Decision

Citizen Housing Group Limited (5075) - Regulatory Judgement: 27 August 2025

Updated 27 August 2025

Applies to England

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	August 2025
Governance	G1 Our judgement is that the landlord meets our governance requirements.	Assessed and unchanged	August 2025
Viability	V2 Our judgement is that the landlord meets our viability requirements. It has the financial capacity to deal with a reasonable range of adverse scenarios but needs to manage material risks to ensure continued compliance.	Assessed and unchanged	August 2025

Reason for publication

We are publishing a regulatory judgement for Citizen Housing Group Limited (Citizen) following an inspection completed in August 2025.

This regulatory judgement confirms a consumer grading of C1, a governance grading of G1 and a financial viability grading of V2.

Prior to this regulatory judgement, the governance and financial viability gradings for Citizen were last updated in December 2024 following a stability check to confirm grades of G1 and V2.

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, our judgement is that overall Citizen is delivering the outcomes of the consumer standards. Based on this assessment, we have concluded a C1 grade for Citizen. 

Our judgement is that Citizen meets our governance requirements. Citizen has provided evidence to demonstrate the effectiveness of its governance arrangements and that it continues to effectively manage the risks of its activities, allowing it to deliver its strategic and charitable objectives. Based on this assessment, we have concluded a G1 grade for Citizen.

Our judgement is that Citizen meets our financial viability requirements and has capacity to manage a reasonable range of adverse scenarios. However, due to investment in existing stock, and development and sales activity, Citizen has reduced capacity to respond to adverse events. Based on this assessment, we have concluded a V2 grade for Citizen, but note the severity of risks being managed by the provider.

How we reached our judgement

We carried out an inspection of Citizen to assess how well it is delivering the outcomes of the consumer standards and meeting our governance and financial viability requirements, 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 board meeting and a customer assurance committee, spoke with tenants, held meetings with Citizen including its non-executive directors, interviewed staff, and reviewed a wide range of documents provided by Citizen.

Our regulatory judgement is based on a review of all of the relevant information we obtained during the inspection as well as analysis of information supplied by Citizen in its regulatory returns and other regulatory engagement activity.

Summary of findings 

Consumer – C1 – August 2025

Citizen provided evidence-based assurance that it has appropriate systems in place to ensure the health and safety of tenants in their homes and communal areas. There is evidence that Citizen has accurate records of the condition of its homes at an individual property level based on physical surveys, and that it has a process in place for keeping this information up to date. During the inspection Citizen demonstrated that it uses information it holds on the condition and safety of its homes to inform decisions on future investment to maintain and improve its homes. We saw evidence that Citizen has systems in place for recording its current compliance position with landlord health and safety requirements, and that it has effective mechanisms to give its board assurance that controls are operating effectively.

Citizen demonstrated that it provides an effective, efficient and timely repairs service to tenants, and we saw evidence that it takes action to improve outcomes for tenants when issues occur. Citizen has implemented a plan to address the timeliness of non-emergency repairs, by improving the efficiency and productivity of its repairs service to deliver improved outcomes for tenants.

In relation to the Neighbourhood and Community Standard, Citizen works with relevant organisations to deter and tackle anti-social behaviour and hate incidents in the communities where it provides homes. Feedback from tenants is used to continually improve the service, including increasing communication with affected tenants and use of mediation.

In relation to the Tenancy Standard, Citizen provided evidence that its approach to lettings and allocations is fair and transparent, and that it offers a range of tenures that are appropriate to the homes it lets and meet the needs of tenants. Tenants are supported to sustain their tenancies through a variety of means.

Citizen is delivering the outcomes of the consumer standards in relation to Transparency, Influence and Accountability. Citizen provided evidence that it treats tenants with fairness and respect, and that it uses the information it holds about its tenants to deliver services that meet their needs. Citizen is taking action to further increase its understanding of its tenants.

