Decision

Castle Point Borough Council (22UE) - Regulatory Judgement: 13 September 2024

Published 13 September 2024

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	September 2024

Reason for publication

We are publishing a regulatory judgement for Castle Point Borough Council (Castle Point BC) to confirm a consumer grading of C3.

This follows responsive engagement with Castle Point BC that focused on the Transparency, Influence and Accountability Standard. This is the first time we have issued a consumer grade in relation to this landlord.

Summary of the decision

Our judgement is there are serious failings in how Castle Point BC is delivering the outcomes of the consumer standards and significant improvement is needed, specifically in relation to outcomes in the Transparency, Influence and Accountability Standard. Based on this assessment, we have concluded a C3 grade for Castle Point BC.

How we reached our judgement

Through our routine engagement with Castle Point BC, we learned that it had not collected tenant perception information in 2023/24. Castle Point BC informed us that, without that information, it would be unable to submit the performance information required to deliver the outcomes of the Transparency, Influence and Accountability Standard.

Castle Point BC investigated the issues further, which confirmed it had failed to collect and report the Tenant Satisfaction Measures as set out in Tenant Satisfaction Measures: Technical requirements and Tenant Satisfaction Measures: Tenant survey requirements.

Our responsive engagement about the issue included reviewing documents and information provided by Castle Point BC, along with follow up meetings and discussions with council officers. Our judgement is based on all the relevant information we obtained during the responsive engagement process.

Summary of findings 

Consumer – C3 – September 2024

The Transparency, Influence and Accountability Standard requires landlords to collect and report annually on their performance using a core set of defined Tenant Satisfaction Measures (TSMs) in order to support effective scrutiny by tenants. Castle Point BC told us it had not collected TSM tenant perception information in the 2023/24 reporting year and so was unable to publish it, or to submit it to us. As a result, Castle Point BC’s tenants are not supported to effectively scrutinise its performance in delivering landlord services. Castle Point BC explained that the TSMs were not collected due to resourcing pressures at the time which meant its focus instead had been on the delivery of core housing services.

Taking into account the evidence we have seen, we have concluded that there are serious failings in how Castle Point BC is delivering the outcomes of the consumer standards and significant improvement is needed.

Castle Point BC is engaging constructively with us, and it has taken steps to recruit a senior officer to lead its housing service and carry out a review of the service that includes ensuring it is meeting legal and regulatory requirements. We are engaging with Castle Point BC as it continues to understand and address the issues that led to this situation. We are not proposing to use our enforcement powers at this stage but will keep this under review as Castle Point BC seeks to resolve these issues.

Background to the judgement

About the landlord

Castle Point BC is in Essex and owns around 1,500 social housing homes. It provides predominantly general needs accommodation, with some supported/sheltered accommodation.

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