Regulatory Casework Review 2025
This report examines key themes from our regulation of social landlords over the past year, covering our governance, financial viability and consumer standards.
Applies to England
Foreword
Welcome to our first annual Regulatory Casework Review. In this report we set out the key themes from our regulation of social landlords over the past year, covering our governance, financial viability and consumer standards.
This report provides important learning for all social landlords – whether they are housing associations, for profit providers, or councils, large or small – based on what we have found through our inspections and responsive cases. This enables individual landlords to strengthen their own approach by learning from the experience of others.
The past year has seen a significant shift in the way we regulate. We have started our proactive inspection programme for all large social landlords. For housing associations and other private registered providers, our integrated inspections cover the economic and consumer standards. For local authorities, our remit covers the consumer standards and Rent standard. But, as this report shows, many of the lessons relating to our regulation of governance can also be used by local authorities to improve outcomes for tenants.
To meet their strategic objectives and keep tenants safe, landlords need to have strong oversight of risks and appropriate controls to manage them. This is not possible without up-to-date and comprehensive data, covering all assets and liabilities and the safety and quality of tenants’ homes. Failure to do so has been a recurring theme in cases where landlords – including local authorities – have not met the outcomes of our standards.
Landlords must also integrate tenants’ views into decision making. This means listening to what tenants say and embedding this insight into strategic decision making by councillors and boards.
It is also important that landlords prioritise value for money. Social landlords have a crucial role to play in building more homes for people on waiting lists and maintaining good-quality homes for existing tenants. It is therefore essential that they maximise their resources and deliver efficiencies where appropriate.
All landlords should assure themselves that they are meeting our standards. They should not wait for us to find problems through an inspection. If they find or suspect a material issue, they must refer themselves to us and we will work with them constructively as they put things right. This is a cornerstone of our regulation which means issues and their root causes can be addressed more efficiently and effectively.
We will continue to use our wider remit to drive landlords to improve the quality of social housing and services to tenants, and to support a sector that builds more and better social homes.
Fiona MacGregor
Chief Executive
Key lessons for landlords
Make managing risk fundamental to the way you work
Having effective arrangements in place for gaining assurance on risks and the controls needed to manage them, is essential for landlords to deliver better outcomes for tenants.
Landlords will need to ensure they set a clear strategic direction, that their activities match their intended risk appetite, and they manage associated risks effectively. When we inspect private registered providers, we will look at how they are managing landlord risks as well as financial viability exposures and risks associated with significant activity, such as development, sales and regeneration, in assessing our view of the quality of their governance.
Whenever landlords make contractual arrangements, they need to ensure that they manage risks to tenants appropriately, with clear arrangements between the landlord and third parties, which could include freeholders, contractors, or support providers.
Having appropriate oversight of risks should enable robust challenge by the organisation itself on the performance it is reporting and how successful it is being in its delivery of strategic objectives.
Be curious about what your data tells you and act on it
Landlords can only manage risks and make decisions that deliver the right outcomes for current and future tenants if they are basing those decisions on up-to-date and comprehensive data.
We expect landlords to have reliable data across all aspects of their operations and on the safety and quality of tenants’ homes as well as sufficient information so they can manage the risks associated with all assets and liabilities. Landlords should be curious about what the data they collect on their tenants and their homes is telling them and tailor services accordingly. We are seeing some evidence through our inspections of landlords using and triangulating all of their data to pre-empt issues, facilitate challenge and continuously improve.
Landlords should be able to explain to tenants and stakeholders how they are using data and information, and what is changing as a result.
Know that you are keeping tenants’ homes safe
Every landlord must ensure the safety of tenants’ homes, and associated communal areas, and be able to show us that they do this effectively.
The need to keep tenants’ homes safe is a fundamental responsibility of all landlords regardless of their size, whether they are local authorities or private registered providers, and whether they choose to deliver management and services directly or use third parties.
Governing bodies - boards, councillors - and senior leaders should have effective oversight of performance against landlord health and safety requirements so that this remains a focus alongside delivering other outcomes of the Standards for current and future tenants. Landlords must be able to assure themselves that they have identified any gaps and be able to show how they are putting things right.
