Anti-social behaviour is one of the most difficult and persistent challenges faced by social housing providers.
For residents, the consequences can be profound. Persistent noise, intimidation, harassment, drug-related activity, damage, nuisance or the regular presence of unwanted visitors can affect not only quality of life, but a person’s sense of safety in their own home.
For housing professionals, however, there is another problem: evidence.
A resident may be completely genuine in reporting what they are experiencing, yet the housing provider may still need to establish what is actually happening, when it is happening, whether a pattern exists and, ultimately, what action can appropriately be taken.
That creates a difficult question for the sector: When a resident is already suffering the consequences of persistent ASB, should they also be expected to carry much of the burden of proving it?
The Government’s 2025 Social Housing Resident Panel report provides an important context. Eighty-five per cent of panel members reported experiencing ASB in or around their home. Of those who had experienced ASB, 75% had made a formal report, yet only 27% said that the outcome of their report had been satisfactory. The report also highlighted concerns about residents being expected to gather evidence themselves, including maintaining incident diaries and recording what was happening.
These figures should prompt a wider conversation about how evidence is gathered in persistent ASB cases.
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The evidence gap
ASB cases are rarely simple. One complaint may be important, but it may not demonstrate a sustained pattern. A resident’s diary can provide a valuable chronology, but it necessarily represents one person’s observations. Other residents may have witnessed similar behaviour but be reluctant to become involved.
There can also be a more serious concern: retaliation.
The Resident Panel report found that 22% of people who had experienced ASB but had not formally reported it said that they were scared of retaliation. Others reported believing that their complaint would not be taken seriously or that previous reports had resulted in no action.
For housing providers, this creates a difficult balance. They need to listen to residents, respond appropriately and protect vulnerable people, while simultaneously obtaining sufficiently reliable information to determine what intervention, if any, is justified.
Perhaps the answer is not simply to ask residents for more evidence. Perhaps, in some circumstances, the housing provider should take greater responsibility for gathering it.
The professional witness
One possible approach is the use of a professional witness.
The concept is relatively straightforward. An independent professional observes and documents relevant activity and provides an evidential account of what they personally witnessed. This is fundamentally different from asking a resident to become an investigator.
A professional witness does not decide whether somebody is guilty of wrongdoing. Nor should their role be to confront an alleged perpetrator or become involved in the dispute. Their role is to establish and accurately record facts.
Depending upon the circumstances, this may involve lawful observation, recording dates and times, documenting relevant activity and producing a contemporaneous report. Where appropriate and lawful, photographic or video evidence may also form part of the evidential record.
That independence can be important.
It does not mean that a resident’s account should be discounted. Far from it. The resident is often the person best placed to explain what they have experienced. However, an independent observation can provide corroboration and potentially help transform a series of allegations into a clearer evidential picture.
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Surveillance should not become the objective
There is, however, an important distinction to make.
The answer to an ASB complaint should not automatically be “send someone to conduct surveillance.”
Surveillance is a tool, not an objective.
The first question should be: What information are we actually trying to establish?
For example:
• Is a particular pattern of activity taking place?
• Is the reported behaviour occurring at the times alleged?
• Are particular individuals regularly attending a property?
• Is a communal area being used in a way that creates persistent nuisance?
• Is there evidence of behaviour that may amount to a breach of tenancy conditions?
• Can separate complaints be independently corroborated?
• Is there sufficient evidence to support further action?
If existing records, complaints, incident logs, partner-agency information or other evidence can answer those questions, additional surveillance may not be necessary.
If there remains a clearly defined evidential gap, professional observation may be one way of addressing it.
That distinction matters because it moves the discussion away from “surveillance of a resident” and towards “evidence required to answer a specific question.”
That is a very different proposition.
Proportionate evidence gathering
Any professional observation undertaken in a residential environment requires careful consideration.
People have legitimate expectations of privacy within their homes and communities. Housing providers therefore need to consider the purpose of the activity, the information required, how it will be obtained and whether the proposed approach is necessary and proportionate.
Before commissioning professional witness services, housing professionals should be able to answer eight basic questions:
1. What are we trying to establish? Define the evidential question.
2. What evidence do we already have? Review complaints, incident records, tenancy information, partner-agency reports and existing evidence.
3. What information is missing? Identify the specific evidential gap rather than simply requesting “surveillance”.
4. Is professional observation necessary? Consider whether the information could reasonably be obtained through a less intrusive method.
5. What are the privacy implications? Consider where observation will take place, what may be observed and for how long.
6. How will the evidence be recorded? There should be a clear methodology for documenting, preserving and reporting observations.
7. What happens to the information afterwards? The housing provider should understand how information will be received, stored, shared and retained.
8. What decision will the evidence inform? There should be a clear connection between evidence gathering and the housing provider’s case-management or enforcement process.
That final question may be the most important.
Surveillance undertaken simply because “there have been complaints” is difficult to justify. Surveillance undertaken to answer a clearly defined evidential question is an entirely different proposition.
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Professional witnesses are not a substitute for good case management
It would be equally wrong to present professional witnesses as a solution to every ASB case.
Housing providers already have established processes for receiving and investigating complaints. They also have access to a range of interventions and legal remedies, while working alongside police, local authorities and other agencies.
Government guidance recognises the importance of partnership working and the different responsibilities and legal powers held by landlords, local authorities and the police.
In some cases, mediation or tenancy support may be appropriate. In others, police or local-authority involvement may be required.
In particularly serious or persistent cases, enforcement action may ultimately be considered.
Professional evidence does not replace any of these processes. Its purpose is more fundamental: to help establish the facts upon which those decisions can be based.
Perhaps the most important person in the case is the resident
A resident experiencing persistent ASB is already dealing with the consequences of the behaviour. Asking them to maintain diaries, gather recordings, identify individuals, document incidents and repeatedly demonstrate that their complaint is genuine can unintentionally turn the victim into the investigator.
There will always be circumstances where residents need to provide information. Their first-hand accounts can be extremely important. But there is a significant difference between asking someone to report what has happened and expecting them to prove what has happened.
Where appropriate, professional witness services offer housing providers another means of gathering evidence while potentially reducing the need for residents to place themselves directly into the investigative process.
For somebody who is already frightened, frustrated or exhausted by a prolonged ASB problem, that distinction can be significant.
A different way of thinking about ASB evidence
There is no single solution to persistent ASB. But there is a principle worth considering: Good decisions require good information.
The question for housing providers should therefore perhaps not be simply “How do we respond to this complaint?” It should also be: “What do we actually know, what don’t we know, and what is the most proportionate way of finding out?”
Professional witnesses may have a role within that evidence-led approach.
Used appropriately, professionally and proportionately, professional observation is not about “spying on communities”. It is about answering specific questions, establishing facts and providing housing professionals with independently gathered information when conventional evidence-gathering has not produced a sufficiently clear picture.
Most importantly, it offers the possibility of moving some of the evidential burden away from the person who is already experiencing the problem.
That may be one of the most important conversations the social housing sector should now be having about persistent ASB.
SIASS provides professional witness, surveillance and investigative services to the social housing sector. Visit www.siass.org.uk for our dedicated housing association resources.
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