Decision

North Yorkshire Council (5179) - 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 North Yorkshire Council to confirm a consumer grading of C3.

This is a result of our responsive engagement with North Yorkshire Council about the Safety and Quality Standard and 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 that there are serious failings in how North Yorkshire Council 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 Transparency, Influence and Accountability Standard. Based on this assessment, we have concluded a C3 grade for North Yorkshire Council.

How we reached our judgement

We began our responsive engagement with North Yorkshire Council when it made a self-referral to us in May 2024. Following a merger of seven borough and district councils in April 2023 to form North Yorkshire Council, and a subsequent restructure of the housing service, North Yorkshire Council had identified a range of issues.  Those issues included a lack of reliable information about the condition of its homes, a failure to meet some aspects of landlord health and safety requirements, a lack of reliable information to support its understanding of and response to the diverse needs of its tenants, and limited and inconsistent meaningful opportunities for tenants to influence and scrutinise its services.     

Our responsive engagement process included reviewing documents and information provided to us by North Yorkshire Council, and follow up meetings and discussions with North Yorkshire Council. Our regulatory judgement is based on all of the relevant information we obtained during the responsive engagement process, including the self-referral. In making our decision, we have considered how well North Yorkshire Council is delivering the outcomes of the Safety and Quality Standard and the Transparency, Influence and Accountability Standard.

Summary of findings  

Consumer – C3 – September 2024

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 their provision of good quality, well maintained and safe homes for tenants. Landlords must ensure that tenants’ homes meet the standard set out in the Government’s Decent Homes Guidance.

The information provided by North Yorkshire Council demonstrates that it does not have an accurate or up to date understanding of the condition of its homes. While some stock condition surveys have previously been undertaken, North Yorkshire Council is not assured on the quality of data within these surveys and a programme of cyclical stock condition surveys was not previously in place. While North Yorkshire Council plans to complete surveys for all of its stock, it is unable to accurately report its current levels of compliance with the Decent Homes Standard and is unable to evidence the overall quality of its homes.

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 to ensure that all required actions arising from legally required health and safety assessments are carried out within appropriate timescales.

The information provided by North Yorkshire Council to us demonstrates that it is failing to meet some legal requirements in relation to health and safety, with particular challenges arising from the significant number of legacy systems inherited from its predecessor councils, resulting in issues with the quality of information held by North Yorkshire Council.

In respect of electrical safety, North Yorkshire Council confirmed that at the time of its self-referral, just over half of its homes had a current satisfactory electrical condition report. Additionally, relevant information is held across a number of systems, which limits North Yorkshire Council’s ability to report on the completion of remedial actions. North Yorkshire Council has provided us with details of its plans to complete electrical safety inspections for all of its homes and how these will be prioritised.

For fire safety, North Yorkshire Council reported that processes differed across its predecessor councils, information is held across different systems, and it is difficult to identify how many fire risk assessments are overdue and the total number of remedial actions outstanding. North Yorkshire Council is therefore re-assessing all properties and it has provided information on how it will mitigate risks to its tenants during this period.

In respect of water hygiene, North Yorkshire Council has been unable to verify which outstanding water hygiene checks and remedial actions have been completed and whether any of these are overdue. For asbestos, North Yorkshire Council was unable to confirm the number of homes it owns that are subject to specific requirements for asbestos management surveys and re-inspections. North Yorkshire Council has reviewed its approach to water hygiene and asbestos management and has plans in place to review all risk assessments and complete recommended actions.

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. It 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.

North Yorkshire Council told us that while it holds some information about its tenants, a number of legacy systems remain in place with varying functionality and limited ability to record information. Currently, no consistent information is collected, nor is there a consistent process in place to ensure that information is kept up to date as tenants’ needs change. Due to this, North Yorkshire Council cannot evidence that it understands the diverse needs of its tenants, or that it can assess the fairness and equity of service outcomes.

North Yorkshire Council has demonstrated that it is undertaking a full review of its current legacy mechanisms for engaging with its tenants, which vary considerably across its predecessor councils’ areas. It has plans to launch a new approach to tenant engagement, through the implementation of a new Tenant Involvement Strategy that will be developed to respond to the review recommendations. Other than this, while there are some examples of tenants’ views being sought on particular issues by North Yorkshire Council, opportunities for meaningful engagement with tenants appear to be limited.

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, we have concluded that there are serious failings in how North Yorkshire Council is delivering the outcomes of the consumer standards and significant improvement is needed.

North Yorkshire Council is engaging proactively and constructively with us, and has acted transparently by making a detailed self-referral and keeping tenants updated. We recognise the challenges that North Yorkshire Council has faced with a significant reorganisation, and it has recognised the need to consolidate systems and information, and implement new policies and processes. North Yorkshire Council is taking steps to address the failures identified, and has developed and is implementing a detailed improvement plan. We expect the landlord to implement these improvements and to continue to share information with tenants.

Our ongoing engagement with North Yorkshire Council will be intensive, and we will seek evidence to give us assurance that sufficient change and progress is being made, including ongoing monitoring of how it 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 North Yorkshire Council seeks to resolve these issues.

Background to the judgement

About the landlord

North Yorkshire Council (formerly North Yorkshire County Council) became a unitary authority on 1 April 2023, when the seven former district and borough councils in North Yorkshire were abolished and their functions transferred.

Three of the seven former authorities (Harrogate, Richmondshire and Selby) were stock-holding councils; now combined, North Yorkshire Council owns around 8,500 social housing homes.

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