Demonstrate whether you are achieving value for money
Social landlords exist to provide quality homes for tenants who could not otherwise afford them, and the sector also needs to play an important part in delivering new homes for the people who need them. It can only do this if individual landlords maximise their resources, are working efficiently and effectively and proactively consider alternative delivery options.
As the pressure continues on landlords’ business plans due to investment requirements to deliver across their strategic objectives, being able to demonstrate that they regularly consider value for money, explore ways to maximise resources and deliver efficiencies is going to be increasingly important.
Integrate tenants’ views into your decision making
Landlords should listen to what tenants are telling them, and use that to help manage risks and shape their decisions.
Through our regulatory engagement we see evidence of landlords offer a range of structured opportunities for tenants to share their views and feedback on services. This can look different depending on the size and scale of the landlord, and the needs of their tenants. What we seek assurance on through our inspections is that these are meaningful opportunities, with evidence of what has happened as a result. A key test about whether these arrangements are working is whether the tenant voice is a genuine part of a landlord’s decision making, and the extent to which tenants are able to influence what happens.
It is important to make sure there is equitable opportunity for all tenants to be listened to and be able to demonstrate that governance arrangements facilitate genuine consideration of tenants’ views.
Working with us to improve performance
Landlords should not wait until an inspection before self-referring. If a landlord finds something that might mean it is not delivering the outcomes of the standards it should share this with us. The timeliness of self-referrals is also important. Landlords should start having the conversation with us when they become aware of the issues not after they have developed their approach to addressing them. When we find a landlord is not meeting the required outcomes of our standards we will engage with it until it provides assurance that it has addressed the weaknesses or failings.
Managing risk
It is essential that landlords have an effective risk management, internal controls and assurance framework. Where landlords’ operations involve third parties, whether within a group structure or through contract arrangements there must be a thorough understanding of respective roles and responsibilities. A landlord must gain assurance that risks are being managed, for example on building safety and where there is a group structure, how risks flow within and between entities within the group. This is a requirement of our Governance and Financial Viability Standard for private registered providers. Contractual and third party arrangements should be a consideration for all landlords in seeking assurance on the effectiveness of how they are managing associated risks.
Through our inspections of private registered providers we assess a landlord’s understanding of the main risks it faces and how effectively it is managing them. We assess how effective a landlord’s governance arrangements are in enabling it to manage risk in practice including that it seeks appropriate levels of assurance that the controls identified against a particular risk are operating as intended. Landlords’ boards, with their committees, have a crucial role in overseeing individual risks as well as providing rigorous challenge on whether the board is getting regular assurance on the areas of most risk, impact and complexity.
Assessing how well a landlord manages risk is often focused on the landlord’s ability to demonstrate it is delivering the outcomes of the Governance and Financial Viability Standard. However, we will also form a view of the effectiveness of a landlord’s risk management when we are assessing the extent to which it is delivering the outcomes in the consumer standards. Where there are poor outcomes for tenants this can be the result of weaknesses in governance and risk management.
In the main, through our inspections, we have found that private registered providers are able to demonstrate how they are effectively managing, mitigating and reporting on risks to deliver their strategic objectives. Through some of our regulatory engagement however we have also found some instances where landlords’ arrangements for managing risk have been ineffective with the result that their financial viability has been impacted, tenants have been put at potential risk of harm and poor outcomes are being delivered for tenants.
It is sometimes the case that the approach to, and focus on, risk management has not been sufficiently robust to identify risks early enough to prevent them crystallising. Also that once identified, risks have not had effective controls put in place and reported on with enough level of detail to provide committees and boards with effective oversight. We have also seen some examples of where improvements in the risk management framework are needed so that landlords can mitigate the potential for poor outcomes. A common area of weakness is not seeking timely enough assurance to the quality needed against key risks.
From the inspections we have carried out, we have found that a landlord that is open to challenging itself, including through external review, learning from areas of underperformance and being persistent at following through on plans for improvement is more likely to deliver successfully.
