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Regulator ‘found no breaches’ following Dispatches programme on Sanctuary
One of Sanctuary Housing Group’s directors has claimed that investigations by regulators into issues arising from a Dispatches documentary on alleged service issues found no breaches of standards.
Sanctuary, which owns more than 100,000 homes across England and Scotland, was the subject of a highly critical Channel 4 documentary in March.
The 30-minute programme featured cases in Cambridgeshire, Nottinghamshire, Cornwall and Aberdeen in which people complained about issues including damp, woodworm and flooding.
The documentary also linked an older resident’s death from pneumonia to the removal of his boiler.
Sanctuary referred itself to the Regulator of Social Housing (RSH), but maintained the programme was an “inaccurate” reflection of its services.
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Sanctuary group director of housing Simon Clark responded to an audience question at the Chartered Institute of Housing’s annual conference in Manchester today that asked if he felt the landlord had become “distracted from the day-to-day stuff for a housing association”.
“Yeah. So the short answer to that question is no,” he told delegates. “I mean, I’m responsible for all of Sanctuary’s landlord services, I’m involved in that day-in, day-out.
“And just to give you a bit of context: whether we agreed or not with the outcome of the programme, and we absolutely had the utmost respect for the residents concerned, we were working with the residents before the programme and indeed we were very much working with them after that programme as well – we self-referred to the English housing regulator.
“They undertook a full investigation into that and found there were no breaches of their standards and likewise we spoke to the Scottish Housing Regulator as well.”
A spokesperson for the RSH said: “The regulator considers all referrals it receives. We don’t comment on investigations, but report regulatory concerns through regulatory judgements and notices.”
Mr Clark added that he thought the sector as a whole was generally better at carrying out large-scale tenant engagement projects but worse at individual cases.
In April, Sanctuary residents wrote an open letter to the association, criticising its chief executive’s response to the programme.
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