Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, whether her Department approved the membership of the expert panel that contributed to the draft of the fourth edition of the Service Charge Residential Management Code.

Responsibility for reviewing and updating the current edition of the Service Charge Management Code rests wholly with the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS), as owners of the Code. The Department had no role or influence in determining the composition of the expert panel or the terms of reference of the review.

A draft 4^th edition of the Code was published by RICS for public consultation in April 2022, and it will be for RICS to decide if and when the 4^th edition of the code is published, or subject to further scrutiny. Once the revised code is published, Ministers will decide whether or not formally to approve it, in whole or in part, using powers under Section 87 of the Leasehold Reform and Urban Development Act 1993.