Giant council landlord ‘fails thousands of tenants’ with overdue safety checks and 23,000 non-decent homes

The regulator’s probe found that Birmingham Council had not completed thousands of necessary fire, electrical and asbestos checks and inspections, while 39% of its homes – triple the average – do not meet the DHS.  

The latest English Housing Survey found that in 2020, 13% of social homes, 21% of private rented sector homes and 16% of owner-occupied homes failed to meet the DHS.

“The council does not hold recent or complete data for its properties so is unable to clearly identify the risks in its non-decent homes,” according to the regulator. 

The regulator’s investigation found a range of serious health and safety issues across thousands of homes, including almost 17,000 overdue asbestos surveys, around 15,500 late electrical safety inspections and more than 1,000 fire risk assessments that were overdue, mainly for low-rise housing blocks. 

More than 1,000 domestic electrical remedial actions were also overdue. 

“These failures meant thousands of council tenants were at potential risk of serious harm,” the regulator said. 

The regulator’s action follows a report from the Housing Ombudsman earlier this year, which raised serious concerns about standards in Birmingham.

During its investigation, the ombudsman found failures with complaint-handling, recording keeping, repairs, and compensation.

The watchdog told Inside Housing that Birmingham’s maladministration rate was “unusually high” and said the council’s complaint system was “very defensive, adversarial, and lacked any type of acknowledgement that the landlord had done something wrong”.

The regulator’s investigation, meanwhile, identified that more than 1,000 complaints – around 60% of open complaints – were overdue.

The RSH said external reviews on engagement with tenants, carried out in 2021 and 2022, found a “lack of proactive, frequent and effective communication with tenants, while their needs were “not understood, and they did not feel valued”. 

The regulator concluded that the council breached both the Home Standard and the Tenant Involvement and Empowerment Standard. 

It found that Birmingham “did not have an effective system in place to allow it to meet its responsibilities both in relation to the quality of its homes, and in relation to statutory health and safety compliance across a range of areas”. 

The RSH said the council has “failed to treat tenants with fairness and respect, and in particular, “failed to provide an effective process for tenants to raise complaints”. 

Kate Dodsworth, director of consumer regulation at the RSH, said: “Birmingham City Council has failed thousands of tenants and it needs to act now to put things right. It is unacceptable that so many of its tenants are living in non-decent homes, and that thousands of health and safety surveys haven’t been completed. 

“The council also needs to improve the way it handles its tenants’ complaints. We will continue to monitor the council’s progress while it fixes the problems we found through our investigation.” 

Deborah Cadman, chief executive of Birmingham City Council, and Paul Langford, strategic director for city housing, said in a joint statement: “As a council, we take the safety of our tenants very seriously and understand that the way in which these areas have been managed do not meet the standards expected by our tenants. 

“We are determined to address these issues quickly and have already developed a robust action plan to monitor and track improvements in an efficient way. 

“We have committed to the Regulator of Social Housing, who have acknowledged the work already taking place to respond, that we will continue to work closely with them to quickly resolve these matters. We will continue to provide assurance to the regulator through ongoing monitoring arrangements, which we are eager to establish.

“All citizens deserve to live in homes that are safe and should have confidence that they will be listened to when they raise a concern or complaint. We are very sorry that the council has failed to deliver the quality of service that tenants expect within their home and we understand that the statement issued by the Regulator of Social Housing may have made some tenants feel distressed or worried.

“We want to reassure all our tenants that acting quickly to improve the quality of service in these areas is our top priority. 

“As part of our response to this challenge, in recent months we have put in place a new senior leadership team with the city housing directorate. The team has begun to act and put plans in place to address the areas of concern to improve services to our tenants.”