Guide · Awaab's Law data standard

What is the Awaab's Law data standard?

MHCLG and HACT have built a data standard for Awaab's Law cases. Here is what it covers, the four entities at its core, and why your data team should model on it now, before Phase 2 and Phase 3 add more hazards.

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By Catalyst BI housing data teamLast reviewed 3rd November 20267 minute read

4core entitiesTenants, property, investigation appointments and work orders.

30th Nov 2026Phase 2 startsSeven more hazard groups join damp and mould on the clock.

£400ma year lost to poor dataMHCLG's conservative estimate for repairs and allocations.

00What it is

What is the Awaab's Law data standard?

A modular data standard for damp and mould cases, with implementation guidance, developed by MHCLG's Local Digital team working with HACT. It describes how a repair request is raised, assessed, responded to, escalated and closed.

Every housing association records repairs. Almost none record them the same way. That has never mattered much, until Awaab's Law made the timing of each repair a legal duty that landlords have to evidence.

The standard puts particular focus on identifying and prioritising repairs that involve vulnerable tenants (MHCLG Digital).

Does it start from scratch?

No. It reuses HACT's existing standards for repairs, property and customer data. If your systems already follow HACT standards in places, you are not starting from zero.

01The four entities

What are the four entities at its core?

Tenants, property, investigation appointments and work orders. Put those four together and every Awaab's Law timescale becomes measurable, from first report to completed works.

4entities that carry every Awaab's Law timestamp

Tenants. Who lives in the home, including the vulnerabilities that change how quickly and how carefully a landlord must act.
Property. The home itself, so every case attaches to one consistent property record.
Investigation appointments. When the hazard was inspected, by whom and what was found.
Work orders. The repairs raised, who carried them out and when they were completed.

Joined together, they measure each step the law sets out: report to investigation, investigation to written summary, summary to safety works, and the start of any longer-term repairs.

02Why it matters

Why does a data standard matter for Awaab's Law?

Because the law is about evidence. For every case you need to show when a report arrived, how the hazard was assessed, when it was investigated, what the resident was told and when works were done.

£400ma year lost to data inefficiencies in repairs and allocations, by MHCLG's conservative estimate

In most associations those facts sit in different systems that identify homes, tenants and jobs differently. With Phase 2 adding seven more hazard groups from 30th November 2026, the way your repairs data is structured has become a compliance question.

MHCLG puts a price on the fragmentation: data inefficiencies in housing repairs and allocations cost an estimated £400 million a year, a figure it describes as conservative. It also notes that poor data standards can cost a large organisation more than £1 million when it migrates to a new system (MHCLG Digital).

A shared standard means the trail joins up the same way every time, whichever system each piece came from.

03Is it finished?

Is the standard finished?

Not yet. MHCLG described the first version as a minimum viable product. HACT and Data Futurists are leading the next phase, testing it with housing providers and taking it through the Data Standards Authority's endorsement process.

v1described by MHCLG as a minimum viable product

Check the latest status with HACT before you commit to a specific version.

That is a reason to start, not to wait. The four entities are unlikely to change, and modelling your data around them now gives you a structure that later versions will refine rather than replace.

04What to do now

What should your data team do now?

Map your systems to the four entities, fix the identifiers, then model once in a central platform. The same model then carries Phase 2 hazards and answers STAIRs requests.

Map your systems to the four entities. For each system, note which of tenants, property, appointments and work orders it holds, and how it identifies them.
Fix the property and tenancy identifiers first. If your repairs system and your contractor portal call the same home by different references, nothing else will join.
Model once, centrally. Build the four entities in your data platform, with each timescale defined once and tested, rather than recalculated in every report.
Extend it to Phase 2 hazards. The standard starts with damp and mould. The same entities can carry excess cold, fire, electrical hazards and the rest, and Phase 3 in 2027.
Reuse it for STAIRs. From 1st April 2027 tenants can request their repairs and property condition records. The same model is where you will find them. Read the STAIRs data guide.

Questions to ask your team

Which of our systems hold tenants, property, appointments and work orders?
Does every system use the same property reference?
Where is each Awaab's Law timescale defined today, and is it defined once?

05Tools and first steps

Do you need new systems to follow it?

No. The standard describes how data should be structured, not which software holds it. Most associations keep their existing systems and build the standard in a data layer alongside them.

A typical layer uses Fivetran or Qlik Talend to connect sources, Snowflake or Databricks to hold the data, dbt or Coalesce to model it, and Qlik or Power BI to report on it. It sits alongside the Microsoft tools most associations already run.

Where should you start?

With one closed damp case. Try to list every timestamp for it in one place, then count the systems you had to open. That exercise shows you where your data departs from the standard faster than any audit.