Decision

Broxtowe Borough Council (37UD): Regulatory Judgement - 14 January 2026

Published 14 January 2026

Applies to England

Our Judgement

	Grade/Judgement	Change	Date of assessment
Consumer	C3 Our judgement is that there are serious failings in the landlord delivering the outcomes of the consumer standards and significant improvement is needed.	First grading	January 2026

Reason for publication

We are publishing a regulatory judgement for Broxtowe Borough Council (Broxtowe BC) following an inspection completed in January 2026.

The regulatory judgement confirms a consumer grade of C3. 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 serious failings in Broxtowe BC delivering the outcomes of the consumer standards and significant 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 C3 grade for Broxtowe BC.

How we reached our judgement

We carried out an inspection of Broxtowe BC 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 two Cabinet meetings and the Housing Influence Panel meeting. We met with tenants, officers, the leader of Broxtowe BC and the portfolio holder for Housing. We also reviewed a wide range of documents provided by Broxtowe BC.

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 – C3 – January 2026

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. We identified serious failings in relation to this outcome. In respect of fire safety, Broxtowe BC had more than 3,000 overdue fire remedial actions. Although most actions were assessed as medium risk, there was a lack of clarity about the length of time they had been open, as well as a lack of evidence of mitigations in place while these actions remain outstanding. While we found that Broxtowe BC was meeting legal requirements for completing the majority of tests and assessments in all areas, we identified weaknesses in the assurance of data quality across areas of health and safety.

The Safety and Quality Standard also requires landlords to have an accurate record, at an individual property level, of the condition of their homes based on a physical assessment of all homes and ensure that homes meet the requirements of the Decent Homes Standard (DHS). Broxtowe BC does not currently have accurate and up to date information on the quality of all of its tenants’ homes, including any potential hazards in homes, with 63% of homes having a stock condition survey completed in the last 18 months. The council reported 99.5% decency, with 23 non-decent homes  across its stock. Its target is to complete 100% of surveys by the end of 2026, following an accelerated programme. Broxtowe BC acknowledges its weaknesses around stock condition reporting and is implementing a new system to resolve these issues.

The Safety and Quality Standard requires Broxtowe BC to provide an effective, efficient, and timely repairs and maintenance and planned improvement service for its tenants, and we have reasonable assurance that the council is delivering this. We saw evidence that the latest performance data demonstrated consistent improvements across all satisfaction and performance measures, with repairs targets largely being met across all categories. Tenant Satisfaction Measures (TSM) data for the last two years demonstrates an improvement in tenant satisfaction with repairs.

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 Broxtowe BC’s delivery of some of the required outcomes within this area.

We were provided with assurance that Broxtowe BC treats its tenants and prospective tenants with fairness and respect. However, Broxtowe BC does not fully understand the diverse needs of all its tenants which is a serious failing. Broxtowe BC is focusing on improving its tenant data; however we saw no evidence of a formal plan or targets for how Broxtowe BC will collect data for all tenants. As Broxtowe BC does not hold data on the protected characteristics of its tenants, it is unable to proactively tailor services to meet all tenants’ needs or demonstrate that tenants are receiving fair and equitable outcomes. Broxtowe BC did provide evidence of services tailored to meet the needs of tenants on an ad-hoc basis, but it relies on tenants to inform them of additional needs when they report a repair or require another service.

We found weaknesses in Broxtowe BC meeting the requirements of the Transparency, Influence and Accountability Standard for tenant engagement. Due to the lack of data on its tenants, Broxtowe BC cannot be assured it provides equitable access to tenant engagement activities. Broxtowe BC has made recent changes to how it engages with tenants, with a newly established scrutiny panel.

We also found weaknesses in the council’s approach to collecting and providing performance information to tenants; there was limited performance information accessible for tenants to scrutinise the housing service’s performance.

The Transparency, Influence and Accountability Standard requires landlords to ensure complaints are being dealt with fairly, effectively, and promptly. Broxtowe BC has recently made service improvements to how it manages complaints, though these are not yet fully embedded. We also saw limited evidence of how Broxtowe BC is identifying and sharing lessons learnt from complaints.

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 have assurance that Broxtowe BC is working in partnership to deter and tackle ASB and hate incidents in the neighbourhoods that it provides social housing. However, there are weaknesses in the accessibility of information available for tenants reporting ASB and hate crime, and how it is assured that it is taking prompt and appropriate action.

In relation to the Tenancy Standard, we have assurance that Broxtowe BC is meeting the tenure requirements of the standard.

Broxtowe BC has been engaging constructively with us and we have assurance that there is a commitment to ensuring improved outcomes for tenants. Broxtowe BC has an understanding of the issues and a willingness to resolve them. We will work with Broxtowe BC to ensure that relevant risks to tenants are effectively managed and mitigated as a priority, while it undertakes the improvements required. Our engagement will be intensive, and we will seek assurance that Broxtowe BC is making sufficient progress, including ongoing monitoring of how it delivers its improvement plan. 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 Broxtowe BC seeks to resolve these issues.

Background to the judgement

About the landlord

Broxtowe BC lies to the west of the city of Nottingham and owns around 4,415 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