Decision

Harlow District Council (22UJ) - Regulatory Judgement: 25 September 2024

Published 25 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 Harlow District Council (Harlow DC) to confirm a consumer grading of C3.

This is a result of our responsive engagement with Harlow DC regarding the Safety and Quality Standard. This is the first time we have issued a consumer grade in relation to this landlord. 

Summary of the decision

Our judgement is that there are serious failings in how Harlow DC is delivering the outcomes of the consumer standards and significant improvement is needed, specifically in relation to outcomes in our Safety and Quality Standard. Based on this assessment, we have concluded a C3 grade for Harlow DC.

How we reached our judgement

In response to new information received as part of the June 2024 Tenant Satisfaction Measures (TSM) submission, we carried out responsive engagement that focused on Harlow DC’s fire safety position. This responsive engagement included reviewing documents and information provided by Harlow DC and subsequent discussions with the landlord to better understand its position. Our judgement is based on all the relevant information we obtained during the responsive engagement process.

Summary of findings 

Consumer – C3– September 2024

The Safety and Quality Standard requires landlords to identify and meet all legal requirements that relate to the health and safety of tenants in their homes and communal areas, and that all required actions arising from legally required health and safety assessments are carried out within appropriate timescales.

In respect of fire safety, Harlow DC has a legal duty to regularly assess the risk of fire and to take precautions to prevent the risk of fire. Harlow DC currently reports that it has carried out fire risk assessments for just over 20% of its tenants who live in blocks that require them. Additionally, we have identified that there are over 500 overdue high risk remedial actions and around 1,500 overdue medium risk actions, of which more than 1,000 have been overdue for longer than 12 months. We have not seen detailed evidence of how the associated risks are mitigated in the period between remedial actions being identified and when they are completed.

Our expectation is that material issues such as those highlighted in this judgement, will be identified and raised proactively with us in a timely manner, rather than as part of an annual regulatory submission. We have reiterated to Harlow DC our co-regulatory expectations. We have also identified that, in this case, there was a lack of appropriate oversight of key safety information which contributed to information being submitted to us without sufficient scrutiny by Harlow DC.

To support achieving the outcomes of the Safety and Quality Standard, it is imperative that landlords have accurate information underpinning their safety programmes. Harlow DC has informed us that it has commissioned a third-party review of the accuracy and integrity of its landlord health and safety information, which we are exploring further as part of our ongoing engagement with it.

Considering the severity of the fire safety issues identified, we have concluded that there are serious failings in how Harlow DC is delivering the outcomes in the Safety and Quality Standard and that significant improvement is needed.

Harlow DC has been engaging constructively with us. It has employed the services of an external compliance consultant to develop a detailed improvement plan to address the failings identified. We have been informed that appropriate oversight of information relating to compliance is now in place and that the council is committed to putting right the issues outlined. Harlow DC has confirmed that it is working to complete the outstanding fire risk assessments, starting with the highest risk blocks.

We will continue to engage with Harlow DC as it seeks to address the issues that have led to this judgement. This includes evidencing that it is taking reasonable steps to mitigate risks to tenants as it delivers its improvement plan. We are not proposing to use our enforcement powers at this stage but will keep this under review as Harlow DC seeks to resolve these issues. 

Background to the judgement

About the landlord

Harlow DC owns around 9,100 social housing homes, including 12 high rise buildings over 18 metres.

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