Sheffield City Council (00CG) - Regulatory Judgement: 9 July 2024
Updated 9 July 2024
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 | June 2024 |
Reason for publication
We are publishing a regulatory judgement for Sheffield City Council (Sheffield CC) to confirm a consumer grading of C3.
This is a result of our responsive engagement with Sheffield CC about the Safety and Quality Standard. This is the first time we have issued a consumer grade in relation to this landlord.
The Regulatory Notice that we published in January 2023, following a self-referral from Sheffield CC, found that it was not meeting the requirements of the Home Standard concerning a large number of overdue gas safety checks, and remains in place until those issues are resolved. The Home Standard was in place up until 31 March 2024.
Summary of the decision
Our judgement is that there are serious failings in how Sheffield 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 Sheffield CC.
How we reached our judgement
Following our earlier publication of the regulatory notice in January 2023 about Sheffield CC’s failure to meet the requirements of the Home Standard, we had ongoing engagement with Sheffield CC on those issues. In September 2023 we were made aware of a media report highlighting the high number of disrepair cases being managed by Sheffield CC, with more than 90% of them being completed outside of its own target timescales. The issue was identified by the media following Sheffield CC’s reporting of this performance issue to its Housing Policy Committee which is publicly available.
In response to the new information, we carried out responsive engagement with Sheffield CC on the disrepair issues. This included reviewing documents and data provided to us by Sheffield CC, with follow up meetings and discussions with Sheffield CC. During our responsive engagement we found evidence that Sheffield CC is not delivering the required outcomes of the Safety and Quality Standard. Our 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 Sheffield CC is delivering against outcomes of the Safety and Quality Standard.
Summary of findings
Consumer – C3 – June 2024
The Safety and Quality Standard requires landlords to have an effective, efficient and timely repairs, maintenance and planned improvements service for their homes.
Sheffield CC informed us that the levels of demand and waiting times for completion for repairs had increased significantly. In January 2024, it stated it had over 14,000 work in progress repairs outstanding, although by April 2024 this had reduced to around 10,000. It had also not been meeting its service standards for completing emergency and non-emergency repairs. Between January and April 2024, around 75% of planned repairs were completed outside of agreed timescales, and around 50% of routine repairs were overdue. The average timescale for completion of planned repairs was more than 120 days which significantly exceeds the service standard of 55 working days. Between January and April 2024, more than 90% of disrepair cases were completed outside of timescales.
Sheffield CC was unable to provide sufficient assurance to us that it had effective systems, controls or oversight of repairs. There was evidence that it had failed to take sufficient action to address the deterioration in repairs performance.
The Safety and Quality Standard also requires Sheffield CC to have an accurate and 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. It also requires landlords to ensure that their tenants’ homes meet the requirements of the Decent Home Standard.
We do not have assurance that Sheffield CC has accurate data on the quality of its homes and that its homes meet the requirements of the Decent Homes Standard, as we found evidence that Sheffield CC does not have an accurate record of the condition of its homes.
Sheffield CC has been engaging constructively with us and has put in a place a programme to rectify these failures, including commissioning a stock condition survey and the creation of improvement plans focussed on repairs, data quality and IT systems. Sheffield CC is carrying out a stock condition survey of its homes so it can develop an investment plan to address non-decency and delivery of repairs, maintenance and planned improvements.
We are engaging with Sheffield CC on an ongoing basis, including to confirm that it is taking reasonable steps to deliver its improvement plans as it continues to address the issues that led to this situation. Our engagement with the landlord 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 Sheffield CC seeks to resolve these issues.
Background to the judgement
About the landlord
Sheffield CC owns and manages more than 38,500 social housing properties and it is responsible for all statutory landlord functions within the Housing Revenue Account.
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.