Housing safety and compliance professionals enter the second half of 2026 facing one of the most demanding periods the sector has seen. New legal duties, rising regulatory scrutiny, increasing expectations around competence and conduct, and persistent operational challenges are converging at the same time.
For the people responsible for keeping homes safe, this is not a year to watch from the sidelines. It is a year to be prepared, connected and ahead of what is coming.
That is why ASCP26 Conference, Exhibition and Awards, taking place on 8 and 9 September 2026 at ICC Newport, matters. It is where the UK’s housing safety and compliance community will come together to understand the changing landscape, test practical responses and learn from the people already working through the sector’s hardest problems.
A defining year for safety and compliance
The pressures facing safety and compliance teams are not new. Access to homes has always been difficult. Regulation has always been complex. Resources have always been stretched. What is different in 2026 is the number of changes landing together, and the level of evidence now expected from organisations and individuals alike.
Awaab’s Law, which came into force for damp and mould in October 2025, has already reshaped expectations around responsiveness, accountability and demonstrable action. Future phases will bring a much wider range of housing hazards within scope, extending those expectations well beyond the cases that first brought the legislation into public view.
The Competence and Conduct Standard for Social Housing comes into force in October 2026, introducing new professional expectations across the sector. At the same time, the Building Safety Act continues to change how risk, assurance and accountability are understood, managed and evidenced.
Taken together, these are not minor updates to familiar frameworks. They represent a fundamental shift in what it means to be accountable for the safety of people’s homes.
Regulators, from the Regulator of Social Housing to the Health and Safety Executive, are making increasingly clear that compliance on paper is not enough. What matters is whether systems work in practice, whether risks are understood, whether decisions are properly evidenced and whether organisations can demonstrate that they acted when they needed to.
Matt Sharp, CEO of the Association of Safety and Compliance Professionals, describes the moment plainly: “The sector is carrying more responsibility, facing more scrutiny and working under more pressure than at any point in recent memory. The people doing this work need to be ahead of what is being asked of them, not catching up to it.”
What scrutiny looks like when things go wrong
One of the most powerful sessions at this year’s ASCP26 has been designed to bring that reality to life.
A live courtroom drama, led by barrister Karen Jones, will put a delegate through realistic cross-examination in front of their peers. Jones brings decades of experience as both prosecutor and defence counsel, including involvement in the Lockerbie trial and the Bloody Sunday Inquiry.
This is not a theoretical session about legal process. It is a practical, uncomfortable and highly relevant demonstration of how safety decisions are examined when something has gone wrong.
Delegates will see how individual compliance decisions become evidence. They will hear how culture, communication, record-keeping and professional judgement are tested under scrutiny. They will understand how the risks of Corporate Manslaughter and Gross Negligence Manslaughter can arise in housing safety contexts, and what organisations and individuals must do to protect residents, colleagues and themselves.
For safety and compliance professionals, this is a rare opportunity to see what accountability looks like before they are ever forced to experience it for real.
The only UK conference dedicated solely to housing safety and compliance
ASCP26 is not a general housing event with a compliance stream. It is the UK’s only conference dedicated solely to safety and compliance in the housing sector.
Every session is built around the specific pressures, disciplines and decisions faced by the professionals responsible for keeping homes safe. The programme has been designed for people who need more than broad commentary. They need practical insight, regulatory clarity, peer learning and credible challenge.
Across more than 30 sessions, delegates will hear from a speaker line-up that includes three doctors, a professor, a crossbench lord and representatives from three government agencies.
Dr Sabrina Cohen-Hatton, one of the UK’s most senior women in the fire service, will draw on her background in behavioural neuroscience and frontline emergency leadership to examine how safety professionals make decisions under pressure.
Lord Victor Adebowale CBE, former Chief Executive of Turning Point and Chair of the NHS Confederation, will bring a values-led perspective on leadership, accountability and what it means to build organisations where safety is genuinely embedded.
Dr Tim Marsh, one of the UK’s foremost authorities on behavioural safety and human factors, will examine why experienced, well-trained professionals can still make unsafe decisions, and what leaders can do to reduce that risk.
The programme also includes specialist sessions across every major compliance discipline, including gas, fire, electrical safety, damp and mould, asbestos, legionella, radon, building safety, resident engagement, decarbonisation and the intelligent housing safety stack.
Contributors include Steve Critchlow, Principal Gas Engineer at the Health and Safety Executive; Andrea White, chartered fire engineer and founder of AW Fire; Darren Crannis of the ECA on the latest changes to wiring regulations; Sam Lord, HM Principal Specialist Inspector at HSE, on asbestos management in social housing; and technical experts from CORGI Technical Services across the programme.
The value for delegates is clear. They will leave better equipped to understand changing duties, strengthen assurance, evidence decisions, manage risk and support safer outcomes for residents.
A community carrying direct responsibility for millions of homes
ASCP members represent 67% of the UK’s social housing stock. The professionals attending ASCP26 are not a broad cross-section of the housing sector. They are the people carrying direct responsibility for the safety and compliance of millions of homes.
Last year’s event returned an NPS score of 97. This year, around 750 professionals are expected to attend, alongside 60 exhibitors bringing together the tools, products and technologies shaping how safety and compliance work is delivered in practice.
The exhibition will showcase solutions across compliance management systems, fire safety, gas safety technology, access management, data, assurance and wider safety innovation. For delegates, it is a chance to compare approaches, challenge suppliers and see what is possible beyond their own organisation.
On the evening of 8 September, around 500 professionals will come together for the ASCP Awards, with 15 categories recognising outstanding individuals, teams and organisations from across the safety and compliance community. The shortlist has already been released.
This combination of conference, exhibition and awards is what makes ASCP26 more than a learning event. It is the annual meeting point for the people who are shaping the future of housing safety and compliance.
Why being in the room matters now
The professionals attending ASCP26 this September will do so at a moment when their role has rarely carried more weight.
The legislation is real. The regulatory scrutiny is real. The operational pressure is real. The access challenge is real. The expectations on individuals and organisations are rising.
But so is the opportunity to respond well.
The most valuable conversations in Newport will not only happen on stage. They will happen between practitioners who have already worked through difficult problems and those still trying to find the right approach. They will happen between regulators shaping expectations and the professionals who have to meet them. They will happen between technical specialists, operational leaders, suppliers, advisers and peers who understand the reality of doing this work every day.
That is what makes attendance matter.
For housing safety and compliance professionals, 2026 is not a year to observe from a distance. It is a year to prepare, to learn, to challenge assumptions and to be part of the community setting the standard for what comes next.
It is a year to be in the room.
ASCP26 Conference, Exhibition and Awards takes place on 8 and 9 September 2026 at ICC Newport. Full details and booking at ascp26.co.uk.
Images © ASCP
- Log in to post comments