In the following case summaries, we found that the private registered providers needed to improve their governance and approach to managing risk to deliver strategic objectives successfully, maximise the use of resources and ensure better outcomes for tenants. They also needed to gain stronger assurance that the risks to the safety of tenants in their homes were being adequately managed and that homes were of the required quality.
Case summary: Moat Homes Limited
In December 2024 we issued a regulatory judgement following an inspection for Moat Homes Limited (Moat) which resulted in a G2 governance grading. The judgement found that Moat needed to improve some aspects of its governance arrangements, specifically in relation to the effectiveness of risk management and the performance framework.
We found that Moat demonstrated that it had an appropriate risk management and control framework that aligned to its strategic risks. However, it needed to improve the effectiveness of this framework in practice, to deliver improvements in outcomes to tenants. We found there were weaknesses in its use of information to drive improvement. It did not consistently apply lessons learnt across the organisation or identify where there are trends in the weaknesses of internal controls.
We found that Moat’s board demonstrated that it considered its risk appetite in strategic decision making. However, there were weaknesses in the effectiveness of the performance framework. This had impacted on the board’s ability to provide effective challenge on performance against the organisation’s strategic targets. An example of this was in the provision of the repairs and maintenance service to Moat’s tenants, particularly for non-emergency repairs, where we found sustained weaknesses during the inspection.
Moat is working positively with us and has begun to deliver the necessary improvements and we will continue to engage with Moat as progress is made.
Case summary: Southway Housing Trust
In June 2025 we published a regulatory judgement following an inspection for Southway Housing Trust (Southway) which resulted in a G2 governance grading. The judgement found that Southway’s risk management and control framework aligned to its strategic risks. However, in order for it be effective in all areas it needed to strengthen its approach so that board could demonstrate sufficient challenge and oversight of the risks to delivering its purpose and strategic objectives.
Through our work we found that the quality of reporting to board, including through escalation from delegated committees, had not always been sufficient to identify underperformance and drive improvement. Southway had identified that there were improvements needed to ensure board was getting the right level of assurance required, in particular in areas of landlord health and safety.
We also found that there was a need for Southway’s board to demonstrate that it seeks assurance that governance arrangements are aligned with the risks associated with strategic delivery. This includes managing and mitigating the performance of non-social housing activities, ensuring a robust evidence base for strategic decision making and keeping under review the extent to which Southway is delivering value for money in meeting the requirements for investment in new and existing homes.
Using data effectively
Having good quality data is important for landlords to be able to deliver the required outcomes across all of our standards. The information landlords need to collect, use and update should cover the breadth of the landlord’s activities, tenants’ homes, other assets and all liabilities including contractual, financial and legal. Our regulation of the standards has highlighted the failures that can occur through poor and incomplete data.
In our regulation of private registered provider landlords, poor data has also been a key factor in issues relating to the availability of funding, under investment in the quality and safety of tenants’ homes and incurring unforeseen material financial liabilities.
For all landlords it is essential that they have accurate, up-to-date information about their homes at individual property level so they can be assured they are providing safe, energy efficient and quality homes. This is a requirement of our Safety and Quality Standard. Through our inspections and responsive engagement, we have seen most landlords have comprehensive, up-to-date information about their homes, usually through completion of stock condition surveys of all homes, at least every five years, including an assessment of Housing Health and Safety Rating System (HHSRS) hazards. They have been able to demonstrate how they have remedied hazards and have used the data to inform future investment in homes.
In terms of building safety, landlords have been able to use a comprehensive range of information to assess risks to the safety of tenants, carry out appropriately robust assessments and surveys to identify issues and report against a clear remediation programme. We have also gained assurance that information about tenants living in buildings is used to ensure risks are managed whilst remediation works are not yet complete, for the preparation of emergency evacuation plans and the development of an effective resident engagement strategy.
However, we have seen that some landlords do not have information about all of their homes, communal areas and buildings, or have information which is old or incomplete. These landlords have not been able to provide evidence of the quality of homes, that homes are free of hazards or that they are meeting all of the requirements of the Decent Homes Standard.
