New rules which will help protect at least 850,000 more people in privately rented homes from poor living conditions and overcrowding have come into force this month.

All landlords who let out a property to 5 or more people – from 2 or more separate households that share facilities – must get a licence from their local housing authority.

Previously, the rules only applied to properties of 3 or more storeys – but now all properties will be covered.

The clampdown is one of a number of government measures to rebalance the relationship between landlords and tenants.

The vast majority of landlords provide decent accommodation, but these measures are about raising standards in private rented homes where landlords knowingly flout their responsibilities.

Under the new rules, all bedrooms must be at least 6.5 square metres and councils must ensure tenants have suitable space to store their rubbish outside homes.

Housing Minister Heather Wheeler MP said:

Everyone renting a home has the right to expect it is maintained to a decent standard.

Extending licensing to 170,000 more properties will ensure people benefit from better quality accommodation across the country.

There are currently around 60,000 licensable ‘houses in multiple occupation’ (HMOs) but from today a further 170,000 will require licences.

An estimated 4 million people live in private rented homes, and now at least 1.1 million who are in licensable HMOs will benefit from the protection provided by HMO licensing.

Under the existing rules, enforcement officers in Brent, north-west London, raided an unlicensed 3-bedroom HMO in September 2017, and found 35 men bedding down on mattresses in every room except the bathrooms.

The property was raided after neighbours complained about overcrowding, anti-social behaviour and fly tipping.

Before a landlord gets a HMO licence, they must prove to the council they are a ‘fit and proper’ person and the property is of a suitable standard for the number of residents.

Councils can put in place conditions about how the HMO is managed.

See advice on applying for a HMO licence.

All HMOs with any number of storeys that have 5 or more tenants, who aren’t related, and who share facilities like kitchens or lavatories, will require a licence from today.

Landlords should speak to their council about getting a licence, or they could face enforcement action.

If the HMO already has a licence under a local authority ‘additional or selective licensing’ scheme, then the landlord will not need to apply for a new licence until it expires.

The rules came into force on 1 October 2018.

Peter Druzyc appeared at Coventry Crown Court on Monday 1 October after he was found guilty of two counts of fraudulent trading and one count of fraudulently removing property in anticipation of winding up.

Incorporated in 1988, Secure Systems Limited (SSL) designed and manufactured electronic security systems. Peter Druzyc (58) of Kenilworth, Warwickshire, was appointed a director in January 1999 before becoming the sole director of SSL in August 2005

However, between 2009 and 2011 SSL entered into financial difficulties and as a result was placed into administration, before being liquidated in August 2013.

Investigators from the Insolvency Service looked into the conduct of Peter Druzyc while boss of SFF and concluded he was fully aware the company was performing poorly and could not meet its liabilities, yet continued to conduct business and avoided paying his creditors on purpose.

He owed between £400,000 and £436,000, as well as more than £45,000 to other creditors. Peter Druzyc also paid out £43,500 across several payments from SSL’s bank account to other accounts he controlled, with the last payment taking place only 7 days prior to the company entering into administration in February 2012.

In addition to the sentence, Peter Druzyc previously agreed to an eight year directorship disqualification and at court was ordered to pay costs.

Peter Druzyc’s disqualification means that he is banned from directly or indirectly becoming involved, without the permission of the court, in the promotion, formation or management of a company.

Glenn Wicks, lead investigating officer for the Insolvency Service, said:

This man systematically ripped off two companies with no intention of paying either his creditors or his tax liabilities and took every opportunity to dishonestly maximise his income and personal finances prior to SSL’s liquidation.

The courts have shown that they will always consider imprisonment for this type of offence and we are pleased with the final result.

Peter Druzyc is from Kenilworth, Warwickshire, and his date of birth is August 1960.

Secure Systems Limited (Company Number: 02251448).

Peter Druzyc agreed to an eight year disqualification undertaking in February 2014.

A disqualification order has the effect that without specific permission of a court, a person with a disqualification cannot:

• act as a director of a company
• take part, directly or indirectly, in the promotion, formation or management of a company or limited liability partnership
• be a receiver of a company’s property

Disqualification undertakings are the administrative equivalent of a disqualification order but do not involve court proceedings.

Persons subject to a disqualification order are bound by a range of other restrictions.

