The landmark report by Cambridge House assessing private rented sector (PRS) licensing schemes in London has been voted the best housing research of 2024 by revered research library, Thinkhouse.
Licensing Private Rented Homes, authored by Roz Spencer, Head of Service for Safer Renting – a Cambridge House service – and Julie Rugg, a senior research fellow at the University of York, has been placed first of 100 leading reports by the 20-member Thinkhouse Editorial Panel.
The panel, comprising 20 housing experts across academia, research, and the third and private sector, complimented the report, noting it “added to [the] pool of intelligence” on PRS licensing, while making recommendations that recognised local authority budget limitations.
Licensing Private Rented Homes was published in March 2024, and offers insights and experiences from five London boroughs while evaluating the merits and challenges, and how local authorities and government can work together to improve standards in the PRS.
It marks the second time that Cambridge House and Safer Renting have received the award. The widely celebrated Journeys in the Shadow Private Rented Sector was recognised by Thinkhouse in 2020. It was also written by Spencer and Rugg, among others.
The pair are again working in partnership to bring forward new research into illegal evictions, which is expected to be published by Summer 2025.
A full version of the Licensing Private Rented Homes report can be found here. The article announcing the award can be found on Inside Housing here.
Roz Spencer, Head of Service at Safer Renting – a Cambridge House service – said:
“We are honoured to again be recognised by the esteemed Thinkhouse panel and join them in celebrating so many fantastic insights and contributions to housing policy and thinking this past year.
The panel’s acknowledgement that our report adds to, and stands out among a raft of literature on PRS licensing is testament to how much knowledge and evidence the sector has developed. It comes as we celebrate the new freedom the Government has recently granted housing enforcement teams to determine the scope of their own discretionary licensing schemes, and hope our insights and recommendations will be useful to these teams across the country to inform the design and implementation of their licensing schemes.”
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