London Borough of Wandsworth (00BJ) - Regulatory Judgement: 26 February 2025
Published 26 February 2025
Applies to England
© Crown copyright 2025
This publication is licensed under the terms of the Open Government Licence v3.0 except where otherwise stated. To view this licence, visit nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3 or write to the Information Policy Team, The National Archives, Kew, London TW9 4DU, or email: psi@nationalarchives.gov.uk.
Where we have identified any third party copyright information you will need to obtain permission from the copyright holders concerned.
This publication is available at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/london-borough-of-wandsworth/london-borough-of-wandsworth-00bj-regulatory-judgement-26-february-2025
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 | February 2025 |
Reason for publication
We are publishing a regulatory judgement for London Borough of Wandsworth (LB Wandsworth) following an inspection completed in February 2025.
This regulatory judgement confirms a consumer grading of C3. 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, we have concluded that there are serious failings in LB Wandsworth delivering the outcomes of the consumer standards and significant improvement is needed, specifically in relation to the outcomes in our Safety and Quality Standard. Based on this assessment, we have concluded a C3 grade for LB Wandsworth.
How we reached our judgement
We conducted an inspection of LB Wandsworth to assess how well it is delivering the outcomes of the consumer standards, as part of our planned regulatory inspection programme. We considered all four of the consumer standards: Neighbourhood and Community Standard, Safety and Quality Standard, Tenancy Standard, and the Transparency, Influence and Accountability Standard.
During the inspection we observed LB Wandsworth’s executive scrutiny committee for housing and the Borough Residents’ Forum (comprising tenants and chaired by the lead member for housing). We met with tenants, officers, the leader of LB Wandsworth, and the councillor who is the portfolio holder for housing. We also reviewed a wide range of documents provided by LB Wandsworth.
Our regulatory judgement is based on all the relevant information looked at during the inspection as well as analysis of information received through routine regulatory returns and other regulatory engagement activity.
Summary of findings
Consumer – C3 – February 2025
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 ensure that all actions arising from required health and safety assessments are conducted within appropriate timescales. In respect of electrical safety, at the time of the inspection almost 80% of communal areas and around 40% of homes had not had an electrical safety test. Until the current programme, which began in 2021, LB Wandsworth had only completed tests when a home became vacant. Since the inspection, the number of outstanding communal and domestic tests has reduced, 75% of communal areas and 70% of homes now have tests, and LB Wandsworth has a plan to complete the remaining tests. We will continue to engage with LB Wandsworth as it completes all tests and remedial actions.
In respect of fire safety, we identified that there were almost 1,800 overdue fire safety remedial actions. Although none of the actions were categorised as high risk by LB Wandsworth, (two thirds were categorised as being of no severity or best practice), they were all more than 12 months overdue. LB Wandsworth has a plan for completing all actions. LB Wandsworth provided assurance that it was meeting legal requirements in other areas of health and safety, although in respect of water safety, asbestos management and lift safety many of the tests and surveys had been completed in the months before our inspection. During the inspection we found limited evidence of oversight of health and safety performance by councillors or tenants.
The Safety and Quality Standard also requires landlords to have an accurate, up to date and evidenced understanding of the condition of its homes that reliably informs its provision of good quality, well maintained and safe homes for tenants and to ensure that their tenants’ homes meet the requirements of the Decent Homes Standard (DHS). Through our inspection we saw evidence that LB Wandsworth does not have up to date information on the condition of most of its homes. LB Wandsworth surveyed a sample of its homes in 2022-23 with just under 6.5% of its homes and 275 blocks being surveyed. Its previous survey had been in 2012, which surveyed a similar proportion of homes. Given the limited survey data LB Wandsworth currently holds, we do not have assurance that LB Wandsworth has a sufficient understanding of the condition of its homes to deliver the relevant outcomes in the Safety and Quality Standard. LB Wandsworth reports that 5% of its homes do not meet the requirements of the DHS, however, this is based on the limited information it has about the condition of its homes. LB Wandsworth had existing plans to survey the remainder of its homes that it has accelerated following the inspection. We will continue to engage with LB Wandsworth as it completes this work.
The Safety and Quality Standard also requires landlords to provide an effective, efficient and timely repairs service for the homes and communal areas for which they are responsible. LB Wandsworth provided us with assurance that overall it is delivering an effective repairs service, although it continues to make improvements to reduce the number of overdue repairs. Using data from the Tenant Satisfaction Measures and other tenant surveys, LB Wandsworth has identified that tenants are not always satisfied with the repairs service. LB Wandsworth has plans to explore this with tenants to identify the causes and improvements required.
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 and hate incidents in the neighbourhoods where they provide social housing. We saw evidence that LB Wandsworth deals effectively with anti-social behaviour and hate incidents in line with its policy and procedures and in partnership with relevant organisations. We also have assurance that LB Wandsworth is working co-operatively with tenants and other landlords to take reasonable steps to ensure the safety of shared spaces and increase wellbeing in communities.
In relation to the Tenancy Standard, we saw evidence that LB Wandsworth is offering tenancies or terms of occupation that were 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.
The Transparency, Influence and Accountability Standard sets out the outcomes landlords must deliver about being open with tenants and treating them with fairness and respect so that tenants can access services, raise complaints, influence decision making and hold their landlord to account. LB Wandsworth has provided evidence that it understands the diverse needs of tenants and has identified that it needs to strengthen the processes for updating information its holds on tenants. We saw limited evidence of how it uses the information to assess whether the housing and landlord services deliver fair and equitable outcomes for tenants.
We identified weaknesses in how LB Wandsworth takes tenants’ views into account in its decision making and communicates how tenants’ views have been considered. LB Wandsworth has a well-established formal framework of engagement opportunities; however, we found that opportunities to become involved were not open to all tenants (only those who were members of a residents’ association) and there was limited evidence of tenant-led engagement. While there were other opportunities for tenants to be involved, we saw evidence that these were generally focussed on local changes or improvements. LB Wandsworth has recognised that it needs to improve informal routes of participation and to involve more tenants.
We saw evidence that LB Wandsworth provides relevant and accessible information so tenants can use landlord services and understand what to expect from their landlord. However, there was limited performance information in relation to health and safety requirements.
The Transparency, Influence and Accountability Standard also requires landlords to ensure complaints are addressed fairly, effectively, and promptly. We saw evidence that LB Wandsworth meets the requirements although it has identified that it needs to improve satisfaction with complaint handling and the response times for complaints.
LB Wandsworth has been engaging constructively with us and has put in a place a programme to rectify these failures, including work to complete outstanding health and safety checks and actions, improve its understanding of the condition of its homes, and making improvements to its tenant engagement and complaint handling processes.
We are engaging with LB Wandsworth as it continues to address the issues set out in this judgement. Our engagement will be intensive, and we will seek evidence that gives us the assurance that sufficient change and progress is being made, including ongoing monitoring of how it delivers its improvement programme. Our priority will be that risks to tenants are adequately managed and mitigated. We are not proposing to use our enforcement powers at this stage but will keep this under review as LB Wandsworth seeks to resolve these issues.
Background to the judgement
About the landlord
LB Wandsworth owns around 17,000 social housing homes in London. Most homes are under direct management by LB Wandsworth and the rest are managed through tenant management arrangements, although LB Wandsworth remains ultimately responsible for its social housing homes that are managed in this way.
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.