Eastbourne Borough Council (21UC) - Regulatory Judgement: 15 October 2025
Published 15 October 2025
Applies to England
© Crown copyright 2025
This publication is licensed under the terms of the Open Government Licence v3.0 except where otherwise stated. To view this licence, visit nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3 or write to the Information Policy Team, The National Archives, Kew, London TW9 4DU, or email: psi@nationalarchives.gov.uk.
Where we have identified any third party copyright information you will need to obtain permission from the copyright holders concerned.
This publication is available at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/eastbourne-borough-council/eastbourne-borough-council-21uc-regulatory-judgement-15-october-2025
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 | October 2025 |
Reason for publication
We are publishing a regulatory judgement for Eastbourne Borough Council (Eastbourne BC) following an inspection completed in October 2025.
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 Eastbourne BC delivering the outcomes of the consumer standards and improvement is needed, specifically in relation to outcomes in our Transparency, Influence and Accountability Standard and Safety and Quality Standard. Based on this assessment, we have concluded a C2 grade for Eastbourne BC.
How we reached our judgement
We carried out an inspection of Eastbourne 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 a Listening to Eastbourne Tenants (LET) meeting, spoke with tenants, held meetings with Eastbourne BC including the leader of the council and the portfolio holder for housing, interviewed staff, and reviewed a wide range of documents provided by Eastbourne BC.
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 Eastbourne BC in its regulatory returns and other regulatory engagement activity.
Summary of findings
Consumer – C2 – October 2025
The Safety and Quality Standard 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). Eastbourne BC has provided assurance that it has accurate, up to date and evidenced information on 83% of its homes and has plans to survey all homes by March 2026. It reported that around 8% of its homes did not meet the DHS and has plans in place to ensure all homes meet this standard.
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. We gained assurance that Eastbourne BC is meeting its obligations in relation to landlord health and safety compliance. We found weaknesses, however, in its strategic oversight and reporting of health and safety compliance remedial actions. Eastbourne BC is working to improve the consistency of its reporting to address these concerns.
The Safety and Quality Standard also requires landlords to provide an effective, efficient and timely repairs, maintenance and planned improvements service for the homes and communal areas for which they are responsible. We saw evidence that Eastbourne BC is generally delivering repairs in a timely way for its tenants, though we found there is a backlog of overdue repairs. Eastbourne BC regularly reviews repairs information at an operational level, and has taken steps to improve the integrity of this information. However, we found that senior leaders do not receive sufficient information to fully understand and scrutinise repairs performance, which has led to the timeliness of overdue repairs not being visible. Eastbourne BC is aware of this weakness and is working to resolve it, alongside improving overall service performance.
The Neighbourhood and Community Standard requires landlords to work with appropriate partners to deter and tackle anti-social behaviour (ASB) and hate incidents in the neighbourhoods where they provide social housing. We gained assurance that Eastbourne BC works proactively with relevant organisations to deter and tackle ASB and hate crime in its neighbourhoods, including using a range of tools and responses. Eastbourne BC has several ways for tenants to report ASB, and its policy sets out its approach to managing ASB and hate incidents. We saw evidence that Eastbourne BC is taking steps to improve its communication around ASB, and provide greater assurance to senior leaders and tenants through more detailed performance reporting.
In relation to the Tenancy Standard, we found evidence that Eastbourne BC meets the required outcomes in relation to tenure with a clear tenancy policy, and it has recently completed an internal review of its tenancy agreements to ensure they are fit for purpose. It has a proactive programme of tenancy audits and prioritises households on a risk basis.
During the inspection we saw evidence that Eastbourne BC is committed to treating its tenants with fairness and respect and we observed a positive culture towards tenants. However, we have limited assurance that Eastbourne BC fully understands the diverse needs of its tenants, as it does not have comprehensive information about the characteristics and diversity of its tenants. This restricts its ability to evidence that it is taking action to deliver fair and equitable outcomes for tenants. Eastbourne BC uses the information it has at an individual level to prioritise households with vulnerabilities, but it was not able to evidence that diverse needs inform its overall decision making and service design.
We have seen evidence that Eastbourne BC provides a range of service and performance information to tenants. Eastbourne BC is using the latest Tenant Satisfaction Measures (TSM) data to understand tenant dissatisfaction and improve services through tenant scrutiny. It shares service and performance information with all tenants through regular newsletters, developed with tenants. However, Eastbourne BC’s limited understanding of tenants’ needs limits the extent to which it can provide information in the most appropriate format.
The Transparency, Influence and Accountability Standard also includes the expectation that landlords take tenants’ views into account in their decision making about how landlord services are delivered and communicate how tenants’ views have been considered. Eastbourne BC gathers tenants’ views in a range of formal and informal ways, and tenants are provided with meaningful opportunities to influence and scrutinise strategies, policies and services through LET, the scrutiny panel, its strategic retirement forum and the Virtual 300 online consultation group. We saw evidence that tenant feedback has positively impacted service delivery in a number of areas including the design and procurement process of its future repairs service and Eastbourne BC’s approach to dealing with damp and mould. Eastbourne BC told us it recognises the need to increase the diversity of its engaged tenants and it gave examples of actions it intends to take to achieve this.
Landlords must also ensure complaints are addressed fairly, effectively and promptly. We found evidence that Eastbourne BC has an accessible complaints process, although responses had not been timely and high number of complaints had been escalated through the process. We have seen that Eastbourne BC has sought to better understand what improvements it needs to make through internal and external audits and a tenant scrutiny review of its complaints handling. It has taken steps to address this and has taken action to make improvements. Through our ongoing engagement with the council, we will seek assurance that change has been embedded and is delivering improved outcomes for tenants.
Eastbourne BC 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. There is already evidence of progress being made and we have assurance that there is strong organisational commitment to ensuring improved outcomes for tenants. We will continue to engage with Eastbourne BC as it continues to address the issues set out in this judgement.
Background to the judgement
About the landlord
Eastbourne BC owns and manages 3,429 homes. It has four buildings 11-18m in height.
In 2016, Eastbourne BC and Lewes District Council formed a joint management arrangement, creating ‘Homes First’ to manage the housing services on behalf of both councils.
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