Further information about the work of the Insolvency Service, and how to complain about financial misconduct, is available.

Media enquiries for this press release – 020 7674 6910 or 020 7596 6187

You can also follow the Insolvency Service on:

You are invited to hear more about the £32m project in Perry Barr and Witton, reducing flood risk for 1,400 properties.

The placements, which will run for a minimum of eight weeks, include using satellite images to map deforestation and working on electric propulsion systems.

The scheme, which offers paid work placements for students who graduated in 2017 or 2018 or postgraduate students, is funded by the Agency’s Space Placements in Industry (SPIN) programme, with grants of up to £3,000 for the organisations involved.

Speaking during World Space Week, Kathie Bowden, Point of Contact for Skills and Careers at the UK Space Agency, said:

I am delighted that our SPIN scheme is proving to be so popular with companies in the UK space sector. We have some fantastic opportunities available for people to apply for and we will be announcing more placements in the coming weeks. The space sector is a growing success story in the UK and these opportunities offer a great taste of working within this exciting industry.

The UK space sector is growing fast, with an additional 30,000 new staff required by 2030. This scheme, which is supported by the Satellite Applications Catapult in Harwell, is part of the Agency’s efforts to help build a skilled workforce in the UK.

While Tim Peake’s Principia mission captivated people across the world, inspiring millions of youngsters, working in space is not just for astronauts: there are many exciting jobs behind the scenes. This scheme allows students to experience the breadth of opportunities that the sector can offer, developing skills crucial to the success of the sector and supporting the growth of businesses within the sector.

The list of placements was unveiled during World Space Week, which runs from 4-10 October. The week-long international celebration of science and technology is co-ordinated by the United Nations and involves thousands of events around the world.

The start dates for each post will be agreed between the applicant and the host organisation. Each placement must be completed by 28 February 2019.

The first four placements are below and there will be at least six more announced in the coming weeks:

Carbomap

A forest mapping company using Earth observation data for carbon monitoring, based in Edinburgh, the project will use Sentinel data to map deforestation.

S&AO Ltd

An atmospheric remote sensing company based in Harwell, the project involves working on a feasibility study to develop a radar wind profiler to provide key ocean data.

University of Sheffield

An opportunity to gain experience in the space engineering industry developing rocket engineering and space technology.

AVS UK

A company developing a wide range of electric propulsion systems that will enhance the UK capability of spaceflight and in-orbit space propulsion, based at Harwell. This project will be working on electric propulsion systems.

• 15 winning bidders for the £10m Regulators’ Pioneer Fund were announced today by Business Secretary Greg Clark
• Fund will support bodies to create a regulatory environment that gives innovative businesses the confidence to invest, innovate and deploy emerging technologies for the benefit of consumers and the wider economy.

Business Secretary Greg Clark has today (5 October 2018) awarded £10 million to UK regulators to help drive forward innovation in the public sector and help it seize long-term opportunities including the growth of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the future of mobility.

The Regulators’ Pioneer Fund is funding 15 unique projects that will unlock the economic opportunities identified in the government’s modern Industrial Strategy.

Winning projects include:

• nearly £700k to regulator Ofcom for a project that uses blockchain technology to improve UK telephone number management
• nearly £700k for the Solicitors Regulation Authority to support business innovations that will use Artificial Intelligence (AI) to transform the legal services market for small businesses and consumers
• up to £1 million for the Civil Aviation Authority to support a project that includes a ‘regulatory lab’ that will bring together relevant bodies to unblock legislative and regulatory barriers to innovations like flying taxis

Business Secretary Greg Clark said:

The UK’s regulatory environment is recognised as being among the best in the world and through our modern Industrial Strategy we are building a business environment in which Britain’s dreamers, developers and disruptors can continue to thrive.

These projects will further strengthen our regulatory system and ensure that it keeps pace with the innovation and technological advances needed to power our economy now and in the future.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority’s project, Data-Driven Innovation in Legal Services, in partnership with Nesta’s Challenge Prize Centre, will seek out and accelerate ethical AI-powered business innovations that support their regulatory objectives. The focus will be on growing the large underdeveloped legal services market for small businesses and consumers, where AI and automation can have a transformative impact.

