Four more landlords fail regulator’s expanded consumer standards

Hackney had over 15,000 homes without a current electrical safety certificate, out of 21,500 in total. There was also “no evidence” of smoke detectors being fitted in almost 9,000 homes, or carbon monoxide detectors in over 400 homes.

The London borough had 400 homes that did not receive a gas safety inspection within the required timeframe. The RSH also reported more than 1,400 open damp and mould cases.

At South Derbyshire District Council, fewer than half of the homes requiring a fire risk assessment had one in place. “A number of homes” did not have a valid electrical safety certificate, and more than 100 required further works due to “unsatisfactory certificates”.

The council “failed to demonstrate a sufficient understanding of its tenants’ homes” and the RSH “could not be assured that it is providing homes of decent quality”. South Derbyshire owns 2,935 social homes.

Ashford Borough Council had “serious failings” in how it was meeting health and safety requirements. These included overdue electrical safety checks, incomplete fire remedial actions and smoke and carbon monoxide detectors that had not been installed in some of its 4,800 homes.

The council also reported that it had not carried out a full stock condition survey for over 10 years. The RSH found that complaints were not being recorded consistently and tenants had “lacked opportunities to influence decision-making” about how their services were provided.

Kate Dodsworth, chief of regulatory engagement at the RSH, said: “Landlords must provide safe and decent homes for tenants by taking a proactive approach to delivering the outcomes of our standards.

“Making sure tenants’ homes are safe and keeping up-to-date data is key to meeting these objectives, as is ensuring there are effective approaches to handling complaints and engaging with tenants.

“The issues outlined in the judgements published today need to be addressed promptly and we are working intensively with each of the landlords as they put things right for their tenants.”

In response, Clayeon McKenzie, cabinet member for housing services and resident participation at Hackney Council, said, “We need to improve the service we provide” and “there is still more to do”.

“I can reassure everyone that we take our responsibilities extremely seriously. We know the positive impact well-maintained, safe and warm housing can have on people’s lives.

“This is why we self-referred our work in five areas – fire, gas, asbestos, water and lift safety checks – to the regulator, as we had not fully met their measures by the end of June.

“While we fully acknowledge and accept the regulator’s findings, since submitting our self-referral, we have improved in all the five areas and we are now compliant with the fire risk assessment of communal areas,” he said.

Mr McKenzie said the council had additional improvement plans in place to ensure compliance by the end of August.

Gill Williams, cabinet member for housing and new homes at Brighton and Hove, said: “The findings of this report are extremely serious, and we do not take them lightly.

“We have already introduced new measures to improve our work in each of the areas of concern identified by the RSH.

“Clearly, however, there is still much work to be done and this council will not shy away from either the criticism within this report, or the urgent hard work needed to improve our services.

“Everyone deserves to live in safe, secure, affordable and high-quality housing and should expect nothing less. This council has not met that expectation. We deeply apologise to all those who have been affected,” she added.

A spokesman for Ashford Borough Council said: “We referred ourselves to the regulator following a commissioned external review that highlighted a number of issues with the safety and quality standard and the transparency, influence and accountability standard. 

“There has been a dramatic change already with the recruitment to key roles, the big six area all close to being fully compliant and the sub-set compliance issues progressing well. We have a new IT system for monitoring all compliance and this will link into our main housing systems.

“Since the review we have taken swift action and introduced a range of measures aimed at resolving the shortcomings highlighted by the Housing Quality Network. In working closely with the regulator, we believe we are demonstrating that we fully understand the importance of complying with all aspects of our health and safety obligations, and other areas including complaints handling.

“A robust action plan continues to be worked through, and we are clear about the steps we need to take to address the outstanding issues and ensure 100% compliance moving forward, so we can demonstrate this to our tenants and leaseholders, members, staff, the wider public and the RSH.”

Justin Ives, chief executive of South Derbyshire District Council, said: “We made a self-referral to the RSH in April 2024" and wrote to tenants giving them our commitment to "become an excellent landlord".

He continued: “We have increased the size of our re-energised tenants’ voice group. They are now actively engaged in helping us on our improvement journey.

“As well as engaging additional resource and expertise, we have been working proactively and transparently with the regulator and elected members and have started implementing the improvements needed.

“There is still much to do, and we are concentrating our initial efforts on completing all the safety checks and repairs to ensure our tenants continue to live in safe homes."

The first four social landlords to have failed the new consumer standards were revealed in July.

Bristol City Council, Guildford Borough Council, Octavia Housing and Sheffield City Council were each given a non-compliant C3 consumer rating.