Good question!

One has to follow a series of definitions in the legislation. "Social housing" would include council houses, which are not included; but at first glance, housing associations are private landlords, albeit one might assume, altruistic ones.

It's been 18 months since I had a Contract with a Social Housing provider, so things may have changed - in fact I think the Smoke Detection rules have changed. They used to be exempt from fitting any smoke detection, I beleive they are now expected to comply to 5839 for houses.

Anyway, on the electrical side, the one I worked with followed 7671. When SPDs came in, we had to fit them, no risk assessment etc, just fit them. On EICRs, C3's were given for lighting with no RCD protection, if there were likely to be vulnerable people in the property, RCBOs were fitted for the lighting. A note would be made of the ones without lighting RCDs, and the DB would be changed in due course, or, RCBOs fitted if available for that board.

What did not work was external Contractors doing the 5/3 yearly EICRs. Invariably they were done at the cheapest price possible, subsequently the Staff doing them were paid little and/or expected to do 4 houses a day. Of course, they did not even do a good inspection, never mind adequate testing. We would regularly go to a property that had been passed as satisfactory a week previously that had major safety problems.

One of my first sticks in my mind. New Tenant had moved in, cooker thet they fitted themselves,  wasnt working. The place had had a minor refurb in the previous weeks, EICR etc. The cooker outlet was dead. Strange. I looked at the EICR, good reading on that, no recommendations or notes. I thought the circuit breaker must have failed. It turned out the 6mm cable in the CU was feeding the shower, not the cooker. And there was no shower. There was a bare, unterminated cable in the attic that used to supply a shower. The cable for the cooker was looped up, and covered in tape in the rear of the CU. Clearly they had disconnected the old cable, done the wrong cable,  did no testing, left a live cable in the attic, and left the cooker dead. Yet it had  asatisfactory EICR.  This is where the Electicial Industry needs to sharpen up. I still see rubbish like this, but nothing is ever done to stop these cowboy Companies. Only this week I had an email offering me £50 for each EICR done on a Social Housing Contract. Really, who even takes up these Contracts?

Sorry to deviate from your original post Ian, but I would like to reply to Alan.

I have several strands to my business including the provision of EICRs. I rarely undertake them myself these days but I am the QS for our NICEIC accreditation. In that regard I do reasonably regular sample quality assurance inspections of the work undertaken by the guys on site. They are self-employed so I pay them to attend the sample inspection. It has paid dividends. 
Now a social housing provider might not be so keen to stick their hand in their pocket for such scrutiny but I do believe some kind of independent oversight might be warranted. Indeed, in the event of a fire or an injury incident caused by the fixed electrical installation, it would not be unreasonable for the investigating authority to establish if an appropriate level of managerial oversight of the periodic inspection system was in place. 
With respect to the OP, I assumed that the various Housing Acts across the four nations covered all landlords, private and social. Apparently that is not necessarily so. A little research is required. Still, it might take the mind off Harry K’s and England’s exit stage left! 

As an NICEIC contractor, surely they should check the quality of work by your subbies? You are the QS, so occasional checking is surely insufficient? You are signing paperwork as having full oversight and responsibility for the reports. Are you really happy with this?

The system is broken isn't it Lyle? Obviously you are as far as possible, one of the good guys, but surely the schemes know that there are loads of bad guys out there and don't care? What comeback on the schemes is available, they claim to be the Quality Control of contractors, but this clearly doesn't work?

lyledunn said:

With respect to the OP, I assumed that the various Housing Acts across the four nations covered all landlords, private and social. Apparently that is not necessarily so. A little research is required.

OK, here goes (at least for England).

The Electrical Safety Standards in the Private Rented Sector (England) Regulations 2020:

SCHEDULE 1

Excluded tenancies

Private registered provider of social housing

1.  A tenancy where the landlord is a private registered provider of social housing.

"Social housing" is defined in Ss 68 - 70 of the Housing and Regeneration Act 2008:

68 Basic principle

(1) In this Part “social housing” means—

(a) low cost rental accommodation (defined by section 69), and

(b) low cost home ownership accommodation (defined by section 70).

69 Low cost rental

Accommodation is low cost rental accommodation if—

(a) it is made available for rent,

(b) the rent is below the market rate, and

(c) the accommodation is made available in accordance with rules designed to ensure that it is made available to people whose needs are not adequately served by the commercial housing market.

So there you have it - social housing appears to be excluded from the PRS rules.

Thanks Chris, so social housing is exempt from the PRS requirements. But surely social housing must be subject to some electrical safety laws/regs?

I regularly go to do remedial works after an eicr has been done, only to find sometimes many faults & non compliances that weren’t noted on the eicr. Often dangerous ones.

Apparently not. There was a consultation earlier this year, but the conclusions appear not to have been published yet. This may, however, be of interest: www.gov.uk/.../consultation-and-call-for-evidence-on-electrical-safety-in-the-social-rented-sector

I have to admit that I was surprised to find that "social housing" has a specific meaning in law because I think that the phrase could include any housing, whether it be publicly or privately owned, which is made available at below the market rate.