Regulator of Social Housing publishes regulatory judgements for ten landlords

As part of a set of judgements published on 25 September, 2024, the Regulator of Social Housing (RSH) found that Harlow District Council failed to meet the new consumer standards. As a result, RSH has given the landlord a C3 grade, which means there are serious failings and it needs to make significant improvements.

RSH investigated Harlow Council after reviewing its Tenant Satisfaction Measure (TSM) results. RSH concluded that the council had:

• Carried out fire risk assessments for only 20% of buildings that it should have done, out of its 9,100 social housing homes.
• Over 500 high risk fire safety remedial actions overdue, and a further 1,500 medium risk actions overdue (the majority of which are more than 12 months overdue).

Harlow Council has employed an external consultant to help it to develop a detailed improvement plan as a priority and the RSH will be engaging with the landlord as it addresses these failings

The Council is working to complete the outstanding fire risk assessments and resulting actions, starting with the highest risk blocks. RSH continues to scrutinise the Council closely and it must demonstrate that it is reducing risks to tenants as it puts these issues right.

Kate Dodsworth, Chief of Regulatory Engagement at RSH, said:

"It is unacceptable that Harlow Council has failed to meet fire safety requirements. Providing safe, decent homes for tenants begins with robust data, and this must include fire risk assessments for every home that needs one. We identified these failings by scrutinising the council’s TSM results. It is the landlord’s responsibility to notify us themselves of material issues. Our new proactive approach and expanded consumer remit is helping to bring issues to the surface earlier. We expect all providers to regularly review and evaluate their services to improve outcomes for tenants."

The investigation was carried out as part of RSH responsive engagement.

RSH has also today published a range of other judgements resulting from its ongoing regulatory activity, including seven programmed inspections as well as RSH’s first stability check for a for-profit provider.

RSH carries out annual stability checks to see whether a provider’s current viability grade is consistent with the financial information submitted in their regulatory returns.

Landlords must meet the outcomes of the economic and consumer standards set by RSH.

Governance and financial viability remain cornerstones of RSH’s regulation of housing associations and other private registered providers (including for-profits). Landlords must manage the risks associated with financial viability and reduced capacity with robust governance in place to meet the outcomes of RSH’s standards.

A C1 grading means that, overall, the landlord is delivering the outcomes of the consumer standards, and they identify issues when they occur and put plans in place to remedy them and minimise their recurrence. We expect that, even where a landlord is assessed as C1, it will continue to review, evaluate and improve its services to tenants.

C2 means there are some weaknesses in the landlord delivering the outcomes of the consumer standards, and it needs to make improvements.

This article was issued voa Press Release as 'Regulator of Social Housing publishes regulatory judgements for ten landlords' dated 25 September 2024.

For further information and a background to the grading system see the article The grading system of the Regulator for Social Housing.

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