Paul Philip, SRA Chief Executive said:

We are pleased that our proposal has secured pioneer funding and we are looking forward to working with Nesta on the new SRA Innovate Testbed. Smart use of technology could help tackle the problem that far too many people struggle to access expert legal advice. It will help us further build on our work to encourage new ways of delivering legal services, benefiting both the public and small business.

The Fund will help regulators support businesses get new products and services to market and capitalise on the society-changing trends and industries of the future, where the UK can build on its emerging and established strengths to become a world leader.

The 4 Grand Challenges identified in the government’s modern Industrial Strategy are:

• AI and data: putting the UK at the forefront of the AI and data revolution
• Ageing society: harnessing the power of innovation to meet the needs of an ageing society
• Clean growth: maximising the advantages for UK industry from the global shift to clean growth
• Future of mobility: becoming a world leader in shaping the future of mobility

The Civil Aviation Authority’s project, Innovation in Aviation Engagement Capability, includes the establishment of a new advisory service, giving innovators preliminary regulatory guidance while the CAA’s new Canary Wharf London base will also be more closely located to East London’s Tech City. It also includes a new regulatory ‘sandbox’ to allow testing, and a regulatory lab that convenes relevant bodies to identify future legislative and regulatory barriers to innovations such as flying taxis.

Tim Johnson, Director at the UK Civil Aviation Authority, said:

We have already seen many global aviation and aerospace innovators choose the UK to develop their new products and services whether they are traditional operators in the sector or are new market entrants. We look forward to continuing to play our role in facilitating successful innovation.

Innovation brings tangible benefits to the UK’s economy and to the many people and businesses that use our airspace. The CAA recognises that it has an important role to play in facilitating innovation in aviation, and in doing so continue to focus on passenger and public safety and security. We are delighted to have support from the Regulators Pioneer Fund to advance this innovation agenda.

With its support, we will be able to give some innovators earlier guidance on proposals, allow more safe testing of new products and services and develop new regulatory frameworks for emerging technologies.

Mark Birse, Group Manager Device Safety, Surveillance, Software and Apps at MHRA, said:

We are thrilled to have been successful in our bid for the Pioneer Fund as we are committed to supporting innovative projects in order to protect health and improve lives.

This pilot project, in conjunction with NHS Digital, is aimed at producing synthetic datasets which will help innovators validate software and apps to be able to bring them to market at the earliest, safest opportunity.

The winning regulators will launch their projects in October. All applicants for the Fund have been invited to join a new ‘Regulators’ Innovation Network’, a group run by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy to encourage the sharing of best practice and to help forge new partnerships among regulators, government and industry, helping to ensure the regulatory system encourages innovation and remains simple for businesses to comply with.

The Regulators Pioneer Fund follows the Modernising Consumer Markets Green Paper which set out how regulators should ensure that consumers are not being unfairly penalised by suppliers who hold information on their behaviour as well as looking at how their own data can be made more accessible to consumers and making it easier for people to switch to better value services.

The 15 projects winning projects, subject to agreement of contracts, are listed below against each of the Grand Challenge areas they will help to take on.

