Bifurcated professionalisation: the conceptual, strategic, and practical limitations of the Scottish Government’s policies to ‘professionalise’ the private rented sector

Abstract

Over the last decade, the Scottish Government has pursued the professionalisation of the Private Rented Sector (PRS) through a bifurcated model. One branch promotes ‘facilitated professionalisation’ by courting Build-to-Rent (BTR) investment through policy incentives. The other imposes ‘mandated professionalisation’ via cumulative regulatory reform aimed at raising standards. Using secondary data, this paper assesses each branch and identifies a range of conceptual, strategic and practical shortcomings, including a failure to define professionalism or professionalisation and a lack of measurable policy objectives. It finds that facilitated professionalisation has failed to attract significant BTR investment, due in part to investment uncertainty arising from policy incoherence. Moreover, the impact of mandated professionalisation has been limited, with little change in sector standards measured via housing conditions, and problematic, given its potential contribution to declining landlord numbers. The paper highlights tensions between incentives, obligations and unintended outcomes, and questions whether regulatory expansion automatically leads to improvements in the sector. While focused on Scotland, there are lessons for policymakers in other jurisdictions seeking to professionalise PRSs dominated by small-scale landlords and/or with nascent or under-mature BTR provision, including Australia and New Zealand.