Decision

South Derbyshire District Council (17UK) - Regulatory Judgement: 9 August 2024

Published 9 August 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	August 2024

Reason for publication

We are publishing a regulatory judgement for South Derbyshire District Council (South Derbyshire DC) to confirm a consumer grading of C3.

This follows responsive engagement with South Derbyshire DC 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 South Derbyshire DC 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. Based on this assessment, we have concluded a C3 grade for South Derbyshire DC.

How we reached our judgement

We began our responsive engagement with South Derbyshire DC following its self-referral to us in April 2024. It had identified issues within its housing service which included a lack of data about the condition of its homes, and a decrease in its tenant engagement activity.

During the period of our engagement, South Derbyshire DC highlighted additional concerns relating to its statutory landlord health and safety compliance. It also reported that tenant engagement activity had decreased since 2021 and it had not completed a self-assessment against the Housing Ombudsman Service complaint handling code.

Our responsive engagement about these issues included reviewing documents and data provided by South Derbyshire DC, along with follow up meetings and discussions with South Derbyshire DC. This regulatory judgement is based on all the relevant information we obtained during the responsive engagement process. In making our decision, we have considered how well South Derbyshire DC is delivering against outcomes of the Safety and Quality Standard and the Transparency, Influence and Accountability Standard.

Summary of findings 

Consumer – C3 – August 2024

The Safety and Quality Standard 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 South Derbyshire DC to us during our engagement with it demonstrates that South Derbyshire DC is failing to ensure that it meets a number of legal requirements in relation to health and safety.

Relating to fire safety, South Derbyshire DC reported that of its homes that require a valid Fire Risk Assessment, fewer than half have one in place. South Derbyshire DC was also unable to provide an accurate breakdown of the risk profile for outstanding fire remedial actions.

In relation to electrical safety, South Derbyshire DC told us that a number of homes did not have a valid electrical safety certificate, and more than 100 homes required further works due to unsatisfactory certificates. South Derbyshire DC was unable to provide information relating to overdue remedial actions and does not hold any data relating to smoke alarms and carbon monoxide safety.

The Safety and Quality Standard also requires South Derbyshire DC to have an accurate, up to date and evidenced understanding of the condition of its homes. It also requires landlords to ensure that their tenants’ homes meet the requirements of the Decent Homes Standard. South Derbyshire DC reported that its last stock condition survey was completed in 2018, covering only 10% of its stock. Given the absence of up-to-date stock condition survey data and taking into account the limited sample of stock condition surveys undertaken in 2018, we do not have assurance that South Derbyshire DC has a sufficient understanding of its homes to deliver the outcomes in the Safety and Quality Standard and we cannot be assured that South Derbyshire DC is providing homes of decent quality to its tenants.

The Transparency, Influence and Accountability Standard includes the requirement for landlords to provide information so that tenants can use landlord services, understand what to expect from their landlord, and hold their landlord to account. It also requires landlords to ensure complaints are addressed fairly, effectively, and promptly. South Derbyshire DC told us that its tenant engagement activity had decreased since 2021, and was unable to provide evidence that it had processes in place to ensure tenants’ views about how their landlord services were delivered could be taken into account. In addition, South Derbyshire DC has not completed the required self‑assessment against the Housing Ombudsman’s Complaint Handling Code.

Taking into account the breadth and significance of the issues across a number of health and safety areas, the lack of accurate data on stock quality and weaknesses in South Derbyshire DC’s approach to tenant engagement, we have concluded that there are serious failings in the landlord delivering the outcomes of both the Safety and Quality Standard and the Transparency, Influence and Accountability Standard and significant improvement is needed.

South Derbyshire DC is taking steps to address the failures including work to complete outstanding health and safety checks and actions, and to ensure it holds accurate data on the condition of its homes. South Derbyshire DC has commissioned an external review into its housing services and implemented improvements in its monitoring and reporting.

We are engaging with South Derbyshire DC as it continues to address the issues that led to this situation. Our engagement includes ongoing monitoring of how it is delivering its health and safety programme and ensuring it has accurate up-to-date records of the condition of its homes. We will also monitor how it is improving its approach to complaint handling and tenant engagement. 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. 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 South Derbyshire DC seeks to resolve these issues.

Background to the judgement

About the landlord

South Derbyshire DC owns around 2,935 social housing homes. 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