The Competence and Conduct Standard: ARK’s Culture Solutions

By Kirsty Wells · 2 July 2025

At ARK Consultancy, we welcome confirmation from the UK government today that the Competence and Conduct Standard for social housing in England will be implemented from October 2026.

It is positive that the government has recognised the need for a three-year transition period for housing providers with over 1,000 units and for four years for smaller providers with less than 1,000 units. This timeframe is sensible to ensure that operational delivery is not affected, while staff participate in learning and development opportunities, and to ensure that landlords can financially resource the training in a planned, proactive manner.

At ARK, we’re busy supporting housing providers in culture transformation projects ensuring that staff delivering services to tenants are doing so with the right values, behaviours and attitudes.

Professional qualifications are only part of the solution, as we know, from other sectors with mandatory professional qualifications such as health, education and social work.

Colleagues delivering services must have the right attitudes to customer care, understand how to account for vulnerabilities and ensure that they hear what tenants and residents are telling them about their experiences of living in their homes. Our culture reviews assist housing providers to understand where improvements are required to put the voices of customers at the heart of their service delivery.

Find out how we can help you ensure your organisation’s culture is cohesive and aligned in our blog on shadow cultures.

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Contact us today to discover how our culture transformation expertise can help your housing provider prepare for the new standards and put tenant voices at the heart of your service delivery.

Kirsty Wells
Assistant Director
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