Regulator publishes final tenant satisfaction measures for new consumer standards

The TSMs, which will be collected through tenant surveys and landlord data, will cover five main themes, including repairs, building safety, effective complaint-handling, respectful and helpful tenant engagement, and responsible neighbourhood management.

The measures form part of a huge overhaul of social housing regulation following the Grenfell Tower disaster in June 2017. 

It aims to bring in a more tenant-focused system after residents in the tower were not listened to. 

When the Social Housing White Paper was published in November 2020, it emerged that the regulator would be introducing a set of measures that were important to tenants, which social landlords would be judged on. 

The consultation on the measures, which ran from 9 December 2021 to 3 March 2022, received 1,098 responses, including from social housing tenants, shared owners, councils and housing associations. 

The regulator proposed to set a new consumer standard – the Tenant Satisfaction Measures Standard – which would include specific expectations for all social housing providers in relation to 22 TSMs. 

Although the majority of feedback was “positive”, the RSH made several changes in response to suggestions and comments made by respondents. 

It had initially proposed one TSM that covered whether a home is well-maintained as well as safe, but now there will be two separate TSMs on each theme. 

It also changed the TSM that measures satisfaction with the landlord’s approach to handling complaints to add a filter survey question clarifying whether the tenant had made a complaint.

The regulator had initially proposed surveying all tenants on their landlord’s complaint-handling, but received comments that the results could “provide a less reliable measure” because they would include views from tenants who had not made a complaint. 

As a result of the change, the regulator also removed a TSM that measured tenants’ knowledge of how to make a complaint because the added filter question will give an indication of how frequently complaints are made.

The regulator also clarified the definition of several TSMs, including on the Housing Ombudsman’s Complaint Handling Code timescales, complaints relative to the size of the landlord, and safety checks. 

In response to consultation feedback and government guidance, it changed the definition of anti-social behaviour (ASB) cases to exclude domestic abuse and to include hate incidents. 

Government guidance sets out that domestic abuse is not regarded as ASB, whereas hate incidents can be. 

Landlords will be required to report figures on the total number of ASB cases, and all of those cases that involve hate incidents. 

The TSM on repairs being completed within target timescales was also changed to include emergency as well as non-emergency repairs. 

Commenting on the measures, the new housing secretary Simon Clarke said that “tenants have a right for their voices to be heard”. 

He said: “Today’s announcement will help people living in social housing get more information on their landlord’s performance and provide their own feedback to drive up standards. 

“We will continue to work with the regulator to hold providers to account over poor-quality homes.”