As well as having data across all their activities and homes, it is essential that landlords know their tenants, understand their needs and design and deliver services that meet those needs. Our Transparency, Influence and Accountability Standard requires landlords to understand the diverse needs of their tenants and demonstrate that they take action to deliver fair and equitable outcomes for tenants. From our work this year we have seen that without accurate, up-to-date information about their tenants it is difficult for landlords to demonstrate how they are meeting these requirements.
Through our responsive engagement and inspections we have also followed up where there is evidence of potential issues with the quality of data underpinning rent setting, In some cases we have found there have been significant errors in the landlord’s rent charging.
In the case summary below the private registered provider took steps to improve the quality of its data for rent setting across its homes and strengthened its governance to minimise the recurrence of errors in tenants’ rents.
Case summary: Beyond Housing Limited
In September 2022 Beyond Housing Limited (Beyond) were downgraded to G2 and a regulatory notice was issued following a self-referral to us as it had identified rent errors for some of its homes. This was as a result of the misclassification of affordable rent properties as intermediate rent by Coast & Country Housing Limited which had merged with Yorkshire Coast Homes to form Beyond. This meant that rent had been overcharged for a number of tenants over a significant period of time which the landlord needed to remedy. The expectation in our regulatory standards is that landlords have comprehensive and robust information about their homes, with a specific requirement for accurate assets and liabilities records to be kept up to date. This takes on additional importance where a merger of organisations has taken place as this can increase the risk of inconsistent and incomplete records.
Beyond worked to gain assurance on the accuracy of rent setting across all of its homes, including a line by line review of all rents to strengthen its data and made improvements to its assets and liabilities register. We carried out an in-depth assessment (in-depth assessments were one of our previous assessment processes now replaced by our new regulatory inspections programme from 1 April 2024) in March 2024 and Beyond was able to provide us with assurance that it had addressed the weakness which led to its G2 governance grading and provided evidence of how it was now meeting the requirements of the Rent Standard. Beyond had made improvements in its governance processes and wider risk management and internal control framework alongside ensuring it now held comprehensive and robust data in its assets and liabilities register to ensure a strong basis for compliance moving forward. Beyond’s governance grade was upgraded to G1 and the Regulatory Notice was removed.
In the case summary below we found a local authority did not have complete, up to date information about the quality of its homes and could not provide reliable and accurate information about whether all of its homes were meeting the Decent Homes Standard.
Case summary: Southwark Council
Following a planned inspection of Southwark Council we published a C3 consumer grading. We concluded there were serious failings in Southwark Council delivering the outcomes of the consumer standards, including in relation to the Safety and Quality Standard.
Through our inspection we identified that Southwark Council did not have up to date information on the condition of its homes. Without this information Southwark Council was unable to demonstrate it was meeting the requirements of the Safety and Quality Standard in relation to stock quality. Southwark Council’s last stock condition survey was undertaken in 2010 on a representative sample of 10% of general needs properties, and 20% of street properties. Given the age of the survey and the extent it relied on cloned data, Southwark Council was not able to provide evidence of the quality of its homes, that its homes were free of hazards or that it was meeting all of the requirements of the Decent Homes Standard.
Southwark Council reported 30% of its homes did not meet the requirements of the Decent Homes Standard. However as Southwark Council did not have up to date information on the condition of its homes it was not able to provide an accurate and reliable figure for the number of homes which did not meet all of the requirements of the Decent Homes Standard.
We will continue our engagement with Southwark Council until it can provide assurance that sufficient change and progress is being made.
In the case summary below we found a local authority did not have accurate, up to date information about the quality of its homes or information about its tenants and their diverse needs.
Case summary: North Yorkshire Council
Following responsive engagement with North Yorkshire Council we published a C3 consumer grading. We identified there were serious failings in North Yorkshire Council delivering the outcomes of the consumer standards, specifically in relation to the Safety and Quality Standard and the Transparency, Influence, and Accountability Standard.
We found North Yorkshire Council did not have an accurate, up-to-date understanding of the condition of its homes through a lack of stock condition survey inspections and was unable to accurately report its levels of compliance with the Decent Homes Standard.
