Newcastle City Council (00CJ) - Regulatory Judgement: 15 January 2025
Published 15 January 2025
Applies to England
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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 | January 2025 |
Reason for publication
We are publishing a regulatory judgement for Newcastle City Council (Newcastle CC) to confirm a consumer grading of C3.
This follows responsive engagement with Newcastle CC about the consumer standards. 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 Newcastle CC is delivering the outcomes of the consumer standards and significant improvement is needed, specifically in relation to outcomes in our Safety and Quality Standard and our Transparency, Influence and Accountability Standard. We have also found weaknesses in relation to how Newcastle CC is delivering the outcomes of the Neighbourhood and Community Standard where improvement is required. Based on this assessment, we have concluded a C3 grade for Newcastle CC.
How we reached our judgement
Newcastle CC made self-referrals to us in January 2024, May 2024 and September 2024 that identified several issues. These included concerns with its approach to handling damp and mould cases, the quality of the information it holds about its homes and how many meet the requirements of the Decent Homes Standard, and its approach to collecting information to understand the diverse needs of its tenants.
Our responsive engagement with Newcastle CC about these issues included reviewing documents and information provided to us by Newcastle CC and follow up meetings and discussions with Newcastle CC. This regulatory judgement is based on all of the relevant information we obtained during the responsive engagement process. In making our decision, we have considered how well Newcastle CC is delivering against outcomes of the Safety and Quality Standard, the Transparency, Influence and Accountability Standard and the Neighbourhood and Community Standard.
Summary of findings
Consumer – C3 – January 2025
The Safety and Quality Standard requires landlords to have an accurate, up to date and evidenced understanding of the condition of their homes that reliably informs the 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. Newcastle CC reported that its last stock condition survey was completed more than 10 years ago. In addition, Newcastle CC identified category one hazards under the Housing Health and Safety Rating System (HHSRS) present in more than 3,000 of its homes. Newcastle CC has started a programme of stock condition surveys but is currently unable to accurately report how many homes do not meet the requirements of the Decent Homes Standard. Given the absence of up-to-date stock condition survey information and limited sample of stock condition surveys undertaken to date, Newcastle CC has been unable to provide evidence that it has a sufficient understanding of its homes to deliver the outcomes in the Safety and Quality Standard and we cannot be assured that it is providing homes of decent quality to its tenants.
In relation to the repairs, maintenance and planned improvements service for its homes, in November 2024 Newcastle CC reported that over 1,800 repairs cases are overdue, and works are outstanding on over 1,000 damp and mould cases. Newcastle CC is developing plans to reduce the backlog of cases and improve its repairs service. We will continue to engage with Newcastle CC as it seeks to deliver an effective, efficient and timely repairs service for tenants.
The Safety and Quality Standard also 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 relation to electrical safety, in November 2024 Newcastle CC report that around half of its communal areas and a quarter of its homes do not have a current satisfactory electrical condition report. In relation to fire safety, while fire risk assessments had been completed for all buildings that required them, there were more than 850 overdue remedial actions. The majority of these were classed as medium risk, but a small proportion were categorised as high risk.
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. Newcastle CC told us that the tenant information it holds is incomplete and out of date, and currently there is no consistent process in place to ensure that information is updated as tenants’ needs change. Newcastle CC has embarked on a programme of tenancy audits to address this but does not yet have sufficient information to understand the diverse needs of its tenants or demonstrate that it can assess the fairness and equity of service outcomes for tenants.
The Transparency, Influence and Accountability Standard also requires landlords to take tenants’ views into account in their decision-making about how landlord services are delivered, through a wide range of meaningful opportunities for tenant influence and scrutiny of the landlord’s strategies, policies, and services. Newcastle CC told us that current opportunities for meaningful tenant engagement are limited, and that it plans to review its approach to tenant engagement to ensure tenants’ views are taken into account in their decision making.
The Neighbourhood and Community Standard requires landlords to work cooperatively with other agencies tackling domestic abuse and enable tenants to access appropriate support and advice. Newcastle CC reported that it does not have an up-to-date domestic abuse policy and identified that recording of cases needs to be improved. Newcastle CC has plans in place to address these weaknesses.
Taking into account the breadth and significance of the issues across the relevant outcomes of both the Safety and Quality Standard and the Transparency, Influence and Accountability Standard, as well as the weaknesses in the Neighbourhood and Community Standard, we have concluded that there are serious failings in the landlord delivering the outcomes of the consumer standards and significant improvement is needed.
Newcastle CC is engaging proactively and constructively with us on an ongoing basis and has acted transparently by making self-referrals where appropriate. Newcastle CC is taking steps to address the significant failures identified and has developed an improvement plan. We expect Newcastle CC to implement these improvements.
Our engagement with the landlord will be intensive and we will seek evidence to give us the assurance that sufficient change and improvement is being made, including ongoing monitoring of how Newcastle CC is delivering its improvement plan. Our priority will be that any relevant 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 Newcastle CC seeks to resolve these issues.
Background to the judgement
About the landlord
Newcastle CC has around 25,000 social housing homes including general needs homes and sheltered housing.
In 2004, Newcastle CC set up a wholly owned company called Your Homes Newcastle (YHN) to provide housing services on behalf of Newcastle CC. On 1 July 2024, YHN was decommissioned, and all homes and housing services were transferred to Newcastle CC.
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.