Overall, we found that Citizen ensures complaints are addressed fairly, promptly and effectively and understands the impact on tenants when it gets things wrong. Citizen has recently implemented a revised approach to complaints, and whilst the full benefits of this have yet to be realised, we saw evidence that the new approach is having a positive impact on complaints performance. We also gained assurance that Citizen actively seeks to learn from complaints and uses this information to make improvements.

Citizen demonstrated that its tenant engagement and scrutiny arrangements provide a wide range of meaningful opportunities for tenants to influence and scrutinise its strategies, policies and services. We saw evidence that tenant insight has positively impacted service delivery in a number of areas including repairs and complaints services. Citizen provided assurance that it makes effective use of its performance data to improve its services and provides a range of information to tenants to support effective scrutiny.

Governance – G1 – August 2025

Based on the evidence obtained from the inspection, we gained assurance that Citizen’s governance arrangements enable it to effectively manage its risks and adequately control the organisation, allowing it to deliver its objectives. We saw evidence of board challenge on performance against strategic objectives and consideration of risk appetite in strategic decision making.

Citizen provided appropriate assurance that its board proactively reviews its approach to delivering against its purpose and regularly considers alternative options to ensure it is achieving value for money in making best use of resources. An emphasis on building new homes is balanced alongside continuing investment in existing homes and delivery of effective landlord services to tenants.

We saw evidence that Citizen has an effective business planning, risk management and control framework in place, with a demonstrable understanding of its risk profile, stress testing and mitigations. We have assurance that key risks are being managed effectively, including in relation to development and sales, damp and mould, and landlord health and safety. Citizen’s board actively seeks and gains an appropriate level of assurance across a range of areas.

Citizen uses stress testing to identify emerging risks and inform decision-making as part of the wider control framework. We saw evidence that board reporting provides sufficient detail to ensure effective oversight across the group, and mitigation strategies are in place.

Citizen provided assurance that it has established and maintains clear roles, responsibilities and accountabilities within its leadership and governance structure. There is evidence that the relationship between the board and committees is working in line with its delegations to strengthen assurance in key areas of risk and compliance.

Board member skills, experience and knowledge are aligned with the activities of the organisation and there is a structured approach to reviewing, developing and appraising skills which feeds into succession planning. We saw evidence of this through board observation, meetings with non-executive directors and executive team members as well as reviewing relevant documents including meeting minutes.

Viability – V2 – August 2025

Based on the evidence gained through the inspection we have concluded that there is appropriate assurance that Citizen’s financial plans are consistent with, and support, its financial strategy. Citizen has appropriately evidenced that it has an adequately funded business plan, sufficient security in place to support its financial plans, and is forecast to continue to meet its financial covenants under a reasonable range of adverse scenarios. Citizen’s board has effective oversight of covenant compliance, with regular reporting in place on its actual and forecast position.

Citizen is balancing increased investment into its existing homes alongside its development activity which is putting pressure on its financial performance. In recent years Citizen has increased its investment into existing homes, including to meet energy efficiency targets. Citizen needs to manage risks associated with the housing market due to its sales plans. When set in the context of economic pressures, the above factors reduce Citizen’s capacity to respond to adverse events.

The severity of material risks faced by Citizen mean that we will continue to closely monitor its financial performance and its capacity to manage adverse scenarios on an ongoing basis.        

Background to the judgement

About the landlord

Citizen is a charitable community benefit society established in 2019, as an amalgamation between WM Housing Group and all its subsidiary providers.

Citizen is the only registered entity in the group, which includes six unregistered subsidiaries. Citizen currently owns and manages around 30,000 homes. Its stock is located across the Midlands.

Citizen’s turnover for the year ended 31 March 2024 was £193.1m. It employs the full-time equivalent of 1,043 staff.

Citizen intends to develop around 2,500 rental and shared ownership homes by 2030. It also plans to develop properties for market sale via its joint venture activities.

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