The Transparency, Influence and Accountability Standard requires landlords to take action to deliver fair and equitable outcomes for tenants, using relevant information and data to understand the diverse needs of their tenants and assess the fairness and equity of service outcomes for tenants. We found North Yorkshire did not have data on the characteristics of its tenants and did not have a process to keep the data it held up to date. This lack of tenant information meant North Yorkshire Council was unable to evidence that it understood the diverse needs of its tenants or that it could demonstrate that it could assess the fairness and equity of service outcomes for them.
We will continue to engage with North Yorkshire Council until it can provide assurance that sufficient change and progress is being made.
Keeping tenants’ homes safe
It is a fundamental responsibility for every landlord to ensure tenants’ homes are safe, including any associated communal areas. Our Safety and Quality Standard sets out the expectations for landlords which includes identifying and meeting all the legal requirements for health and safety as well as ensuring all remedial actions are completed in a timely way. For boards and councillors to be assured that they are meeting these expectations they need to have clear oversight that all health and safety requirements are being met. It is also essential that landlords use the information they have about their tenants and their individual needs to prioritise and tailor the actions and work required to ensure the safety of tenants’ homes.
In our regulatory inspections of landlords we have been able to gain clearer assurance where there are robust arrangements in place across all aspects of safety risks to tenants in their homes to ensure those are managed effectively.
These arrangements have included:
- Effective controls working in practice so that good quality data on assessments and remedial works is collected, monitored, updated and reported for all areas of landlord health and safety.
- Sufficient reporting to senior staff and governing bodies in order to facilitate appropriate challenge on performance and risks associated with safety checks, surveys and resulting remedial actions
- A proactive approach to seeking regular assurance on the adequacy of the framework in place and delivery of outcomes and regular review that the skills and capacity needed are available.
Through some of our inspections and responsive engagement however, we have identified landlords failing to complete or have evidence that assessments and checks had been completed for fire, gas, water, electrical, asbestos and lift safety. We have also found landlords who had not been able to provide evidence that carbon monoxide and smoke alarm regulations had been met. Some landlords had not met requirements in one area and others had not met requirements in multiple areas.
There have been some landlords who had completed assessments and checks but had not completed the remedial actions identified in a timely way. While risks had been identified they had not been acted upon to keep tenants safe. We have also seen examples where remedial actions have been closed without sufficient evidence to demonstrate that they had been correctly implemented.
In most of the landlords where we found they were not meeting their legal health and safety requirements we also found that boards or councillors were not receiving complete, accurate, up-to-date information about whether all assessments and checks were complete and whether remedial actions had been completed on time. It is essential that boards and councillors are able to scrutinise performance and ensure that action is taken when legal requirements are not being met, including self-referring to us.
In the following case summary we found a private registered provider which had not completed electrical safety checks and had issues with its management of health and safety compliance and damp and mould.
Case summary: Anchor Hanover Group
As a result of responsive engagement with Anchor Hanover Group (Anchor), we published a C3 consumer grading. Following a self-referral we identified there were serious failings in Anchor in delivering the outcomes of the consumer standards, specifically in relation to the Safety and Quality and Transparency and Accountability Standard. We also published a G3 governance grading as we found Anchor was not meeting the outcomes of the governance element of the Governance and Financial Viability Standard.
The self-referral made by Anchor identified that more than a third of its homes did not have a current satisfactory electrical safety inspection report and that there was a significant backlog of electrical remedial actions. Anchor also shared the outcome of a recent internal audit review that concluded it did not have sufficient understanding of the condition of its homes, with incomplete and unreliable information available on the presence of damp and mould in its homes. Anchor was not able to demonstrate that it took account of the needs of individuals living in homes where damp and mould has been reported. Anchor also shared an external review of its health and safety compliance which highlighted weaknesses across landlord health and safety. This included fire safety and water hygiene, with poor data quality and omissions in reported data hindering the comprehensive actioning of health and safety assessments and arising actions.
We found there were serious failings as we did not have assurance that actions required from health and safety assessments were being carried out within appropriate timescales. We found there was insufficient evidence in the design and delivery of landlord services of an effective approach to identifying the risks to tenants’ safety through assessments and then eliminating or mitigating against those risks.