Artificial Intelligence and data

• Information Commissioner’s Office – Regulators’ Business Privacy Innovation Hub: the new hub will work in partnership with other regulators to provide expert support to businesses on ensuring information privacy and data protection – helping them build the confidence to create innovative products and services. A pool of ICO experts will work with other regulators to enable innovation in sectors and develop approaches based on ‘privacy by design’.
• Ofcom – Using blockchain technology to improve UK telephone number management: As telephone networks move online, Ofcom will develop a secure sandbox environment – in partnership with industry – for voice communications providers to trial porting and managing telephone numbers using blockchain. This testbed environment will allow users to build interfaces, test business processes and rules, and trial security arrangements.
• Ofgem – Secure Data Exchange: This new service will deliver a better user experience for anyone who exchanges information with Ofgem or wishes to know what information is available from Ofgem. It will enable a transformation in the way data is exchanged and managed between regulated marketplace participants; easy and effective data exchanges will facilitate market disruption, driving better consumer outcomes.
• Ofgem – Energy Market Challenge: Ofgem and Nesta’s Challenge Prize Centre will together launch a major initiative which stimulates the development of better services for the 8 million households who are not engaged in the energy market and who are supplied their energy through higher rate tariffs. Building on the Open Banking model, Ofgem will provide a safe environment for innovative firms to develop and implement the ideas that will provide better services to customers through a range of potential services such as AI-assisted services, integrated money management apps, online banking apps and chatbots.
• Intellectual Property Office – AI solutions to enhance the intellectual property right (IPR) online filing process: To ensure that Intellectual Property Office continues to deliver for its customers and maintain its ranking as one of the world-leading intellectual property (IP) offices, the benefits of innovative Artificial Intelligence (AI) solutions will be assessed and implemented to modernise the process of filing for Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs), for example by using AI-powered preliminary searches for applicants filing for patents, trade marks and designs as part of the online filing process.
• Solicitors Regulation Authority – Data-Driven Innovation in Legal Services: The new SRA Innovate Testbed is an open innovation competition, created in partnership with Nesta’s Challenge Prize Centre, to seek out and accelerate ethical AI-powered legal services. The focus will be on growing the underdeveloped legal services market for small businesses and consumers, where AI and automation can have a transformative effect on improving access to the help they need. It will be open to law firms, tech companies, civil society organisations, universities, academics and any other innovators looking to collaborate to bring these into the market.
• Financial Conduct Authority – Digital Regulatory Reporting: the FCA and Bank of England are looking at how technology could potentially improve the efficiency of the current regulatory reporting process. They are investigating the feasibility of codifying some reporting requirements to make them machine readable and machine executable, potentially making the legal terminology used today easier for humans and machines to understand. In the future, this could lead to efficiency gains, reducing barriers to entry and promoting competition.

Ageing society

• Care Quality Commission – Supporting innovation in health and social care: With innovative and technologically-enabled models of care developing rapidly, it is important that regulation can keep pace and continue to ensure people receive high quality care. This project will explore how CQC can encourage good models of innovation that maximise benefits while keeping people safe, and test out new ways of engaging with innovative providers, such as regulatory sandboxing.
• MHRA – Developing and applying datasets for the validation of algorithms: In partnership with NHS Digital, MHRA will develop synthetic datasets to validate algorithms and artificial intelligence used in medical devices. A small group of innovators will be invited to validate their algorithms against the synthetic data as a pilot. If successful, the synthetic data sets would be made available to innovators to validate their products.

Clean growth

• Ofgem – Future Services Lab: Ofgem recently concluded that the retail energy market design, in which suppliers play a broad and central role, may not maximise future benefit for consumers. Fundamental regulatory reforms are therefore being considered. In the Future Services Lab Ofgem will work with the Energy Systems Catapult to iteratively trial and refine these potential changes. Households will be invited to participate in small trials of alternative retail models. A cross-functional team of policy experts, service designers and researchers will constantly visit and gather feedback from these trials, rapidly iterating future plans to find the best model to roll out.
• Scottish Environment Protection Agency – Decommissioning Regulatory Hub: This project will provide a safe, collaborative environment that supports industry to develop and test innovative new products/services in support of decommissioning. It will bring together operating companies and multiple regulators (from the oil and gas industry and the waste supply chain) to address cross-cutting areas, share best practices, create innovative solutions and manage the associated risks together.

Future of mobility

• Maritime and Coastguard Agency – Putting Wind in the Sails of the UK Autonomous and Smart Shipping Industries: This project will establish a regulatory ‘innovation lab’ bringing together industry specialists, academics and government to: Pioneer new approaches to the regulatory challenges facing the Smart Shipping and Maritime Autonomous Surface Ship (MASS) industry and make marine and maritime data assets available to remove barriers and catalyse new collaborations, in order to drive innovation and support the UK as a world leader in this space.
• Civil Aviation Authority – Innovation in Aviation Engagement Capability: This proposal includes the establishment of a new advisory service to give innovators some preliminary regulatory guidance and the CAA a better understanding of the innovation pipeline. It also includes building a new regulatory sandbox to allow testing of selected innovations in carefully controlled environments, and creating a regulatory lab to work with relevant organisations to develop new regulatory frameworks and policies for innovations such as flying taxis and automated systems. The CAA’s new Canary Wharf London base will also be more closely located to East London’s Tech City.
• UK Space Agency – The Spaceflight Licensing Digital Gateway will ensure that the UK’s licensing regime for commercial space operations keep pace with this innovative sector. The Government is working to develop a ‘a one-stop shop’, by which operators will apply for spaceflight licences from both the UKSA and CAA.