I don’t think it’s controversial to say that social housing providers are facing huge challenges in the current financial climate. And they’re also facing inspections by the Regulator of Social Housing judging their delivery of the new consumer standards.
A regulatory judgement was published recently, for London Borough of Newham following an inspection in October 2024; the Regulator gave a consumer grading of C4 – the lowest grading – and reported they “found serious failings in how LB Newham is delivering the outcomes of the consumer standards and evidence that this has had a significant impact on service outcomes for tenants.”
As Inside Housing reported “It is the first time a landlord has been found non-compliant following a planned inspection.”
The key issues were health and safety related, with the Regulator finding:
- Over 9,000 overdue fire safety remedial actions,
- 40% of its 16,000 homes had gone without an electrical condition test for more than 11 years,
- A lack of evidence that it is meeting the smoke and carbon monoxide alarm requirements for any of its homes, and
- At least 20% of its homes fail to meet the Decent Homes Standard.
The Regulator also reports that the landlord did not complete its Tenant Satisfaction Measure (TSM) surveys on time, and that there were very limited meaningful opportunities for tenants to influence and scrutinise the landlord’s strategies, policies and services.
(Now call me cynical, but I could probably guess the feedback that any tenant scrutiny of Newham’s strategies, policies and services would have provided, given the very poor outcomes produced by those same strategies, policies and services.)
There was some small positive news from the Regulator; they reported that “we did however observe a respectful approach to tenants, we saw some evidence of LB Newham taking the diverse needs of tenants into account, and we saw evidence of LB Newham ensuring services were accessible to tenants with diverse needs.”
It would be interesting to understand how Newham is “taking the diverse needs of tenants into account” and “ensuring services were accessible to tenants with diverse needs” when the key findings from the inspection indicate that the provision safe homes – surely a core purpose of a housing association – is failing rather badly in many cases.
Faced with so many challenges, it can be overwhelming trying to decide where to focus first, but regulatory judgements over the last few months, and indeed the reason that social housing exists, may help concentrate our efforts as a sector on the safety of our homes, and therefore our tenants too.
The PURPOSE Roadmap that I follow in my business and when advising clients, includes exercises to help identify actions and projects that will have the most positive impact, while reducing risk, to support leaders in making informed decisions about the best way forward. And it all starts with ‘purpose’.