Decision

Slough Borough Council (00MD) - Regulatory Judgement: 25 June 2025

Published 25 June 2025

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.	First grading	June 2025

Reason for publication

We are publishing a regulatory judgement for Slough Borough Council (Slough BC) following an inspection completed in June 2025.

This regulatory judgement confirms a consumer grading of C3. 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, it is our judgement that there are serious failings in how Slough BC is delivering the outcomes of the consumer standards and significant improvement is needed, specifically in relation to outcomes in our Transparency, Influence and Accountability Standard and Tenancy Standard. Weaknesses are also apparent, and improvement is needed, in relation to some elements of the Safety and Quality Standard and the Neighbourhood and Community Standard. Based on this assessment, we have concluded a C3 grade for Slough BC.

How we reached our judgement

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.

We observed two resident board meetings and met with engaged tenants, officers, the leader of the council, and the councillor who is the portfolio holder for housing. We also reviewed a wide range of documents provided by Slough BC.

Our regulatory judgement is based on a review of all the information we obtained during the inspection, as well as analysis of data received through our planned landlord information submissions and other regulatory activity.

Summary of findings 

Consumer – C3 – June 2025 

The Safety and Quality Standard requires landlords to have an accurate, up to date and evidenced understanding of the condition of its homes, which reliably informs the provision of good quality, well maintained and safe homes for tenants and to ensure that tenants’ homes meet the requirements of the Decent Homes Standard (DHS). 

Slough BC has a good understanding of the condition of its homes. A stock condition survey covering 90% of its homes was completed in 2021 and we saw that this is used, with other data, to inform asset management decisions. Slough BC reported that 4.9% of its homes do not meet the DHS. A full stock condition survey is underway during 2025 which prioritises the 10% of homes which were not covered by the previous surveys.

Slough BC meets regulatory expectations in identifying and meeting all legal requirements that relate to the health and safety of tenants in its homes and communal areas and ensuring that all required actions arising are completed within appropriate timescales. We saw evidence that Slough BC has 100% compliance in all health and safety areas except electrical checks, where we found more than 350 homes had overdue domestic electrical safety certificates, and just under 500 overdue low risk electrical remedial actions. At the time of the inspection, there were also around 325 overdue fire risk assessment remedial actions in general needs, low rise blocks and limited engagement with tenants around building safety. Slough BC provided assurance that it has a clear understanding of these weaknesses through external audits and has made good progress in delivering the resulting recommendations and completing overdue actions. 

Slough BC provided us with assurance that overall, it is delivering an effective, efficient, and timely repairs service for homes and communal areas. It changed repairs contractor in October 2023, and we saw evidence of resulting improvements in tenant satisfaction and the timeliness of repairs which were reflected in the findings of an external audit. We found a weakness in its aids and adaptations service, with some overdue non-urgent adaptations, which it has plans in place to address.

In relation to the Neighbourhood and Community Standard, Slough BC has provided assurance that it is working 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 it provides social housing. However, there are some weaknesses in how Slough BC records cases and reports performance information. Slough BC is reviewing the service and planning improvements to address this.

In relation to the Tenancy Standard, we found serious failings in how Slough BC manages its tenancies, with no strategy or policies outlining its approach. Tenants on fixed term tenancies receive limited information about the expiry of their tenancy, the council’s approach to vulnerability, or how to appeal. We lack assurance that Slough BC is allocating its properties in a fair and transparent way, with no performance oversight, and we obtained recent evidence of serious tenancy fraud. We saw evidence that Slough BC has recently put in place more effective controls and oversight for allocations and we will monitor the delivery of these actions through our ongoing engagement. 

The Transparency, Influence and Accountability Standard sets out the outcomes landlords must deliver about being open with tenants and treating them with fairness and respect so that tenants can access services, raise complaints, influence decision making and hold their landlord to account. We found serious failings in how Slough BC is delivering the outcomes of the Transparency, Influence and Accountability Standard. Slough BC has acknowledged this failing in its resident engagement strategy, and we saw evidence of included improvement actions in its draft housing improvement plan.

Slough BC was not able to demonstrate it is taking action to deliver fair and equitable outcomes for tenants and, where relevant, prospective tenants. Slough BC only holds a small amount of tenant profile information, and we saw no evidence that this has been used strategically to ensure fair and equitable outcomes for tenants or to inform service design and delivery. We saw evidence that Slough BC has recently taken action to improve its understanding of tenants’ needs through a tenant profiling survey and a programme of tenancy audits.

The inspection identified serious failings in how Slough BC is taking its tenants’ views into account in its decision-making, how landlord services are delivered and in how it is communicating that tenants’ views have been considered. Its sole mechanism for tenant engagement is a resident board; we saw limited evidence of meaningful outcomes from its activities, and no reporting of tenant engagement activity. Slough BC is committed to improving engagement and scrutiny and we saw it has plans to expand the range of meaningful opportunities offered to tenants.

We found serious failings in Slough BC’s ability to deliver the outcomes of the Transparency, Influence and Accountability Standard that sets out that landlords must provide information so that tenants can use landlord services, understand what to expect from their landlord, and hold their landlord to account. We saw limited evidence that Slough BC provides its tenants with accessible information as it does not have insight into their diverse needs or communication preferences. We found most information for tenants is only readily available digitally and tenants have raised concerns about poor communication and a lack of face-to-face interaction. Slough BC is undertaking a corporate review of customer contact during 2025 and improving the range of formats in which it provides information. 

In addition the Transparency, Influence and Accountability Standard sets out that landlords must collect and provide information to support effective scrutiny by tenants of their landlord’s performance. We found serious failings for Slough BC as it has no service standards in place, so tenants do not know what to expect from their landlord, and there was limited performance information on its website or in its newsletters.

We do not have assurance that Slough BC is ensuring complaints are addressed fairly, effectively, and promptly. There are serious failings in Slough BC’s approach to complaint handling, as it is not meeting target complaint response times and there is no evidence of learning from complaints. There are also failings in its recording and monitoring of complaints. Slough BC is aware of these issues and had already set up a task force to implement improvements before the inspection.

Since identifying the failings, Slough BC has engaged constructively with us, and we have assurance that there is a commitment to ensuring improved outcomes for tenants. Slough BC has provided evidence that it understands the issues it needs to address and is putting in place appropriate and resourced plans to rectify them. Task forces are already in place to address weaknesses in some areas, and we have assurance that action to complete outstanding Health and Safety remedial actions is already underway.

We will continue to engage with Slough BC as it seeks to address the issues that have led to this judgement. Our engagement will be intensive, and we will seek evidence that gives us the assurance that sufficient change and progress is being made. We are not proposing to use our enforcement powers at this stage but will keep this under review as Slough BC seeks to resolve these issues.

Background to the judgement

About the landlord

Slough BC owns around 5,940 social housing homes in Berkshire.

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 Homes Standard