Decision

Portsmouth City Council (00MR) - Regulatory Judgement: 29 January 2025

Published 29 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 Portsmouth City Council (Portsmouth CC) to confirm a consumer grading of C3.

This is the result of responsive engagement with Portsmouth CC which focussed on 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 Portsmouth 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. Based on this assessment, we have concluded a C3 grade for Portsmouth CC.

How we reached our judgement

We began our responsive engagement with Portsmouth CC in August 2024, following information provided to us as part of Portsmouth CC’s Fire Safety Remediation Survey return. The survey response indicated potentially material issues in relation to Portsmouth CC’s delivery of the outcomes of the consumer standards. Our initial engagement focused on fire safety, but we also requested that Portsmouth CC provide us with further information on wider aspects of landlord health and safety. Portsmouth CC subsequently made a self-referral to us in September 2024, following the conclusion of its self-assessment against the consumer standards, which identified a number of areas of potential non-delivery of relevant outcomes.

Our responsive engagement with Portsmouth CC included reviewing documents and information provided to us by Portsmouth CC, along with follow up meetings and discussions with Portsmouth CC. This regulatory judgement is based on a review of all of the relevant information we obtained during the responsive engagement process, including Portsmouth CC’s self-referral. In making our decision, we have considered how well Portsmouth CC is delivering the outcomes of the Safety and Quality 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 their 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).

Portsmouth CC reported that it does not have up to date information about the condition of the majority of its homes and is therefore unable to evidence the accuracy of its reported compliance with the DHS. At the time of the self-referral, less than 40% of its homes had been surveyed within the last five years, more than a third had been surveyed more than ten years ago, and nearly 10% had no record at all. Additionally, stock condition surveys undertaken prior to 2024 did not include an assessment of hazards using the Housing Health and Safety Rating System. While Portsmouth CC has taken a number of steps to improve the information it holds, it cannot currently evidence that it has a sufficient understanding of its homes to deliver the relevant outcomes of the Safety and Quality Standard, and we cannot be assured that Portsmouth CC is providing homes of decent quality to its 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 to ensure that all required actions arising from legally required health and safety assessments are carried out within appropriate timescales.

In terms of fire safety, Portsmouth CC reported that all required Fire Risk Assessments (FRAs) had been undertaken but that following an internal change in how remedial actions are recorded and reported on, it had identified over 1,000 outstanding fire remedial actions, of which a small number were high risk. Subsequently, Portsmouth CC provided updated information that showed a reduction in the overall number of overdue actions and the number of high risk actions, but also identified that some high risk actions had been overdue for 12 months or more. Portsmouth CC has provided some assurance that it has mitigations in place to manage the associated risks of these overdue actions, however given the number of overdue actions, we are not assured that Portsmouth CC has adequate systems and processes in place to ensure that all required actions are carried out within appropriate timescales.

In respect of electrical safety, Portsmouth CC reported that over 85% of its homes have not had an electrical condition test for over five years, a number of which are located in high-risk communal blocks. Whilst Portsmouth CC reported that its policy is to complete higher risk remedial actions as part of its electrical testing process, it is unable to monitor or report on the completion of these actions.

Therefore, we do not have assurance that Portsmouth CC is meeting the outcomes in the Safety and Quality Standard.

The Safety and Quality Standard also requires landlords to provide an effective, efficient and timely repairs, maintenance and planned improvements service for the homes and communal areas for which they are responsible.

Portsmouth CC reported that it operates a demand-led repairs and maintenance service undertaking repairs at a time and date convenient to the tenant regardless of the nature of the repair and has only recently introduced emergency and routine repair definitions and associated target timescales. Due to the way that repair information is currently recorded, repairs performance in terms of timeliness cannot be easily reported. We therefore lack assurance that there is clarity for tenants as to what they can expect in terms of the repairs service, and that Portsmouth CC has adequate oversight of its repairs performance to enable it to ensure it provides an effective, efficient and timely repairs and maintenance service.

Considering the range of issues across relevant outcomes of the Safety and Quality Standard, it is our judgement that there are serious failings in how Portsmouth CC is delivering the outcomes of the consumer standards and significant improvement is needed.

Portsmouth CC has engaged constructively with us and acted transparently by making a detailed self-referral and is taking steps to address the serious failings identified and make significant improvements. This includes work to improve the information it holds on the condition of its homes; improve systems and processes to enable better monitoring and reporting relating to the safety and quality of homes; review reporting and recording processes for responsive repairs; and, to continue to improve its understanding of tenants’ needs (including in high rise and other high-risk buildings to identify and mitigate specific risks).

We are engaging with Portsmouth CC as it continues to address the issues that led to this judgement and we will seek evidence that provides 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 any 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 Portsmouth CC seeks to resolve these issues.

Background to the judgement

About the landlord

Portsmouth CC is a local authority in the south of England which owns around 15,600 social housing homes, of which 13,900 are general needs and 1,700 are supported housing.

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

• Decent Homes Standard