C4-graded council achieves highest TSM score in London for overall repair service

The regulator’s inspection happened in October 2024, while Newham Council surveyed 1,010 of its tenants between 20 February and 26 April of the same year.

The deadline for collecting the TSM data was 31 March, but Newham said “confirming the arrangements for ensuring the security of tenants’ data, necessary for the survey, took longer than anticipated”.

The RSH highlighted the delay in its judgement. The survey was conducted solely in person by the council’s appointed researcher. 

For the TSMs, landlords have flexibility with the collection methods they use for surveying, such as phone, in person and online. They are required to use methods that address barriers to participation and consider other factors such as response rate, the profile of their tenants and the representativeness of responses.

Certain collection methods are known to achieve better results. According to research by Housemark on survey method biases, a tenant survey done in person achieves an average overall satisfaction score of 89%, for phone that figure is 74%, for post 73%, and for online 59%.

Inside Housing’s analysis of more than 200 landlords’ scores found that the most popular collection method was phone, with many using mixed methods. However, only two from our data solely surveyed in person, which is more costly and resource heavy. 

On the apparent disparity between the C4 grade and Newham’s TSM score for repairs, a spokesperson for the RSH told Inside Housing that the TSMs are “only one source of information” it uses to to regulate landlords and that it recognises “collection methods can potentially impact on results”. 

It said that is why “we scrutinise landlords’ published TSMs and the data submitted to us to check that they are meeting our data-collection requirements, and to help us compare results between different landlords”. 

The spokesperson said: “Our inspection found very serious failings at London borough of Newham across both the Safety and Quality Standard and the Transparency, Influence and Accountability Standard. 

“We are engaging intensively with the council as it works to put things right for tenants.    

“The TSMs enable tenants to hold landlords to account and provide a rich source of insight to help landlords improve their services to tenants. They are also one source of information we use in our regulation of landlords.” 

Inside Housing understands that as part of its review of all the TSM submissions, the regulator identifies landlords which appear to be outliers. Where this happens, it may ask the landlord for extra information. 

When approached for comment about the high score, achieved seven months before the C4 grade, Newham said improving the repairs service is a “major priority”. 

Blossom Young, cabinet member for housing, landlord and tenant experience improvements at Newham Council, said: “We have been delivering an improvement plan for over a year in response to feedback from our residents and in partnership with our resident repairs improvement panel.

“We have been focusing on getting repairs completed on time, particularly emergency repairs and reducing the number of follow on repairs needed. 

“These improvements have been reflected in the tenant satisfaction measure results.

“The Regulator of Social Housing acknowledged this improvement, but highlighted that there was more work to do, particularly on continuing to clear the backlog of overdue repairs.  

“Our residents deserve to have confidence that their homes are safe, secure and in good repair. We are actively working to improve this and I’m humbled to have been appointed recently to drive this work forward. 

“We will be open and transparent with residents about our progress. I’m looking forward to working with stakeholders and residents to accelerate improvements further.”

Inside Housing understands that at the time of the TSM survey, the council felt the in-person approach was the most effective and it will continue to use this method.