Capping of rent increases on referral or appeal: equality impact assessment results

Executive summary

Scottish Ministers have committed to further reform of the rented sectors as part of delivering their vision and commitments for housing as set out in Housing to 2040^[3], and consulted on as part of our New Deal for Tenants: Draft Rented Sector Strategy^[4]. The reforms were also developed as part of the Cooperation Agreement between the Scottish Government and the Scottish Green Party Parliamentary Group, which was ended on 25 April 2024. The 2023-24 Programme for Government^[5] commits to a Housing Bill that will help to deliver the legislative changes required.

Part 1, Chapter 3, of the Bill as introduced includes provisions to protect tenants from rent increases above the level requested by the landlord when the tenant raises a rent adjudication under the 2016 Act or 1988 Act. This particular requirement focuses on those tenants living in the PRS who have a PRT or Assured Tenancy seeking an adjudication of a proposed rent increase.

The current legislative adjudication process may dissuade tenants from applying for an adjudication of a rent increase because there is a risk that their rent may be increased above the amount proposed by their landlord as under the 2016 Act and 1988 Act a determination should be based on “an open market rent”.

The Bill will remove the ability for Rent Officer or the First-tier Tribunal for Scotland (Housing and Property Chamber) (“the Tribunal”) to determine that the rent should be higher than that requested by the landlord within the Rent Adjudication process for private residential tenants and rent increase appeal mechanism for Assured Tenancies.

This document sets out the results of our equality impact assessment on this change. It is one of a number of equality impact assessments carried out on the policy changes included in Bill.

The analysis is presented below in the Key Findings section. The findings are based on stakeholder engagement and feedback, desk-based research, responses to the New Deal for Tenants: Draft Rented Sector Strategy.

The EQIA is an ongoing process and therefore will continually be amended as new evidence comes to light. We will continue to engage with our stakeholders and will regularly review the EQIA record and results following the data review and subsequent analyses.

Our assessment of the impact of this measure against the three elements of the public sector equality duty is neutral. However, this measure will have a generally positive impact on all tenants with a PRT or Assured Tenancy, including those with protected characteristics as it will remove the risk that seeking an adjudication of a proposed rent increase might result in a rent being set above that proposed by the landlord. This may be particularly beneficial for certain groups with protected characteristics, for example disabled people, families with children, people from ethnic minorities who may be more likely to be in poverty and have existing concerns about paying their rent.