Southwark Council (00BE) - Regulatory Judgement: 27 November 2024
Updated 27 November 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 | November 2024 |
Reason for publication
We are publishing a regulatory judgement for Southwark Council following an inspection completed in November 2024.
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, it is our judgement that there are serious failings in how Southwark 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, the Tenancy Standard, and our Transparency, Influence and Accountability Standard. Based on this assessment, we have concluded a C3 grade for Southwark Council.
How we reached our judgement
We carried out an inspection of Southwark Council to assess how well it is delivering the outcomes of the consumer standards as part of our planned regulatory inspection programme. During the inspection 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 Southwark Council’s housing, community safety and community engagement scrutiny commission meeting, and a meeting of the repairs improvement residents board. As part of the inspection, we met with engaged tenants, elected members, officers, and the cabinet member for council homes. We also reviewed a wide range of documents provided by Southwark Council.
Our regulatory judgement is based on all the relevant information we looked at during the inspection, as well as analysis of information received from Southwark Council through routine regulatory returns and other regulatory activity.
Summary of findings
Consumer – C3 – November 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 ensure that all required actions arising from legally required health and safety assessments are carried out within appropriate timescales.
Through our meeting observations and other inspection activities, we found serious failings in Southwark Council meeting these requirements and evidence that these failings have impacted negatively on service outcomes for tenants.
In respect of electrical safety, prior to the inspection, Southwark Council self-referred its failure to meet the legal requirements following an internal audit of its compliance with landlord health and safety requirements. At the time of the inspection over 50% of Southwark Council’s homes had not had an electrical condition test for over five years. In addition, at the time of the inspection over 50% of Southwark Council’s homes were without smoke alarms. Southwark Council had not self-referred this matter to us. Southwark Council has developed a programme to complete all the overdue electrical safety checks and install smoke alarms in all its homes.
In respect of fire safety, we identified that there were almost 2,000 overdue fire safety remedial actions, of which almost 100 actions were categorised as high risk by Southwark Council. Southwark Council has provided assurance that it has mitigations in place to manage the associated risks of these overdue actions, however the number of overdue actions remains a regulatory concern.
The Safety and Quality Standard also 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).
Through our inspection we identified Southwark Council does not have up to date stock condition information for most of its homes. Southwark Council’s last stock condition survey was undertaken in 2010 on a representative sample of 10% general needs, and 20% street properties. Given the age of the survey and the extent it relied on cloned data we do not have assurance that Southwark Council has a sufficient understanding of the condition of its homes to deliver the relevant outcomes in the Safety and Quality Standard. Furthermore, Southwark Council reported to us that around 30% of its homes do not meet the requirements of the DHS. Southwark Council has developed a specification for a full stock condition survey to improve its understanding of the condition of its homes and has plans to invest in its homes to reduce the level of non-decency.
The Safety and Quality Standard also requires landlords to provide an effective, efficient and timely repairs service for the homes and communal areas for which they are responsible. While the inspection has provided us with assurance that Southwark Council is delivering an effective repairs service, there is scope to improve consistency in repairs completion times. Evidence from our on-site work, and documents we saw during the inspection, indicated that this is an area of concern for tenants. The inspection has provided us with assurance that Southwark Council is prioritising its repairs and maintenance service to drive the improvements required.
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 Southwark Council 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 identified that Southwark Council is failing to allocate its homes in a fair and transparent way that takes the needs of tenants and prospective tenants into account. Southwark Council’s existing allocations strategy has not been updated since 2013 and the introduction of an annual lettings plan in 2023 has led to a lack of transparency in the allocation of empty homes. The Annual Lettings Plan aimed to respond to changing patterns of housing need and enabled Southwark Council to allocate empty homes outside of the published choice based lettings scheme. This is a serious failure in the delivery of the Tenancy Standard and prevented prospective tenants from bidding on some available homes. Southwark Council has acknowledged that it needs to improve its approach to allocations and a new allocations strategy has been consulted on and timetabled for approval.
