Decision

Ipswich Borough Council (42UD) - Regulatory Judgement: 30 July 2025

Published 30 July 2025

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	July 2025

Reason for publication

We are publishing a regulatory judgement for Ipswich Borough Council (Ipswich BC) following an inspection completed in July 2025.

This 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 Ipswich 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 the Transparency, Influence and Accountability Standard. Based on this assessment, we have concluded a C3 grade for Ipswich BC.

How we reached our judgement

We carried out an inspection of Ipswich 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 meetings of Ipswich BC’s Strategic Overview and Scrutiny Committee, Executive Committee, the Customer Engagement Panel (CEP) and a joint meeting of its two Area Housing Panels. We met with tenants, officers, the leader of the council, and the councillor who is the portfolio holder for housing. We also reviewed a wide range of documents provided by Ipswich BC.

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

Summary of findings 

Consumer – C3 – July 2025 

We found serious failings in how Ipswich BC is delivering the outcomes of the Safety and Quality Standard and the Transparency, Influence and Accountability Standard and that improvement is needed.

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 section 5 of the Government’s Decent Homes Standard (DHS). We identified serious failings in relation to this outcome. One of the criteria of the DHS is that homes must meet the current statutory minimum standard for housing. This means that homes should be free from category 1 hazards. The Housing Health and Safety Rating System (HHSRS) is the prescribed method for assessing such hazards and stock condition surveys must incorporate HHSRS. Stock condition surveys incorporating HHSRS have been carried out on 50 of Ipswich BC’s homes (approximately 0.6%), but previous stock condition surveys carried out by Ipswich BC did not include HHSRS. Ipswich BC is therefore unable to evidence that its homes are free of category 1 hazards at an individual level. It is therefore unclear how Ipswich BC has arrived at its reported decency performance of 99.6%.

Based on information provided by Ipswich BC during the inspection, we understand that there are plans for stock condition surveys incorporating HHSRS to be carried out on all of its homes and that the decision to progress this was taken in August 2024. However, this was delayed due to procurement issues and was not implemented at the time of the inspection. We will continue to engage with Ipswich BC as it undertakes further stock condition survey work, which will enable it to more effectively understand the condition of its homes and use the information to inform its improvement programmes.

Ipswich BC provided assurance that it has appropriate systems in place to manage its health and safety responsibilities and to ensure the health and safety of its tenants in their homes and associated communal areas. The outcomes across health and safety compliance areas were good, however we identified some weakness in relation to oversight of remedial actions which Ipswich BC has told us it will be addressing. We will continue to work with Ipswich BC to monitor its progress and obtain assurance that it is addressing this weakness.

We saw evidence that Ipswich BC provides an effective, efficient and timely repairs service to tenants. It responds appropriately to the urgency of works and generally delivers repairs in line with its published service standards, and was able to demonstrate how these are monitored.

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 it provides social housing. We saw evidence that Ipswich BC deals effectively with ASB and hate incidents in line with its policy and procedures and in partnership with relevant organisations.

In relation to the Tenancy Standard, we found evidence that Ipswich BC is offering tenancies or terms of occupation which 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. Ipswich BC has a lettings policy that sets out its approach to ensuring all properties are let in a fair and transparent way and considers the needs of tenants and prospective tenants.

We found serious failings in relation to Ipswich BC delivering the outcomes of the Transparency, Influence and Accountability Standard. This 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.

We observed some respectful approaches to tenants during our inspection, but also some use of language which raised concerns that Ipswich BC was not fostering a strong culture of courtesy and respect throughout its organisation.

We identified serious failings in Ipswich BC’s understanding of the diverse needs of its tenants. There are wide variations in the gaps in its protected characteristics data for tenants and Ipswich BC informed us that it estimates it only has full tenant data for approximately 30% of its tenants. There was also a lack of comprehensive data about tenants’ support needs and consideration about how this information could be used to tailor Ipswich BC’s services. As a result, we lacked assurance that Ipswich BC had an understanding as to whether its services deliver fair and equitable outcomes for tenants, although it has started a programme to collect information to better understand tenants’ diverse needs.

We identified serious failings in relation to Ipswich BC’s engagement with tenants.  Whilst Ipswich BC provided examples of strategies and policies that tenants had been consulted on, we lacked assurance that this was meaningful as there was no clear evidence of how services had directly been influenced as a result. Minutes from meetings of the CEP, which was set up in 2023 and made up of tenants working with officers, did not evidence any meaningful scrutiny of the strategies, policies and the limited performance information shared with it. The limited nature of the performance information meant that the CEP could not investigate areas where improvement may be required. We saw a recognition that tenants need to be at the centre of decision making, although we did not see clear evidence of this in current practice.

Although Ipswich BC published a revised tenant engagement strategy in 2024, it has since started a review of its tenant engagement framework and has developed a new model with a wider range of tenant involvement activities. Ipswich BC informed us that this was in response to feedback from tenants who felt their voices were not being heard. The plans are still in the very early stages and it is not clear at this time how these tenant involvement activities will work together to enable tenants to scrutinise their landlord’s performance and influence how housing services are delivered. Furthermore, tenants have informed us that they are not convinced the new framework will work. Ipswich BC acknowledged that there had been a lack of tenant-led scrutiny and said it was working to develop training plans to support tenants to challenge more effectively. We will continue to work with Ipswich BC as it makes improvements to tenant engagement.

Through the inspection, we found some evidence that Ipswich BC regularly provides a range of relevant and accessible information to tenants, including about its performance in delivering landlord services. We found most information for tenants is only readily available digitally, and although Ipswich BC informed us it provides hard copies of documents to tenants who request them, tenants raised concerns about a lack of information and online engagement opportunities for those who are digitally excluded. We lacked assurance that Ipswich BC has given consideration about how its services could be tailored to those who are digitally excluded.

In respect of complaints handling, the Transparency, Influence and Accountability Standard requires landlords to provide accessible information to tenants about the types of complaints received and how they have learnt from complaints to continuously improve services. We saw evidence that Ipswich BC provides reports on complaints numbers, themes and lessons learned on a regular basis. Ipswich BC has made changes to improve its complaints handling process but recognises that further improvements are needed to the reporting of complaint handling for engaged tenants. We will continue to monitor these improvements through ongoing engagement with Ipswich BC.

Ipswich BC has been engaging constructively with us. It understands the issues it needs to address and is taking action to rectify the failures identified. These include gaining a better understanding of the condition of its homes and improved oversight of remedial health and safety actions. It is also implementing a revised structure for enhanced tenant engagement to improve its accountability to tenants. It is developing its approach to how it collects and uses data about tenants to tailor service delivery to the diversity of tenants’ needs.

We are engaging with Ipswich BC as it continues to address the issues set out in this judgement. Our engagement will be intensive, and we will seek assurance that Ipswich BC 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 Ipswich BC seeks to resolve these issues. 

Background to the judgement

About the landlord

Ipswich BC is a local authority and owns and manages just under 8,000 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