Decision

Arun District Council (45UC) - Regulatory Judgement: 27 August 2025

Published 27 August 2025

Applies to England

Our Judgement

	Grade/Judgement	Change	Date of assessment
Consumer	C4 Our judgement is that there are very serious failings in the landlord delivering the outcomes of the consumer standards. The landlord must make fundamental changes so that improved outcomes are delivered.	First grading	August 2025

Reason for publication

We are publishing a regulatory judgement for Arun District Council (Arun DC) following an inspection completed in August 2025.

The regulatory judgement confirms a consumer grade of C4. This is the first time we have issued a consumer grade in relation to this landlord.

Summary of the decision

From the evidence and assurance gained during the inspection, we have concluded that there are failings across all the four consumer standards, and very serious failings in Arun DC delivering the outcomes of the Safety and Quality Standard. Arun DC must make fundamental changes so that improved outcomes are delivered for tenants.

Although Arun DC has indicated a willingness to address these serious failings, we have not yet seen evidence to sufficiently assure us that it understands the potential risks to tenants and of its ability to put matters right, including taking prompt action to gain assurance that tenants are safe. Based on our assessment of the seriousness of the failures and the changes needed to improve outcomes for tenants, we have concluded a C4 grade for Arun DC.

How we reached our judgement

We inspected Arun DC as part of our planned regulatory inspection programme. We considered all four of the consumer standards: Neighbourhood and Community Standard, Safety and Quality Standard, Tenancy Standard, and the Transparency, Influence and Accountability Standard.

During the inspection we observed a Housing and Wellbeing Committee meeting, and a meeting of the Housing for Older People Forum. We met with tenants, officers, the leader of Arun DC and the chair of the Housing and Wellbeing Committee. We also reviewed a wide range of documents provided by Arun DC. 

Our regulatory judgement is based on all the relevant information obtained during the inspection, as well as analysis of information received through routine regulatory returns and other regulatory engagement activity.

Summary of findings 

Consumer – C4 – August 2025 

We have found serious failings in how Arun DC is delivering the outcomes of the consumer standards, and evidence that this has had a significant impact on service outcomes for tenants. Our judgement is based on the scale and breadth of the issues identified during the inspection and the significant impact or potential impact on Arun DC’s tenants. The issues include a failure to meet legal health and safety requirements in relation to fire safety and smoke detection, a lack of accurate information on stock quality, repairs not being completed on time and homes not meeting the Decent Homes Standard (DHS). Arun DC has indicated a willingness to address the issues, however, we have seen limited evidence that it understands and is acting upon urgent concerns around health and safety and has the capability to do so. Fundamental changes are required to the service to improve outcomes for tenants. 

The Safety and Quality Standard requires landlords to identify and meet all legal requirements that relate to the health and safety of tenants in their homes and communal areas and ensure that all actions arising from required health and safety assessments are conducted within appropriate timescales. Through our inspection we found very serious failings in Arun DC delivering this required outcome.

In respect of fire safety, Arun DC could not demonstrate that it is adequately managing and mitigating fire safety risks to tenants. At the time of the inspection, nearly 1,000 fire risk assessment remedial actions were overdue, over 700 of which were categorised as high or very high risk and overdue for more than 12 months. Arun DC self-referred this matter to us at the beginning of the inspection. Arun DC does not have approved plans in place to address the outstanding fire remedial actions and is unable to provide evidence of how it is mitigating fire safety risks. Arun DC also reported that over half of its homes do not have smoke detectors and it does not expect to reach compliance in this area until May 2027.

Alongside the requirements in relation to health and safety, the Safety and Quality Standard also requires Arun DC to provide an effective, efficient and timely repairs and maintenance and planned improvements service for its tenants. At the time of the inspection, Arun DC reported around 2,500 open and overdue repairs cases, of which over 1,500 were overdue by more than three months. Arun DC was unable to provide assurance on the quality and accuracy of the information submitted and acknowledges this area requires significant improvement.

The Safety and Quality Standard also requires landlords to have an accurate, up to date and evidenced understanding of the condition of their homes that reliably informs their provision of good quality, well maintained and safe homes for tenants, and to ensure that their tenants’ homes meet the requirements of the DHS. Arun DC has up to date information on the condition of around 75% of its homes but it could not provide us with assurance that all hazards arising from the Housing Health and Safety Rating System assessments undertaken at the time of the surveys had been addressed within appropriate timescales. Arun DC reports that around 10% of its homes are non-decent but given weaknesses in its information, we lack assurance that this figure is accurate.

