Decision

Nottingham City Council (00FY) - Regulatory Judgement: 15 January 2025

Published 15 January 2025

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	January 2025

Reason for publication

We are publishing a regulatory judgement for Nottingham City Council (Nottingham CC) following an inspection completed in January 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 Nottingham CC delivering the outcomes of the consumer standards and significant improvement is needed, specifically in relation to the outcomes in our Safety and Quality Standard and Transparency, Influence and Accountability Standard. Based on this assessment, we have concluded a C3 grade for Nottingham CC.

How we reached our judgement

We conducted an inspection of Nottingham CC 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 a Nottingham CC executive housing oversight board meeting (comprising councillors and officers), a tenant Anti-Social Behaviour service improvement meeting and two tenant housing assurance board (scrutiny) meetings. We met with tenants, officers, the leader of Nottingham CC and the councillor who is the portfolio holder for housing. We also reviewed a wide range of documents provided by Nottingham CC. 

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 – January 2025

The inspection has found serious failings in how Nottingham CC is delivering the outcomes of the consumer standards and evidence that this has had a significant impact on service outcomes for tenants. Our judgement is based on the scale and breadth of the issues identified during the inspection. The issues include a high proportion of homes without a recent stock condition survey and a lack of confidence in the information Nottingham CC holds about its homes, as well as poor repairs performance with issues around data integrity, and poor outcomes for tenants from the adaptations service. We found no evidence that tenants’ views are considered in decision making about landlord services, limited evidence that performance information is provided to tenants and weaknesses in how the information Nottingham CC holds about its tenants is used to ensure equitable outcomes.

The Safety and Quality Standard requires landlords to have an accurate record at an individual property level of the condition of their homes based on a physical assessment of all homes and ensure that homes meet the requirements of the Decent Homes Standard. We have limited assurance that Nottingham CC has an accurate, up-to-date, and evidenced understanding of its stock quality and decency as it has not surveyed almost 40% of its homes for more than ten years. We also found limited oversight by Nottingham CC of the quality of its homes. This is a serious failing for Nottingham CC.

Nottingham CC has recently commissioned a stock condition survey to address these failings, and then intends to undertake a five-year rolling programme. We saw Nottingham CC has plans to use the information to inform its programme of improvements to its homes. We will continue to engage with Nottingham CC as it takes action to improve the quality of its homes.

Nottingham CC could not provide assurance that it delivers an effective, efficient and timely repairs service required by the Safety and Quality Standard, which is a serious failing. Nottingham CC is unable to accurately report average repair times due to system failures and is using a manual process to cleanse its repairs data. It does not have confidence in the integrity of its data and does not provide this information to tenants or senior leaders. Evidence indicated repairs is an area of concern for tenants and a significant driver of complaints. Nottingham CC also told us it has almost 1,000 live disrepair cases. It told us that procuring a new system is a priority and we have seen evidence of plans to clear the disrepair backlog We will continue to engage with Nottingham CC as it seeks to deliver an improved 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 ensure that all actions arising from legally required health and safety assessments are conducted within appropriate timescales. Nottingham CC provided evidence it is meeting statutory health and safety requirements. However, we identified weaknesses in its approach to capping gas supplies when it could not gain access to complete gas safety checks and monitoring of compliance with smoke and carbon monoxide detection requirements. Nottingham CC told us it no longer uses gas capping where it cannot access a property.

We have limited assurance that Nottingham CC is assisting tenants seeking housing adaptations to access appropriate services. Nottingham CC told us it does not have an adaptations policy, and we found weaknesses in how Nottingham CC’s landlord function works with other council departments to deliver an effective service to tenants. Performance against timescales is poor, with 20% of adaptations completed against Nottingham CC’s target of 95% in August 2024.

The Neighbourhood and Community Standard states that landlords must 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 Nottingham CC deals effectively with anti-social behaviour and hate incidents in line with its policy and procedures and in partnership with relevant organisations.

In relation to the Tenancy Standard, we saw evidence that Nottingham CC is offering tenancies or terms of occupation which are 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.

We have some assurance Nottingham CC is meeting the requirements of the Transparency, Influence and Accountability Standard. This 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 to deliver fair and equitable outcomes for tenants. During the inspection we observed a respectful approach to tenants, but evidence from surveys, an external report and complaints feedback indicates this is not the experience for every tenant.

Nottingham CC has provided evidence that it understands the diverse needs of its tenants and keeps this information up to date. It was unable to provide evidence of how its services deliver fair and equitable outcomes for tenants as it does not monitor or report on these. Nottingham CC has identified this as an area for improvement and it is included within its improvement plan.

We do not have assurance that Nottingham CC is using tenant engagement as a mechanism to influence how it delivers its services. Nottingham CC delivers a wide range of tenant engagement opportunities but could not provide evidence of tenants being meaningfully involved in decision making, or able to challenge decisions. We saw that Nottingham CC is delivering an improvement plan for tenant engagement and has developed a new housing assurance board, but this is not yet well established and from our observation, data and reporting needs to be more accessible and complete. Nottingham CC has recently introduced a new system to capture impact and outcomes. We will continue to engage with Nottingham CC as it makes improvements to tenant engagement.

Nottingham CC demonstrated that it provides some relevant and accessible information so tenants can use landlord services and understand what to expect from their landlord. However, we did not see evidence that performance information is provided to support effective scrutiny of landlord performance, as only repairs service standards were available on the website, and Nottingham CC recently added balanced scorecard information to its website. We saw that Nottingham CC has identified these issues as areas for improvement, including a review of service standards by tenants.

The Transparency, Influence and Accountability Standard also requires landlords to provide accessible information to tenants about the type of complaints received and how they have learnt from complaints to continuously improve services. We have assurance that Nottingham CC addresses complaints fairly, effectively, and promptly. We saw that Nottingham CC tracks complaints actions through to completion and learns from its complaints to improve outcomes for tenants.

Nottingham CC is engaging constructively with us and has a plan to rectify these failings. These include gaining a better understanding of the condition of its homes, new systems and processes for its repairs service, strengthening its tenant engagement strategy to ensure transparency, influence and accountability in the provision of services, and delivering an adaptations service which meets tenants’ needs.

We are engaging with Nottingham CC as it continues to address the issues set out in this judgement. Our engagement will be intensive, and we will seek evidence which gives us assurance that Nottingham CC is making sufficient change and progress, 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 Nottingham CC seeks to resolve these issues.

Background to the judgement

About the landlord

Nottingham CC is a city and unitary authority area in Nottinghamshire, East Midlands. Nottingham CC owns around 24,500 homes. From 2005 to 2023, Nottingham CC’s homes were managed by Nottingham City Homes (NCH), an Arm’s Length Management Organisation (ALMO). At March 2023, the ALMO was closed and management of the homes was transferred back to Nottingham CC. 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

Related documents

• Decent Homes Standard