London Borough of Sutton (00BF) - Regulatory Judgement: 29 October 2025
Published 29 October 2025
Applies to England
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Our Judgement
| Grade/Judgement | Change | Date of assessment | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Consumer | C1 Our judgement is that overall the landlord is delivering the outcomes of the consumer standards. The landlord has demonstrated that it identifies when issues occur and puts plans in place to remedy and minimise recurrence. |
First grading | October 2025 |
Reason for publication
We are publishing a regulatory judgement for London Borough of Sutton (LB Sutton) following an inspection completed in October 2025.
This regulatory judgement confirms a consumer grade of C1. 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 overall LB Sutton is delivering the outcomes of the consumer standards and is making effective use of its systems to identify and address potential issues and areas for improvement. Based on this assessment, we have concluded a C1 grade for LB Sutton.
How we reached our judgement
We carried out an inspection of LB Sutton to assess how well it is delivering the outcomes of the consumer standards, as part of our planned regulatory inspection programme. 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 LB Sutton scrutiny meeting and a tenant scrutiny meeting. We observed meetings of LB Sutton’s arms-length management organisation (ALMO) Sutton Housing Partnership (SHP), including one of its board meetings and its performance committee meeting. We spoke to involved tenants, held meetings with LB Sutton’s senior leadership team including the Chief Executive, leader of the council and chair of the council’s Housing, Economy and Business Committee. We also reviewed a wide range of documents provided by LB Sutton.
Our regulatory judgement is based on all the relevant information we obtained during the inspection, as well as analysis of data received from LB Sutton through its regulatory returns and other regulatory engagement activity.
Summary of findings
Consumer – C1 – October 2025
LB Sutton meets the outcomes of the Safety and Quality Standard. It demonstrates compliance with statutory health and safety requirements across all areas of landlord health and safety, with strong governance and assurance mechanisms in place. This includes compliance reporting to the council’s and SHP’s senior leadership teams, quarterly SHP board scrutiny, and reporting to the council’s Housing, Economy and Business Committee.
We gained assurance that LB Sutton holds up-to-date stock condition information for the majority of its homes, including assessment against the Housing Health and Safety Rating System, with a clear programme to survey 100% of its stock by the end of 2025 and maintain this through a rolling survey programme. Current compliance with the Decent Homes Standard (DHS) is 98.84%. Stock condition data has been used to inform LB Sutton’s Asset Management Strategy, and it has a costed programme in place for homes that do not meet the DHS.
We saw evidence that LB Sutton’s repairs service is accessible, effective and timely. Emergency repairs are consistently delivered within target timescales, and there has been an improved performance on routine repairs following increased capacity and funding, with plans in place to ensure improvements in this area continue. The council has resourced its service to respond to survey findings and tenant feedback, and has robust contract management arrangements in place to maintain performance. The council has demonstrated that it takes a proactive approach to damp and mould management, with a dedicated team and case management system in place.
In relation to the Neighbourhood and Community Standard, we gained assurance that LB Sutton works in partnership with appropriate local authority departments, the police and other relevant organisations to deter and tackle anti-social behaviour and hate incidents, collaborating effectively with partners at both a strategic and an operational level. LB Sutton is working to improve and strengthen its case management approach, particularly ensuring that it learns from tenant feedback.
In relation to the Tenancy Standard, we saw evidence that LB Sutton 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.
We gained assurance that LB Sutton is committed to treating tenants with fairness and respect. There was a positive culture amongst officers and LB Sutton’s approach to tenant engagement is varied and accessible. LB Sutton 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. We saw evidence that feedback and scrutiny provided by tenants has directly and positively impacted on service delivery in areas such as responsive repairs. The Resident Review Group we observed was able to effectively influence policies and service improvements.
We found that LB Sutton is using the information it holds about its tenants to tailor services to meet tenants’ diverse needs and deliver fair and equitable outcomes. LB Sutton has plans to continue to enhance its programme of collecting this data, including to address any gaps in its knowledge of tenants and keep information up to date. Clear and accessible information is provided to tenants about LB Sutton’s services and performance, allowing tenants to access information and scrutinise how well LB Sutton is delivering those services. LB Sutton recognises that this is an area that requires ongoing monitoring and oversight, and work is continuing to review, evaluate and improve how it tailors its services to tenants.
Overall, we found LB Sutton ensures complaints are addressed fairly, promptly and effectively. LB Sutton has identified that this is an area where work needs to continue to ensure embedding of recent changes in its policy. Plans are underway to achieve this. LB Sutton provided evidence that it learns from information on complaint types and outcomes and understands the impact on tenants when it gets things wrong, identifying when improvements need to be made and responding accordingly.
LB Sutton works collaboratively with SHP to identify issues and puts plans in place to remedy and minimise recurrence. There are regular reporting and monitoring mechanisms in place to provide oversight of service delivery.
Background to the judgement
About the landlord
LB Sutton owns around 6,000 homes. Management of the council’s housing stock is delivered by its ALMO, SHP.
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