The inspection found evidence that Southwark Council is offering tenancies or terms of occupation that are compatible with the purpose of the accommodation, the needs of individual households, the sustainability of the community, and the efficient use of their housing stock.
The Transparency, Influence and Accountability Standard includes the requirement for landlords to provide information so tenants can use landlord services, understand what to expect from their landlord, and hold their landlord to account. We observed a respectful approach to tenants during our inspection. However, Southwark Council does need to make some improvements in this area, particularly when we take into account the failure in relation to its allocation of empty homes, and the transparency of Southwark Council’s communications to its tenants about its failure to comply with landlord health and safety requirements, that focussed on the failings in relation to electrical safety and did not include the wider issues that Southwark Council had identified at the time.
Southwark Council has demonstrated that it understands the diverse needs of its tenants, with information collected through a robust tenancy audit process. We saw evidence that this information is used to identify support needs and tailor services. We found that there is scope for Southwark Council to strengthen its understanding of how its services deliver fair and equitable outcomes for tenants through analysis of service outcomes based on tenant characteristics.
The inspection identified weaknesses in how Southwark Council takes tenants’ views into account in its decision making and communicates how tenants’ views have been considered. There is a large and well-established formal framework of engagement opportunities, however the inspection found evidence that these are not consistently led by tenants, and that the feedback loop is not effective, leading to a lack of clarity on the impact tenants are able to have in shaping their landlord’s services.
Southwark Council recognises that improvements are needed to evidence the impact of engagement activity, including the route to decision making. A new engagement strategy has been developed with the input of tenants. Plans are also in place to procure an independent service to work with tenants to increase their involvement in governance and the scrutiny of landlord services. We will engage with Southwark Council as it makes improvements to its approach to tenant engagement.
The inspection found weaknesses in Southwark Council’s approach to supporting tenants to exercise housing management functions through Tenant Management Organisations (TMOs). This has contributed to breaches in the management agreements for three TMOs, resulting in poor outcomes for tenants. We saw evidence that Southwark Council is implementing a revised approach to engagement with its TMOs and it is imperative that it continues to work with its TMOs to ensure that outcomes are delivered and tenants’ voices are heard.
We do not have assurance that Southwark Council is meeting the specific expectations on the provision of performance information to tenants to support effective scrutiny of landlord services. There is limited information on performance and improvement activity routinely available or reported to tenants, undermining tenants’ capacity to hold their landlord to account.
The Transparency, Influence and Accountability Standard 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. The inspection found weaknesses in how Southwark Council is delivering these outcomes. Delivery of a service improvement plan for complaints management is well progressed, however this has not yet translated into improved outcomes for tenants. Complaints reports indicate that Southwark Council is focussed on learning from complaints but responding to complaints within relevant timescales is a key area targeted for improvement, and there is a backlog of open complaints to resolve. We did not see evidence of Southwark Council sharing information with tenants about the type of complaints received and how this information is used to improve its services. We will continue to monitor the improvements through on-going engagement with Southwark Council.
Southwark Council has been engaging constructively with us. It has an understanding of the issues it needs to address and is taking action to rectify the failures identified. Southwark Council has confirmed that a comprehensive specification has been developed and is being market tested for a new stock condition survey, and a programme to carry out the outstanding electrical safety checks and install smoke alarms is being implemented.
We will continue to engage with Southwark Council as it seeks to address the issues that have led to this judgement. Our engagement will be intensive, and we will seek evidence that gives us the assurance that sufficient change and progress is being made. Our priority will be that it is taking reasonable steps to mitigate risks to tenants as it delivers its improvement plan. We are not proposing to use our enforcement powers at this stage but will keep this under review as Southwark Council seeks to resolve these issues.
Background to the judgement
About the landlord
Southwark Council owns around 36,800 social housing homes in London. Most homes are under direct management by Southwark Council (around 32,000 homes) and the rest are managed through tenant management arrangements, although Southwark Council remains ultimately responsible for its social housing homes that are managed in this way.
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.