Decision

Bassetlaw District Council (37UC) - Regulatory Judgement: 29 July 2026

Published 29 July 2026

Applies to England

Our Judgement

	Grade/Judgement	Change	Date of assessment
Consumer	C2 Our judgement is that there are some weaknesses in the landlord delivering the outcomes of the consumer standards and improvement is needed.	First grading	July 2026

Reason for publication

We are publishing a regulatory judgement for Bassetlaw District Council (Bassetlaw DC) following an inspection completed in July 2026.

This regulatory judgement confirms a consumer grade of C2. 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 some weaknesses in Bassetlaw DC delivering the outcomes of the consumer standards and improvement is needed, specifically in relation to outcomes in our Safety and Quality Standard and Transparency, Influence and Accountability Standard. Based on this assessment, we have concluded a C2 grade for Bassetlaw DC.

How we reached our judgement

We carried out an inspection of Bassetlaw DC to assess how well it is delivering the outcomes of the consumer standards as part of our planned regulatory inspection programme. During the inspection, 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 cabinet meeting, a housing scrutiny sub-committee meeting, and a tenant scrutiny group meeting. We also met with involved tenants, officers, and councillors, including the leader of the council and the cabinet member for housing and estates. We further reviewed a wide range of documents provided by Bassetlaw DC.  

Our regulatory judgement is based on a review of all the relevant information we obtained during the inspection as well as analysis of information supplied by Bassetlaw DC in its regulatory returns and other regulatory engagement activity.

Summary of findings  

Consumer – C2 – July 2026

The Safety and Quality Standard requires landlords to have an accurate, up-to-date and evidenced understanding of the condition of its homes at a property level and to ensure that each home meets the requirements of the Decent Homes Standard. During the inspection, Bassetlaw DC provided evidence that it has a reasonable understanding of the condition of its homes. It is monitoring the delivery of its ongoing stock condition survey programme and has plans to ensure that physical surveys of the condition of all its homes are undertaken by December 2026. Bassetlaw DC is currently reporting that 100% of its homes meet the Decent Homes Standard. We found some evidence of oversight of this process, however, there were inconsistencies in Bassetlaw DC’s information in relation to hazards in its homes. These inconsistencies were caused by weaknesses in its data quality controls. As a result, Bassetlaw DC has limited assurance over its overall decency position. Bassetlaw DC has plans in place to improve reporting and to carry out a full data quality audit.

The Safety and Quality Standard also requires landlords to identify and meet all legal requirements that relate to the health and safety of tenants in their homes and communal areas. Bassetlaw DC provided evidence that demonstrated it has appropriate systems in place to manage its health and safety responsibilities, although improvement is needed in the reporting and oversight of health and safety compliance. In particular, reporting around managing damp and mould effectively and within required timescales, was found to be limited. Bassetlaw DC is already undertaking work to address underperformance on domestic electrical safety performance, as well as implementing further improvements to controls to ensure the accuracy of data used for health and safety reporting.

Through the inspection, we saw evidence that Bassetlaw DC is delivering an effective, efficient and timely repairs service. We saw good levels of tenant satisfaction and evidence of Bassetlaw DC using tenant feedback to redesign the service. We gained assurance that Bassetlaw DC uses learning from feedback and complaints, as well as using a transactional approach to tailoring service delivery to meet its tenants’ diverse needs.

The Neighbourhood and Community Standard states that landlords must work in partnership with appropriate local authority departments, the police, and other relevant organisations to deter and tackle anti-social behaviour and hate incidents in the neighbourhoods where they provide social housing. We saw evidence that Bassetlaw DC deals effectively with anti-social behaviour and hate incidents in line with its policy and procedures, and in partnership with relevant organisations, delivering positive outcomes for tenants in neighbourhoods where it provides homes.

In relation to the Tenancy Standard, we found evidence that Bassetlaw DC is offering tenancies or terms of occupation that are compatible with the purpose of the accommodation, the needs of individual households, the sustainability of the community, and the efficient use of its housing stock. We saw evidence that Bassetlaw DC has a tenancy strategy, tenancy policy and an allocations policy that set out its approach to ensuring properties are let in a fair and transparent way and consider the needs of its tenants and prospective tenants. Through the inspection we also obtained assurance that Bassetlaw DC supports residents to sustain their tenancies.

The Transparency, Influence and Accountability Standard sets out that landlords must treat tenants and prospective tenants with fairness and respect and take action to deliver fair and equitable outcomes for tenants. Throughout the inspection, Bassetlaw DC demonstrated that it treats its tenants with fairness and respect, evidenced by a positive and respectful staff culture and strong tenant feedback.

Bassetlaw DC demonstrated a strong understanding of the diverse needs of its tenants and uses this information to tailor services where required. However, further work is needed to strengthen the accessibility of this information to improve its use, including to ensure that Bassetlaw DC is delivering fair and equitable outcomes for its tenants. Improvement is also needed in relation to how information is provided to tenants, to ensure that it is clear, accessible and appropriate to their diverse needs. Bassetlaw DC acknowledges that this is an area of weakness and has plans in place to develop its approach and introduce a new strategy for how it will use household data to continuously improve services for its tenants.

The Transparency, Influence and Accountability Standard requires landlords to provide accessible information so that tenants can use landlord services, understand what to expect from their landlord and hold their landlord to account. It also requires landlords to take tenants’ views into account when making decisions about the delivery of landlord services. A range of accessible service information is available to tenants, and Bassetlaw DC offers a range of opportunities for its tenants to get involved in influencing and scrutinising services. However, we found current performance reporting to tenants is limited and lacks information on targets, limiting tenants’ ability to hold Bassetlaw DC to account, and to effectively scrutinise and challenge any underperformance. This is an area of weakness that Bassetlaw DC will need to address.

The Transparency, Influence and Accountability Standard further states that landlords must ensure complaints are addressed fairly, effectively, and promptly. Through the inspection, we saw evidence that Bassetlaw DC addresses complaints in line with the requirements of the standard. Bassetlaw DC provided assurance that it has oversight of its complaint’s performance, and it is actively and effectively learning from the complaints it receives.

Bassetlaw DC has engaged constructively with us throughout the inspection process, has demonstrated that it understands the issues it needs to address, and is already taking action towards rectifying the weaknesses identified. We will continue to work with Bassetlaw DC to seek assurance that it is addressing these issues.

Background to the judgement

About the landlord

Bassetlaw DC is a district authority located in Nottinghamshire. Bassetlaw DC owns and manages around 6,500 social and affordable rent homes, the majority of which are general needs.

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. 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