In relation to governance, there was insufficient evidence that Anchor had an appropriate, robust and prudent risk and control framework, and that it had adequately managed and addressed key risks relating to landlord health and safety. We found that there were weaknesses in its use of information to drive improvement. Its decision making had not been consistently supported by accurate data. This had impacted the board’s ability to foresee and manage these risks in a sufficiently timely way.
Anchor’s board had not always applied lessons learnt across the organisation or identified where weaknesses in internal controls have wider impacts.
Anchor is working positively with us and has begun to deliver the necessary improvements. We will continue to engage with Anchor until it can provide assurance that sufficient change and progress is being made across the regulatory standards.
In the case summary below we found a local authority which was not meeting all legal health and safety requirements. It had not completed all safety checks or the remedial actions that had arisen from checks in a timely way.
Case summary: London Borough of Newham
Following a planned inspection of London Borough of Newham (LB Newham) we published a C4 consumer grading. From the evidence and assurance gained during the inspection, we identified there were very serious failings in LB Newham delivering the outcomes of the consumer standards, specifically in relation to the Safety and Quality Standard and the Transparency, Influence, and Accountability Standard.
During the inspection we found significant issues in relation to LB Newham not meeting legal fire and electrical safety requirements as well as not being able to provide assurance that it was meeting requirements of smoke and carbon monoxide detection regulations.
While LB Newham had completed the fire risk assessments for the buildings that required them, it had not completed the remedial actions identified in a timely way. We identified that there were more than 9,000 overdue fire safety remedial actions, of which more than 8,000 were overdue by more than 12 months. More than 4,000 of the actions were categorised as high risk during the fire risk assessments. LB Newham had plans to complete these overdue remedial actions but was unable to provide sufficient assurance that it was effectively mitigating fire safety risks for all homes affected in the meantime. LB Newham had not self-referred this matter to us.
We also found that LB Newham was not ensuring that it was adequately managing electrical safety. At the time of inspection more than 40% of LB Newham’s homes had not had an electrical condition test for more than 11 years. LB Newham had developed a programme to complete all overdue safety checks. However, it was only able to provide limited evidence on its mitigation of electrical safety risks while outstanding checks were completed, and was unable to provide sufficient assurance that it was effectively mitigating those risks in the meantime.
LB Newham was also unable to evidence that it is meeting the requirements of the smoke and carbon monoxide detection regulations for any of its homes, although it had provided information of a process of testing alarms.
We have been intensively engaging with LB Newham and will continue this engagement until LB Newham can provide assurance that sufficient change and progress is being made.
Demonstrating value for money
The Value for Money (VFM) Standard, with accompanying code of practice, is based around economy, efficiency and effectiveness, and its intention is to drive landlords to optimise those things in the delivery of their strategic objectives. Through our inspections of private registered providers we consider how a landlord is considering and taking action at both an operational level (optimising VFM in the activities they carry out) and at a strategic level (ensuring that VFM is considered and addressed in all strategic decisions).
Part of our assessment of the quality of a landlord’s governance is the approach to management of resources and assets which must be comprehensive and clearly linked to a landlord’s purpose and achieving its strategic objectives. That includes robustness of decision making, and having the organisation’s purpose and objectives foremost in minds when making decisions on use of resources. This is particularly important where there are competing priorities for resources. Landlords’ boards have difficult decisions to make to achieve quality and efficiency in service delivery for its tenants as well as investment in improving the quality of tenants’ homes and delivering new homes for those most in need.
Boards must have assurance that the cornerstone of their VFM foundations is in a strong understanding of absolute costs and how those change over time. The competing pressures on landlords’ business plans mean they need to take a wider view of investments into particular services or business streams, have up to date understanding of stock condition and how this informs strategic investment decisions and look at opportunity costs. It is important that landlords are able to demonstrate that they are using their financial capacity in the best way to achieve their purpose and strategic objectives.
Through our inspections of private registered providers we look for evidence that landlords’ boards are regularly considering whether the organisation is making the best use of its assets and resources. We seek assurance that there is an honest, evidence-based appraisal of alternative ways of delivering its purpose successfully.
