Decision

St Albans City and District Council (26UG) - Regulatory Judgement: 28 January 2026

Published 28 January 2026

Applies to England

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	January 2026

Reason for publication

We are publishing a regulatory judgement for St Albans City and District Council (St Albans CDC) following an inspection which was completed in January 2026.

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, our judgement is that there are some weaknesses in St Albans CDC delivering the outcomes of the consumer standards. Improvement is needed across elements of all four of the consumer standards. Based on this assessment, we have concluded a C2 grade for St Albans CDC.

How we reached our judgement

We carried out an inspection of St Albans CDC to assess how well it is delivering the outcomes of the consumer standards as part of our planned regulatory inspection programme. During the inspection, we considered all four of the consumer standards: Safety and Quality Standard, Neighbourhood and Community Standard, Tenancy Standard, and the Transparency, Influence and Accountability Standard.

During the inspection we observed a Housing and Inclusion Committee and a meeting of the Tenant and Leaseholder Forum. We met with involved tenants, officers, the leader of St Albans CDC, the chair of the Housing and Inclusion Committee and the vice-chair of the Planning Policy and Climate Committee. We interviewed staff and reviewed a wide range of documents provided by St Albans CDC.

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 St Albans CDC in its regulatory returns and other regulatory engagement activity.

Summary of findings

Consumer – C2 – January 2026 

The Safety and Quality Standard requires landlords to have an accurate, up to date and evidenced understanding of the condition of their homes at an individual property level based on a physical assessment of all homes. Landlords must also ensure that homes meet the requirements of the Decent Homes Standard (DHS). St Albans CDC has demonstrated it has a good understanding of its homes with 93.5% of homes having had a physical stock condition survey since 2019. St Albans CDC reported that around 98% of its homes meet the DHS and it has demonstrated an ongoing commitment to investing in its homes through its capital investment programme.

The Safety and Quality Standard also requires landlords to identify and meet all legal requirements that relate to the health and safety of tenants in their 

homes and communal areas. We gained assurance that St Albans CDC is currently meeting the legal requirements that relate to the health and safety of tenants in their homes and communal areas. However, there were some weaknesses in its oversight and reporting in relation to some remedial actions identified through the relevant health and safety checks.

The Safety and Quality Standard also requires landlords to provide an effective, efficient and timely repairs, maintenance and planned improvements service for the homes and communal areas for which it is responsible. St Albans CDC is generally delivering a repairs and maintenance service that meets regulatory requirements. However, we found some weaknesses in it meeting its target in relation to the timely completion of routine repairs. St Albans CDC has an improvement plan in place to improve its performance and outcomes for tenants.

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 it provides social housing. Through the inspection, we saw evidence that St Albans CDC works with partner organisations and has a clear approach to how it deters and tackles ASB. There are weaknesses in the monitoring of ASB cases and hate incidents, and we saw limited evidence of how hate crime can be reported directly to the council. St Albans CDC recognise that improvements are needed in these areas.

In relation to the Tenancy Standard, we saw evidence that St Albans CDC 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. However, St Albans CDC needs to do more to ensure that it has effective monitoring and oversight in place to achieve the required outcomes of this standard. St Albans CDC recognises this and has plans in place to make improvements to its reporting and oversight.

The Transparency, Influence and Accountability Standard sets out that landlords must treat tenants and prospective tenants with fairness and respect and take action to deliver fair and equitable outcomes for tenants. Throughout the inspection, St Albans CDC demonstrated a respectful and positive culture towards tenants, and engaged tenants told us that they felt listened to and valued.

St Albans CDC has evidenced some understanding of the diverse needs of its tenants but needs to strengthen the information it holds to improve the use of tenants data to ensure it is delivering fair and equitable outcomes. St Albans CDC acknowledges that it needs to develop its approach in this area to improve the level of information its holds about its tenants and this should enhance its ability to monitor consistent and equitable outcomes.

The Transparency, Influence and Accountability Standard also requires landlords to provide accessible information so 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. St Albans CDC provides a range of performance and service information to tenants through its website and annual summary to tenants, and tenants’ views are considered in all Housing and Inclusion Committee reports. However, we saw limited formal meaningful opportunities for tenants to influence and scrutinise information. St Albans CDC acknowledges more work is required to embed recent improvements in this area and has evidenced plans in place.

The Transparency, Influence and Accountability Standard sets out that landlords must ensure complaints are addressed fairly, effectively, and promptly. The inspection found weaknesses in how St Albans CDC delivers these outcomes. It is not consistently meeting relevant timescales for responding to complaints and we saw limited evidence of learning from complaints. St Albans CDC has taken steps to improve its complaints handling processes, and we will continue to engage with the St Albans CDC as it works to embed changes and improve outcomes for tenants.

St Albans CDC has engaged constructively with us throughout the inspection process, has demonstrated that it understands the issues it needs to address, and is already taking action towards rectifying the weaknesses identified. We will continue to engage with St Albans CDC as it works to address the issues set out in this judgement.

Background to the judgement

About the landlord

St Albans CDC is located in the south-west of Hertfordshire. St Albans CDC owns and manages around 4,800 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. 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