Taking into account the significance of the issues across a number of health and safety areas, the lack of assurance that Arun DC has appropriate mitigations in place, the failings in the council’s repairs and maintenance service and the lack of accurate information, we have concluded that there are very serious failings in Arun DC delivering the outcomes of the Safety and Quality Standard and that it must make fundamental changes so that improved outcomes are delivered for tenants. Arun DC has not yet provided evidence to assure us of its ability to put these matters right. We will work with Arun DC to ensure that any relevant risks to tenants are effectively managed and mitigated as a priority, while it undertakes the improvements required.

The Transparency, Influence and Accountability Standard sets out the outcomes landlords must deliver about being open with tenants and treating them with fairness and respect so that tenants can access services, raise complaints, influence decision making and hold their landlord to account. Through our inspection, we found serious failings in Arun DC delivering the required outcomes in this area. We saw some evidence that tenants are able to participate in tenant-led activities and opportunities, although we found a lack of meaningful opportunities for tenants to scrutinise performance and influence services. Arun DC has limited mechanisms in place to ensure information about its tenants remains up to date, and it did not provide evidence of using the information it does hold to ensure equitable outcomes for tenants.

The Neighbourhood and Community Standard requires landlords to work in partnership with appropriate local authority departments, the police and other relevant organisations to deter and tackle anti-social behaviour (ASB) and hate incidents in the neighbourhoods where they provide social housing. We identified serious failings in Arun DC meeting these outcomes as it failed to provide evidence that it is taking prompt and appropriate action in response to ASB cases and hate incidents.

We also identified serious failings in Arun DC meeting the required outcomes of the Tenancy Standard. Through the inspection, we saw no evidence that Arun DC was offering tenancies or terms of occupation that were compatible with the purpose of its accommodation, the needs of individual households, the sustainability of the community, and the efficient use of its housing stock.

Arun DC has been engaging constructively with us. It understands the issues it needs to address and is taking action to rectify the very serious failures identified. We expect Arun DC to develop a comprehensive plan that will drive fundamental change across all of the areas identified, and to share that with tenants. Our engagement will be intensive, and we will seek assurance that Arun DC is making sufficient change and progress, including ongoing monitoring of how it delivers its improvement programme. Our priority will be that risks to tenants are adequately managed and mitigated. We are not proposing to use our enforcement powers at this stage but will keep this under review as Arun DC seeks to resolve these issues.

Background to the judgement

About the landlord

Arun DC owns around 3,500 social housing homes.

Our role and regulatory approach

We regulate for a viable, efficient, and well governed social housing sector able to deliver quality homes and services for current and future tenants.

We regulate at the landlord level to drive improvement in how landlords operate. By landlord we mean a registered provider of social housing. These can either be local authorities, or private registered providers (other organisations registered with us such as non-profit housing associations, co-operatives, or profit-making organisations).

We set standards which state outcomes that landlords must deliver. The outcomes of our standards include both the required outcomes and specific expectations we set. Where we find there are significant failures in landlords which we consider to be material to the landlord’s delivery of those outcomes, we hold them to account. Ultimately this provides protection for tenants’ homes and services and achieves better outcomes for current and future tenants. It also contributes to a sustainable sector which can attract strong investment.

We have a different role for regulating local authorities than for other landlords. This is because we have a narrower role for local authorities and the Governance and Financial Viability Standard, and Value for Money Standard do not apply. Further detail on which standards apply to different landlords can be found on our standards page.

We assess the performance of landlords through inspections and by reviewing data that landlords are required to submit to us. In Depth Assessments (IDAs) were one of our previous assessment processes, which are now replaced by our new inspections programme from 1 April 2024. We also respond where there is an issue or a potential issue that may be material to a landlord’s delivery of the outcomes of our standards. We publish regulatory judgements that describe our view of landlords’ performance with our standards. We also publish grades for landlords with more than 1,000 social housing homes.

The Housing Ombudsman deals with individual complaints. When individual complaints are referred to us, we investigate if we consider that the issue may be material to a landlord’s delivery of the outcomes of our standards.

For more information about our approach to regulation, please see Regulating the standards.

Further information

• Regulating the standards

• Regulatory standards for landlords

Related documents

• Decent Homes Standard