Responsive engagement with landlords
How we may engage with landlords where we have concerns.
Applies to England
Overview of responsive engagement
We may become aware of issues or potential issues concerning a landlord’s delivery of the outcomes of our standards from a range of sources. These include, for example, relevant information from programmed inspections, regular reviews of information that we carry out between programmed inspections, and referrals. We receive referrals from tenants and other stakeholders, including self-referrals made by landlords. Landlords are required to tell us of any material issues that relate to non-compliance or potential non-compliance with our standards. This is an important aspect of the co-regulatory approach.
Where we assess an issue or a potential issue to be material to a landlord’s delivery of the outcomes of our standards, we may carry out responsive engagement with that landlord.
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How we assess issues of regulatory concern, including examples of the factors we may use to help us.
Through our responsive engagement, we ask the landlord to provide evidence of how well it is delivering the relevant outcomes of our standards. Where we judge that a landlord needs to improve its delivery of those outcomes, we ask the landlord to provide evidence that it is making sufficient progress and improvement.
We may also decide to seek evidence about a landlord’s delivery of the standards outcomes in other ways, for example including relevant issues as an area of focus in a programmed inspection or carrying out an inspection that is not programmed.
Where we carry out responsive engagement, its focus is likely to be based on our view of the level of risk. If we suspect there are serious failings in the landlord delivering the outcomes of our standards or issues of serious regulatory concern, we may add the landlord to our gradings under review list.
Responsive engagement may lead to a range of decisions in relation to our regulation of the landlord concerned. An investigation into suspected serious failings or issues of serious regulatory concern may lead to a range of decisions, including decisions to:
- issue a regulatory judgement and (where applicable) grade for the landlord; and/or
- use regulatory or enforcement powers.
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We may also decide to close our responsive engagement. For example, we might decide not to explore the relevant issues further in view of evidence-based assurance provided by the landlord, or we might decide to explore the issues further in other ways, such as through a future programmed inspection.
Where we decide not to explore issues further, we may still use relevant information to help us identify any current or future patterns in issues arising with the landlord.
Landlord improvement
Where we have given a regulatory judgement that a landlord needs to improve its delivery of the outcomes of our standards, and we consider that the landlord is sufficiently willing and able to make the required improvement, we will normally carry out landlord improvement work.
Our landlord improvement work involves us continuing to engage with the landlord as it makes the required improvement. Its focus is on the landlord delivering long-term, sustainable improvements.
While our priority will be for landlords to deal with the most serious areas of risk without delay, we will want to see that the landlord understands the reasons for the weaknesses or failings identified, and develops and implements a robust plan to address them. We will expect the landlord to be responsible for designing and delivering appropriate improvement plans, with oversight from their boards or councillors and, where appropriate, evidencing meaningful engagement with tenants.
Once we are satisfied that the landlord understands the underlying causes for the weaknesses or failings and has developed a proposed improvement plan, we will consider how well the proposed improvement plan identifies:
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achievable improvements that are likely to address and avoid recurrence of the weaknesses or failings identified in the regulatory judgement (and any related weaknesses or failings that are relevant) and underlying causes;
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how these improvements will be delivered;
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realistic and achievable timescales for delivery of the improvements that are aligned with the seriousness of the issues, prioritising those with most impact or potential impact on tenants (in the context of our regulatory standards);
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robust ways in which the landlord will provide evidence, including any external assurance it plans to seek, that intended strategic outcomes (rather than individual actions or outputs) have been achieved;
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how the plan will support sustained improvement in the landlord’s delivery of the outcomes of our standards; and
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actions the landlord will take to deliver outcomes of our Transparency, Influence and Accountability Standard in relation to the improvement work. This includes, for example, the outcome to provide tenants with accessible information about actions it will take to improve performance. We expect landlords to share relevant improvement plans with tenants.
We will consider reasonable remedial strategies the landlord proposes, including relevant voluntary undertakings. See below for more information on voluntary undertakings.
Through the landlord improvement work process, we monitor landlords’ progress. We will expect landlords to regularly report to us to show their progress and that improved outcomes are being delivered, and for this to be supported by evidence. We may also hold engagement meetings with the landlord where we will discuss the landlord’s reporting and may challenge the level of progress or evidence provided.
In line with our regulatory approach, our landlord improvement work is proportionate and risk-based. Our level of engagement is usually more intensive where we consider that the relevant weaknesses and/or failings are more serious, and also at the start of our engagement while the improvement plan is being developed, and where there are key risks that we expect the landlord to address and mitigate more immediately. Over time, we may vary our level of engagement as our view of the level of risk may change.
It is expected that through our landlord improvement work the landlord will provide us with robust evidence and assurance that it has addressed the relevant weaknesses and/or failings, and that the process will lead us to conclude that the landlord has made the needed improvement in its delivery of the outcomes of our standards. Factors we are likely to focus on before reaching such a conclusion will include the evidence that improved outcomes have been delivered, and that sustainable improvements have been embedded that address the relevant issues.
There are a range of decisions about our regulation of the landlord that landlord improvement work may lead to. These include deciding:
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to issue a new regulatory judgement and (where applicable) grade(s). This could be an upgrade but may not be if, for example, we consider that the landlord has not developed and/or implemented an appropriate improvement plan within reasonable timescales;
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that an inspection should be carried out before we issue a regulatory judgement;
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to close our landlord improvement work and change our regulatory strategy with the landlord (because, for example, we no longer consider that the landlord is sufficiently willing and able to work with us for our landlord improvement work to be the right process); and/or
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to use regulatory or enforcement powers.
Upgrades
There are two routes to an upgrade. Upgrades can be made either following responsive engagement or following an inspection.
Which route we decide to be the most appropriate is likely to depend on a range of factors, including the type of regulatory engagement that led to our previous regulatory judgement (for example, an inspection or responsive engagement), how recently we published that judgement, and the breadth and depth of the issues we identified.
As our responsive engagement is generally narrower in scope than our inspections, we would usually expect responsive engagement to be able to support an upgrade only:
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of up to one grade; and
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where the landlord has had an inspection previously.
Where responsive engagement does lead to an upgrade, then it is likely we would decide that an inspection should be carried out before any further upgrade is considered, to provide a fuller assessment of how well the outcomes of our standards are now being delivered by the landlord.
Where we decide that an inspection should be carried out before we consider an upgrade, our decisions about the timing, approach and scope of this inspection will depend on the particular circumstances, and will take into account our need to take appropriate steps to implement our inspection plan and deliver a balanced inspection programme.