcement action, all of which would otherwise add to time pressures for the team. RIAMS libraries provide access to reliable, expertly curated information and resources and procedures, supporting newer officers with easy-to-access notice templates, procedures and guidance, as well as reassuring more experienced officers that they are operating in line with best practice.

Collaboration: Another option is to collaborate with neighbouring authorities and share resources. This could be through benefitting from cost savings by co-commissioning training for staff, through the adoption of shared policies, procedures or protocols to build consistency across wider regions, or even moving towards fully integrating certain services to benefit from a combined staffing resource, which will build resilience. Such collaboration can seem daunting, but strategic and effective use of consultancy services, such as those offered by RHE, can help ensure success while allowing officers to maintain essential services throughout the process. With local government reorganisation continuing apace, many authorities will likely have to consider this in the near future.   

Conclusion

While the new funding can’t solve all resource and capacity issues faced by local authorities, it might give teams an opportunity to really consider the challenges ahead and what’s at their disposal to help them feel ready for these changes, both to the regulatory landscape and to local government reorganisation.