London Borough of Ealing (00AJ): Regulatory Judgement - 26 November 2025
Updated 26 November 2025
Applies to England
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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 | November 2025 |
Reason for publication
We are publishing a regulatory judgement for London Borough of Ealing (LB Ealing) following an inspection completed in November 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 Ealing 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 Ealing.
How we reached our judgement
We published a Regulatory Notice for LB Ealing in May 2022 due to a breach of the then Home Standard, (the Home Standard has now been replaced by the current consumer standards), due to ineffective controls in relation to LB Ealing’s fire safety responsibilities and a failure to effectively monitor remedial works in relation to electrical, asbestos and water safety. Since then, we have been engaging with LB Ealing as it addresses the failings identified.
We carried out an inspection of LB Ealing to assess how well it is delivering the outcomes of the consumer standards as part of our planned regulatory inspection programme, and to assess the progress made since the Regulatory Notice was published. This regulatory judgement replaces the previous Regulatory Notice. 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, an Overview and Scrutiny Committee, a Housing and Environment Scrutiny Panel, the Resident Asset Management Panel committee meeting, the Resident Asset Management Panel public meeting and a meeting of the council’s Independent Housing Board.
We met with involved tenants, officers, senior council officers and relevant councillors. We also reviewed a wide range of documents provided by LB Ealing.
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 Ealing in its regulatory returns and other regular engagement activity.
Summary of findings
Consumer – C2 – November 2025
The Safety and Quality Standard requires landlords to have an accurate, up-to-date and evidenced understanding of the condition of its homes that reliably informs its provision of good quality, well maintained and safe homes for tenants. It also requires landlords to ensure that its tenants’ homes meet the requirements of the Decent Homes Standard. Through our engagement with LB Ealing, we saw evidence that it has an accurate, up-to-date and evidenced understanding of the condition of over 80% of its homes, based on a stock condition survey programme carried out over the last two years. Plans are in place to ensure that all the remaining homes are surveyed by the end of 2026. Following this a rolling programme will be implemented. LB Ealing is currently reviewing its Asset Management Strategy, and the existing and emerging stock condition survey information is being used to inform this. We will continue to engage with LB Ealing to monitor its progress.
The Safety and Quality Standard requires landlords to identify and meet all legal requirements that relate to the health and safety of tenants in their homes and communal areas and to ensure that all required actions arising from legally required health and safety assessments are carried out within appropriate timescales.
LB Ealing provided evidence that it is largely meeting landlord health and safety requirements. Performance in delivering the compliance inspection programme has improved over the past six months, with good compliance positions across LB Ealing’s health and safety programmes. We have identified weaknesses in the delivery of LB Ealing’s programme of remedial activities, although this has again improved recently. Through our ongoing engagement, we will seek assurance that LB Ealing continues to develop its approach to address these weaknesses.
The Safety and Quality Standard also requires landlords to provide an effective, efficient and timely repairs service for the homes and communal areas for which they are responsible. LB Ealing has provided assurance that these outcomes are being delivered, and has made progress to improve the service, but continues to have some weaknesses that need to be addressed. LB Ealing has recently refreshed its repairs policy to provide tenants with clarity on how it manages repairs requests. The repairs position has improved since December 2024, with 3,000 overdue actions completed to date, but there remains a number of overdue repairs which indicates that the council has not fully resolved the weaknesses in its repairs service.
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 they provide social housing. Through the inspection we saw evidence that LB Ealing is delivering the outcomes of the Neighbourhood and Community Standard and is tackling and deterring anti-social behaviour in the neighbourhoods where it provides social housing, using a variety of tools. There are various ways for tenants to report ASB, and we saw evidence of effective partnership working delivering positive outcomes for tenants at both a community and individual household level. However, the monitoring and oversight of the ASB service, the accessibility of information to tenants and the level to which the tenant voice is considered in the design, delivery and development of this service are areas for improvement.
In relation to the Tenancy Standard, we have seen evidence that the tenancies being offered by the council meet all applicable legal requirements and 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. LB Ealing’s approach to considering the needs of its tenants and prospective tenants is set out across its policies, and LB Ealing provided assurance about the work it does to support prospective and existing tenants to sustain their tenancies.
The Transparency, Influence and Accountability Standard requires landlords to ensure tenants are treated with fairness and respect and take action to deliver fair and equitable outcomes for tenants. LB Ealing provided assurance that it treats tenants with respect and has processes in place to take into account tenants’ needs when delivering services. However, LB Ealing does not yet hold comprehensive information on its tenants to demonstrate that it is responding to diverse needs in a consistent way.
The Transparency, Influence and Accountability Standard also 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. LB Ealing provided assurance that it is meeting these outcomes in relation to tenant engagement, but there are weaknesses that it needs to address to fully meet the outcomes. LB Ealing has a framework that offers a variety of opportunities for tenant engagement, and we have seen evidence of tenants influencing decision making and improving service delivery. However, we observed meetings where a lot of information was provided, leaving limited time for real scrutiny. LB Ealing also needs to do more to ensure involved tenants’ needs are met and to communicate to tenants how their involvement is making a difference. Service and performance information is shared in a variety of digital and non-digital formats. There are some weaknesses in the transparency and accessibility of some performance information reported to members and involved tenants to support effective scrutiny.
The Transparency, Influence and Accountability Standard states that landlords must ensure complaints are addressed fairly, effectively, and promptly. LB Ealing has provided assurance that its complaints handling has started to improve, although there are still weaknesses. Following a recent restructure of the service, there is evidence that the timeliness of complaints responses and effectiveness of complaint handling has begun to improve. We will continue to work with LB Ealing to ensure it continues to make progress at pace, and that improvements are sustained.
Background to the judgement
About the landlord
LB Ealing owns and manages 10,641 social housing homes in West London.
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.