Case summary: ForHousing Limited
In February 2025 we issued a regulatory judgement for ForHousing Limited (ForHousing) upgrading their governance grading from G3 to G2 and regrading its viability grading to V2. The judgement concluded that whilst ForHousing was meeting our governance requirements it needed to improve some aspects of its governance arrangements to support compliance.
Previously ForHousing had not delivered promised improvements to its governance arrangements, and unregistered entities within ForHousing’s then group structure had hindered its ability to deliver the outcomes of our standards, risks had crystalised and ForHousing needed to work closely with the regulator to establish a recovery plan to deliver improvements.
Since then, ForHousing undertook a fundamental business restructure, rationalised the scope of its activities and was able to strengthen its control framework and oversight of strategic risks.
ForHousing now needs to continue to make improvements to review the effectiveness of the changes made, including in relation to its committee and governance structures, its tenant scrutiny arrangements and ability to demonstrate outcomes in response to tenant feedback. In particular ForHousing needs to continue to ensure it is making the best use of its assets and resources as it continues to invest in improving the quality of its existing homes and continuing to develop new homes. This includes being able to evidence effective delivery of services to tenants, managing the increasing volume and cost of delivering services, specifically its repairs and maintenance programmes and increased understanding of the condition of its homes to inform the level of future investment required.
Integrating tenants’ views
Through our inspections and responsive engagement we have seen that landlords are using a range of methods to engage with their tenants. Our Transparency, Influence and Accountability Standard requires landlords to give tenants a wider range of meaningful opportunities to influence and scrutinise their strategies, policies and services. We do not prescribe which methods to use – that is for the landlord to decide taking into consideration their individual circumstances and what they know about their tenants. What is important is that councillors and board members seek evidenced assurance that tenant engagement is meaningful, there is a clear link to decisions made by the landlord and that tenants are informed how their views have been taken into account.
In our inspections this year we have seen many landlords offering a range of opportunities for different tenants to become involved in scrutinising their performance and strategies, policies and services. Some landlords involve tenants in regular, structured meetings, used to scrutinise areas of landlord delivery. Other landlords have used one-off opportunities for tenants to feedback or scrutinise a new policy or change to a service.. There are landlords who have decided to review their approach to tenant engagement where participation has been low and/or unrepresentative or they have been unable to demonstrate that tenant engagement has been meaningful and effective.
We have found that most landlords have some evidence of where tenant views, scrutiny outcomes and analysis from complaints have influenced how they deliver services and their priorities for investment. However, it is clear that there is a variation of the extent to which evidence can be given and landlords are continuing to build up levels of engagement and use this along with other data sources more effectively. Some landlords are able to demonstrate that boards, councillors and other groups are getting sufficient information from tenant insight and engagement to provide a structured way for tenants to influence and have their voice heard.
Landlords must also provide tenants with performance information, so they are able to scrutinise performance and hold them to account. This includes the publication of the Tenant Satisfaction Measures which help tenants understand their landlord’s performance. In our inspections we found examples of landlords working with their tenants to scrutinise and use the Tenant Satisfaction Measures and other performance information to identify and implement improvements to landlord services.
In the case summary below we found a local authority’s tenant engagement had not been effective so it was reviewing the opportunities for its tenants to influence its services and decision making.
Case summary: Central Bedfordshire Council
Following a planned inspection of Central Bedfordshire Council we published a consumer grade of C3 as it was failing to meet the requirements of the Transparency, Influence and Accountability Standard, as well as the Safety and Quality Standard.
During the inspection we found that there were only limited opportunities for tenants to scrutinise its performance or influence how its housing services were delivered. We were not assured that the opportunities that tenants could access were meaningful, so we could not see how they had influenced changes to strategies, policies or services. Central Bedfordshire Council had recognised that this was an area in which improvement was required and it was developing a new tenant engagement strategy and had plans for tenants to be included on its new landlord assurance board, which it had set up to review and scrutinise landlord performance.
Through the inspection, we also did not see evidence that Central Bedfordshire Council regularly provided its tenants with a range of relevant and accessible information, including about its performance in delivering landlord services. We found most information for tenants was only readily available digitally and tenants raised concerns about poor communication and a lack of face-to-face interaction. As a result, we could not see how tenants could meaningfully hold their landlord to account.
