London Borough of Hounslow (00AT) Regulatory Judgement: 29 October 2025
Published 29 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/london-borough-of-hounslow/london-borough-of-hounslow-00at-regulatory-judgement-29-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 London Borough of Hounslow (LB Hounslow) 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 LB Hounslow delivering the outcomes of the consumer standards and 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 C2 grade for LB Hounslow.
How we reached our judgement
We carried out an inspection of LB Hounslow 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 Delivery Group meeting and a Resident Voice Group meeting. We met with involved tenants, officers, the leader of the council, the portfolio holder for housing, and the chair of the Overview and Scrutiny Committee. We also reviewed a wide range of documents provided by LB Hounslow.
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 LB Hounslow 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, up to date and evidenced understanding of the condition of their homes at an individual property level based on physical assessments of all homes, and to ensure that homes meet the requirements of the Decent Homes Standard (DHS). We saw evidence that LB Hounslow has surveyed around 50% of its homes in the last five years. In addition, LB Hounslow has surveyed approximately 65% of its homes since 2017 and has other data that informs its understanding of the condition of properties yet to be surveyed. It reported that around 96% of homes meet the DHS. LB Hounslow is continuing its stock condition work to ensure all homes are physically surveyed and we will continue to monitor and gain assurance that it is delivering against these plans.
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 have overall assurance LB Hounslow is meeting its obligations in relation to landlord health and safety compliance. However, we identified some weaknesses with the completion of overdue fire, water and electrical remedial actions. LB Hounslow intends to complete these actions at pace. We also identified that LB Hounslow needs to improve the reporting of health and safety compliance so councillors and tenants can have effective oversight of performance. This includes reporting on the completion of remedial actions and reporting on the installation of smoke and carbon monoxide detectors. During the inspection, LB Hounslow provided evidence of the plans already in progress to complete remedial works and to improve its reporting. We will continue to engage with LB Hounslow to ensure that these improvements around health and safety compliance remain an area of focus.
The inspection identified that LB Hounslow is delivering an effective, efficient and timely repairs service. It is largely meeting its performance targets in this area and has undertaken work to reduce a previous backlog of repairs. LB Hounslow continues to drive improvements in this area.
The Neighbourhood and Community Standard requires landlords to work in partnership with relevant organisations to promote positive outcomes for tenants. LB Hounslow demonstrated that it works effectively with partner agencies, including the police and voluntary organisations, on a range of interventions to deter and tackle anti‑social behaviour (ASB) and hate incidents in the neighbourhoods where it provides its homes. We saw evidence that LB Hounslow responds to reports of ASB in accordance with its policy and has acted on the recommendations from reviews of this service to improve outcomes for tenants.
In relation to the Tenancy Standard, we saw evidence that LB Hounslow offers tenancies or terms of occupation that are 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.
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. We identified some weaknesses in this area, and LB Hounslow needs to ensure that performance information about its landlord services is more accessible to tenants. At the time of the inspection, we saw some evidence of tenant scrutiny of landlord services, however LB Hounslow needs to ensure that tenants are fully supported to effectively lead on scrutiny work. LB Hounslow also needs to ensure that it provides feedback about the impact of tenant scrutiny and other input from tenant engagement. We will continue to engage with LB Hounslow as it addresses these weaknesses.
During the inspection we gained assurance that LB Hounslow is committed to treating tenants and prospective tenants with fairness and respect. We also saw evidence that LB Hounslow has some understanding of the diverse needs of its tenants and has used this information to help it deliver fair and equitable services to tenants. LB Hounslow has identified that more work is required to improve the quality of information it holds about its tenants. We will continue to engage with LB Hounslow whilst it undertakes this work.
We gained assurance that LB Hounslow ensures that complaints are addressed fairly, effectively, and promptly and that its approach is simple, accessible and well publicised. While there was a deterioration in complaints handling performance last year, LB Hounslow evidenced that it had put steps in place to learn lessons and drive improvements. LB Hounslow is now broadly meeting its response time targets, although it needs to ensure that these improvements are maintained.
Background to the judgement
About the landlord
LB Hounslow covers approximately 23 square miles of Greater London and owns around 13,500 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. 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