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Housing association breaches Home Standard on fire safety
An 11,000-home association has been severely criticised by the regulator for fire, gas and lift safety failings.
According to a regulatory notice published today, Wiltshire-based GreenSquare Group has breached the Regulator of Social Housing’s (RSH) Home Standard as a result of issues related to fire safety.
RSH’s notice said that GreenSquare “had failed to implement a large number of high-priority actions arising from fire risk assessments”.
It added: “Some of these urgent actions had been outstanding for a number of months, and the issue affected a significant number of tenants, including potentially vulnerable tenants.”
The issues were uncovered by a health and safety compliance review commissioned by GreenSquare after it “identified a number of properties with overdue gas safety certificates”. It subsequently notified RSH.
A number of lifts at GreenSquare’s blocks also had out-of-date lift services checks.
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RSH concluded that the failings constituted potential for “serious detriment” to tenants, and GreenSquare’s regulatory rating for governance is being considered in light of the breach.
Its current grading, issued in November 2017, is G1/V1 – indicating the highest possible score for governance and levels of financial viability.
GreenSquare appointed Ruth Cooke as its interim chief executive last month, replacing former boss of six years Howard Toplis.
Ms Cooke previously had a short-lived stint as boss of Clarion, the UK’s largest housing association.
The regulator said GreenSquare had breached part ‘1.2’ of the Home Standard despite self-identifying the issues and informing the regulator.
It added that GreenSquare had met its serious detriment test “because of the number of tenants exposed to an increased risk of danger from fire over a significant period of time”.
However, RSH confirmed it would not take further action against GreenSquare “as it has assurances that the breach of the standard is being remedied”. The outstanding gas safety checks have been completed and a programme is also now in place to fix the fire and lift safety issues.
Robin Bailey, chair of GreenSquare, said: “GreenSquare has already seen significant changes to its executive in recent months, and further new appointments to our board will strengthen it further.
“We want to assure customers and other key stakeholders that our new senior team is 100% focused on meeting our landlord health and safety obligations as an absolute priority.
“And this determination is emphasised not just by the personnel changes, but also by the funding of a major programme to fundamentally change the way we manage our compliance so that these past mistakes are not repeated.”
Ms Cooke said: “It’s our responsibility to carry out risk assessments where necessary – and to then ensure that any resulting actions are carried out promptly.
“Clearly this hasn’t happened and we apologise unreservedly for that. We understand that customers will feel let down and they have every right to feel that way.
“However, we have provided the regulator with assurance that the outstanding gas and lift safety checks and overdue priority actions from fire risk assessments have all now been completed, with work continuing on those that remain.”