We found that Central Bedfordshire Council had plans to address these issues and we are engaging with it as it makes improvements in these areas.
In the following case summary we found a landlord had weaknesses in its approach to engaging with tenants who lived in higher risk buildings which required fire remediation works.
Case summary: Metropolitan Housing Trust
Following a planned inspection of Metropolitan Housing Trust, known as Metropolitan Thames Valley Housing, (MTVH) we published a C2 consumer grading as we identified weakness in its delivery of the outcomes of the Transparency Influence and Accountability Standard and Safety and Quality Standard.
During the inspection we gained assurance that MTVH had taken steps to assess its higher risk buildings and to complete fire remediation works in line with its programme. However, we found there was further work for MTVH to do to ensure it was engaging effectively with its tenants in these buildings, recognising the important role this plays in tenants feeling safe in their homes. MTVH had recognised this was an area which required improvement and was putting resource into the implementation of its building safety tenant engagement framework, and had begun to seek more in-depth feedback from tenants.
Through the inspection we did find that MTVH provided opportunities for tenants to influence its strategies, policies and decisions making and that changes were made to services as a result. We also saw evidence that MTVH provided tenants with accessible information about its performance and landlord services with work ongoing to improve this further.
Working with us to improve performance
Where a landlord identifies an issue that impacts on its delivery of the outcomes of our standards, we expect landlords to be open and transparent with us by making a self-referral at the earliest opportunity. In the cases where we find a landlord is not delivering the outcomes of our standards, when we publish our judgement, we engage with the landlord until the issues have been resolved.
In 2024/25 we received almost 250 self-referrals from landlords. This is a fundamental principle of our co-regulatory approach and is also a requirement of our standards. In every case where we received a self-referral we engaged with the landlord to understand the issues and how the landlord was responding. We published more than 20 Regulatory Judgements last year where we found landlords were not delivering the outcomes of our standards following responsive engagement. In almost all of these cases landlords had self-referred matters to us after they had identified them.
When we find that landlords are not delivering the outcomes of our standards or where there are weaknesses, we engage with landlords as they make improvements. It is always the case that landlords who have successfully resolved issues, have taken early action to understand the root cause of what they are trying to resolve. This goes beyond simply addressing the presenting issues, for example completing outstanding health and safety checks or correcting rents and refunding tenants. It is about fully understanding the underlying issues so that a coherent plan for sustainable improvement can be implemented. Where new issues are identified through the work to discover root causes, it is important that landlords are transparent with us and let us know early.
We have seen that landlords who engage effectively with us have positive engagement from senior leaders, including chief executives, councillors and board members. This provides us with assurance that there is recognition of the seriousness of the issues and that there is senior oversight and scrutiny of the improvement work. We have also seen examples where landlords have sought independent oversight of improvement work to ensure its effectiveness.
In the case summary below the local authority had not self-referred to us the serious failings we identified during an inspection.
Case summary: Castle Point Borough Council
In September 2024, through our routine engagement with Castle Point Borough Council (Castle Point BC), we learned that it had failed to collect and report Tenant Satisfaction Measures data in relation to tenant perception information for 2023-2024 which is a requirement of the Transparency, Influence and Accountability Standard. A regulatory judgement confirming a consumer grade of C3 was published in September 2024.
We subsequently carried out a planned inspection of Castle Point Borough Council (Castle Point BC) and published a consumer downgrade to C4. From the evidence and assurance gained during the inspection we concluded there were very serious failings in Castle Point BC delivering the outcomes of the consumer standards, specifically in relation to the Safety and Quality Standard and the Transparency, Influence and Accountability Standard.
The issues identified during the inspection include a failure to demonstrate it is meeting landlord health and safety legal requirements and a lack of data for an accurate understanding of the condition of its homes. Castle Point BC had no opportunities for tenants to influence and scrutinise its strategies, policies and services, and had failed to self-refer any of these issues to us before the inspection. Our judgement was that fundamental changes were required to the service to improve outcomes for tenants.
We are continuing to work intensively with Castle Point BC as it works to resolve these issues. We will maintain our engagement until Castle Point BC can provide assurance that sufficient change and progress is being made.