Housing providers in England have two hard dates now sitting on the calendar: 1 October 2026 and April 2027. Both come from the same set of regulatory changes, and both put new obligations directly on the shoulders of comms and tenant engagement teams, not just compliance departments.

In July 2026, the Regulator of Social Housing (RSH) published the outcome of its consultation on revisions to the Transparency, Influence and Accountability (TI&A) Standard, including the new Social Tenant Access to Information Requirements (STAIRs), alongside a newly separated Competence and Conduct (C&C) Standard. If you read our guide to what your RSH consumer standards grade means for tenant engagement, this is the piece that follows it: that one covered how landlords are judged, this one covers the specific new rights tenants are getting and the deadlines attached to them.

STAIRs gives tenants of private registered providers (housing associations and other PRPs) broadly similar access to information about how their homes are managed as local authority tenants already have through the Freedom of Information Act. It sits inside the revised TI&A Standard, one of RSH’s consumer standards.

The Social Housing (Regulation) Act 2023 gave government the power to direct RSH to introduce these requirements. The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) consulted on the direction itself, and RSH then consulted separately to make sure its own standard reflected that direction accurately.

This is genuinely a two-stage rollout, and the two stages ask for different things from comms teams.

1 October 2026: Proactive publication begins

From this date, private registered providers must proactively publish specified information about how they manage their social housing. This is a “push” requirement: information has to be made available without a tenant needing to ask for it.

The C&C Standard also takes effect from 1 October 2026, with transition periods for some elements. It sets professional standards for housing staff, including a requirement for senior housing managers and executives to hold, or be working towards, a recognised housing management qualification. This sits with HR and workforce teams more than comms, but it’s worth knowing it shares the same commencement date, since it will likely feature in the same internal communications about “what’s changing in October.”

April 2027: Responding to individual tenant requests

From April 2027, PRPs must also respond to information requests from tenants or their designated representatives, similar in principle to how local authorities handle Freedom of Information requests today. This is a “pull” requirement, on top of the proactive publication duty that starts six months earlier.

STAIRs and the C&C Standard both land in the same window as changes to Awaab’s Law timescales and the wider Tenant Satisfaction Measures, including a new electrical safety checks TSM introduced in June 2026 for large landlords. None of these changes exist in isolation. Together, they reflect a consistent regulatory direction: proactive transparency, evidenced engagement, and a stronger tenant voice, all things that increasingly need to be demonstrable, not just claimed.

• STAIRs gives tenants of housing associations and other private registered providers a right to information about how their homes are managed, similar to Freedom of Information rights for local authority tenants.
• Proactive publication of specified information begins 1 October 2026.
• Responding to individual tenant information requests becomes a duty from April 2027.
• The separate Competence and Conduct Standard also takes effect from 1 October 2026, requiring senior housing staff to hold or be working towards a housing management qualification.
• RSH has framed these changes as a cultural shift toward stronger tenant voice and reduced stigma, not solely a compliance exercise.

Meeting these deadlines well depends on being able to publish consistently, respond to tenant requests quickly, and evidence both.

• Consistent proactive publication. Centralising the social media channels tenants actually use makes it easier to publish required information and keep a clear record of when it went out, and a chatbot can handle repeat requests for that same published information automatically.
• Faster, evidenced responses to tenant requests. A single view of tenant queries, replies and resolutions makes it straightforward to show timely handling once the April 2027 duty applies.
• A single evidenced record. Every conversation logged through Orlo builds the kind of timestamped evidence trail RSH increasingly expects landlords to have to hand.

Over 400 public sector organisations use Orlo, including housing associations across England.

If you want to see how Orlo can support your STAIRs readiness, take a look at our housing solutions, or a demo is the fastest way to see it in your context.