Regulatory Notice: Wigan Council (14 December 2023)
Published 14 December 2023
Applies to England
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RSH Regulatory Notice
- Provider: Wigan Council
- Regulatory code: 00BW
- Publication date: 14 December 2023
- Reason for publication: Consumer Standards
- Regulatory route: Reactive Engagement
Other providers included in the judgement
None
Regulatory Finding
The regulator has concluded that:
a) Wigan Council has breached the Home Standard; and
b) As a consequence of this breach, there was the potential for serious detriment to Wigan Council’s tenants.
The regulator will work with Wigan Council as it seeks to remedy this breach and will continue to consider what further action may need to be taken.
The issue
Through our engagement with Wigan Council, we identified it was not meeting all landlord health and safety testing requirements. We requested further information from Wigan Council to understand its statutory health and safety compliance performance in more detail.
Our investigation
As a registered provider, Wigan Council is required to comply with the consumer standards, including the Home Standard. The Home Standard requires registered providers to meet all applicable statutory requirements that provide for the health and safety of tenants in their homes.
In respect of gas safety,[footnote 1] Wigan Council has a statutory duty for annual gas safety inspections to be completed in all homes and communal areas by a registered engineer. At the time of our initial investigation, Wigan Council reported that gas safety inspections were overdue for more than 1,000 homes. The council has since reduced this number to around 700 homes.
In respect of fire safety,[footnote 2] Wigan Council has a statutory duty to regularly assess the risk of fire and to take precautions to prevent the risk of fire. Wigan Council reported there were more than 60 overdue fire risk assessments and it is working to complete these by March 2024. It also reported more than 800 overdue fire remedial actions, with over 150 categorised as high risk.
With regard to electrical safety,[footnote 3] Wigan Council is required to ensure that electrical installations are in working and safe condition both at the start of any tenancy and throughout that tenancy. Wigan Council reported that around 275 homes did not have valid electrical inspection certificates.
Wigan Council was also required by October 2022 to ensure it was compliant with new regulations for the installation of carbon monoxide detectors.[footnote 4] Wigan Council reported that whilst approximately 16,000 carbon monoxide detectors have been installed to date, around 10,000 still need to be fitted.
The regulator considered the case as a potential breach of parts 1.2 of the Home Standard and has concluded that Wigan Council does not have an effective system in place to allow it to meet its responsibilities to statutory health and safety compliance across a range of areas.
Complying with statutory health and safety requirements is a fundamental responsibility of all registered providers because of the potential for serious harm to tenants. Wigan Council has demonstrated to the regulator that it now understands its responsibilities and is completing the work it needs to undertake to ensure the required statutory health and safety checks are completed promptly. However, taking into account the seriousness of the issues and the number of tenants potentially affected, the regulator has concluded that Wigan Council has breached the Home Standard and that there was a risk of serious detriment to tenants during this period.
Our engagement
Wigan Council has put in place a programme to rectify these failures. The regulator will work with Wigan Council as it continues to address the issues that have led to this situation, including ongoing monitoring of how it delivers its health and safety programmes. We will continue to keep our use of statutory powers under regular review through our engagement with Wigan Council.
Section 198A of the Housing and Regeneration Act 2008 (as amended) states that the regulator’s regulatory and enforcement powers may be used if a registered provider has failed to meet a consumer standard. In order to use regulatory or enforcement powers, as well as the failure to meet the standard, there should also be reasonable grounds to suspect that the failure has resulted in a serious detriment to the provider’s tenants (or potential tenants) or that there is a significant risk that, if no action is taken by the regulator, the failure will result in a serious detriment to the provider’s tenants (or potential tenants).
About our Regulatory Notices
Regulatory notices are issued in response to an event of regulatory importance (for example, a finding of a breach of the Rent Standard or of a consumer standard that has or may cause serious harm) that, in accordance with its obligation to be transparent, the regulator wishes to make public. More detail about Regulatory notices is set out in Regulating the Standards.