Decision

Sheffield City Council (00CG) - Regulatory Judgement: 10 June 2026

Updated 10 June 2026

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	Based on previous assessment	June 2024

Reason for publication

We are publishing this regulatory judgement for Sheffield City Council (Sheffield CC) to confirm the removal of the regulatory notice previously published in January 2023.

This regulatory judgement also confirms that the existing consumer grade of C3 from June 2024 remains unchanged.

Summary of the decision

Following the publication of a regulatory notice in January 2023 about Sheffield CC’s failure to meet the requirements of the Home Standard in relation to a large number of overdue gas safety checks, we had ongoing engagement with Sheffield CC on those issues. The Home Standard was in place until 31 March 2024. Following our responsive engagement on these issues, Sheffield CC has provided evidence that the issues that led to the regulatory notice are now resolved, and so the regulatory notice has been removed.

Prior to this regulatory judgement, Sheffield CC’s first consumer grade was issued in July 2024 following responsive engagement. During the responsive engagement, we found there were serious failings in how Sheffield CC was delivering the outcomes of the consumer standards and significant improvement was needed, specifically in relation to outcomes in our Safety and Quality Standard. Based on that assessment, we concluded a C3 grade for Sheffield CC.

How we reached our judgement

Following our earlier publication of the regulatory notice in January 2023 about Sheffield CC’s failure to meet the requirements of the Home Standard, we had ongoing engagement with Sheffield CC on those issues. This included reviewing documents and information provided to us by Sheffield CC, with follow up meetings and discussions with Sheffield CC. Following our engagement on these issues, we are satisfied that Sheffield CC has provided evidence that the issues that led to the regulatory notice are now resolved, and so the regulatory notice has been removed.

In September 2023 we were made aware of a media report highlighting the high number of disrepair cases being managed by Sheffield CC, with more than 90% of them being completed outside of its own target mescales. The issue was identified by the media following Sheffield CC’s reporting of this performance issue to its Housing Policy Committee which is publicly available.

In response to the information, we carried out responsive engagement with Sheffield CC on the disrepair issuesis included reviewing documents and data provided to us by Sheffield CC, with follow up meetings and discussions with Sheffield CC. During our responsive engagement we found evidence that Sheffield CC was not delivering the required outcomes of the Safety and Quality Standard. Our judgement was based on all the relevant information we obtained during the responsive engagement process. In making our decision, we considered how well Sheffield CC was delivering against the outcomes of the Safety and Quality Standard and concluded a C3 grade.

Summary of findings 

Consumer – C3 – June 2024

The Safety and Quality Standard requires landlords to have an effective, efficient and timely repairs, maintenance and planned improvements service for their homes.

Sheffield CC informed us that the levels of demand and waiting times for completion for repairs had increased significantly. In January 2024, it stated it had over 14,000 work in progress repairs outstanding, although by April 2024 this had reduced to around 10,000. It had also not been meeting its service standards for completing emergency and non-emergency repairs. Between January and April 2024, around 75% of planned repairs were completed outside of agreed timescales, and around 50% of routine repairs were overdue. The average timescale for completion of planned repairs was more than 120 days which significantly exceeds the service standard of 55 working days. Between January and April 2024, more than 90% of disrepair cases were completed outside of timescales.

Sheffield CC was unable to provide sufficient assurance to us that it had effective systems, controls or oversight of repairs. There was evidence that it had failed to take sufficient action to address the deterioration in repairs performance.

The Safety and Quality Standard also requires Sheffield CC to have an accurate and up to date and evidenced understanding of the condition of their homes that reliably informs their provision of good quality, well maintained and safe homes for tenants. It also requires landlords to ensure that their tenants’ homes meet the requirements of the Decent Home Standard.

We do not have assurance that Sheffield CC has accurate data on the quality of its homes and that its homes meet the requirements of the Decent Homes Standard, as we found evidence that Sheffield CC does not have an accurate record of the condition of its homes.  

Sheffield CC has been engaging constructively with us and has put in a place a programme to rectify these failures, including commissioning a stock condition survey and the creation of improvement plans focussed on repairs, data quality and IT systems. Sheffield CC is carrying out a stock condition survey of its homes so it can develop an investment plan to address non-decency and delivery of repairs, maintenance and planned improvements.

We are engaging with Sheffield CC on an ongoing basis, including to confirm that it is taking reasonable steps to deliver its improvement plans as it continues to address the issues that led to this situation. Our engagement with the landlord is intensive and we seek evidence that gives us the assurance that sufficient change and progress is being made, including ongoing monitoring of how it delivers its improvement programme. Our priority is that risks to tenants are adequately managed and mitigated by Sheffield CC. We are not proposing to use our enforcement powers at this stage but will keep this under review as Sheffield CC seeks to resolve these issues.

Background to the judgement

About the landlord

Sheffield CC owns and manages more than 38,500 social 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 Home Standard