Agenda item

Resolved

That Cabinet:

i)                Notes the receipt and contents of the Regulatory Notice dated 11 May 2022.

ii)               Authorises the Chief Executive, following consultation with the Director of Legal and Democratic Services (monitoring officer), to enter into a Voluntary Undertaking with the Regulator of Social Housing.

iii)             Notes that a further report will be brought to Cabinet by November 2022 informing it of the outcome of the response to the Regulatory Notice.

iv)             Notes that the report fulfils the requirements of the duty of the Monitoring Officer to report failings by the Council of statutory obligations.

Reason for Decision and Options Considered

Background

On 25 February 2022, the Council wrote to the Regulator of Social Housing (RSH), the body that provides independent oversight of all registered social housing providers including local authorities and Housing Associations and made a voluntary self-referral for a potential breach of the Home Standard. 

The Home Standard set out expectations for registered providers of social housing to provide tenants with quality, safe accommodation and a cost-effective repairs and maintenance service. The RSH’s role was to set those consumer standards and to intervene where failure to meet the standards had caused, or could have caused, serious harm to tenants.

As part of the 2021-22 Council internal audit programme, two audits, confidential Appendices A and B, were completed to assess the adequacy of the Council’s controls in place in relation to housing health and safety and fire safety compliance. The two audits concluded no assurance for fire safety, and limited assurance across other areas of health and safety statutory compliance.

In respect of fire safety, the Council had a statutory duty to regularly assess the risk of fire and to take precautions to prevent harm. Similarly, alongside specific statutory duties in relation to gas, electrical, asbestos and water safety, the Council had a duty under the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974 to not expose our tenants, and others, to risks to their health and safety. 

The fire safety audit found that the Council did not have effectivecontrols in place in relation to its responsibilities for fire safety. At the time of the audit, a significant number of Council properties were recorded as not having an in-date Fire Risk Assessment (FRA) andthere was no process to record and track FRA remedial actions. While the Council had recently improved and were able to provide assurance that all properties requiring an FRA had one in place, it was unable to state that all remedial works had been completed and monitored.

Similarly, the internal audit had identified failings across gas, electrical, asbestos and water safety, including that there was no evidence of monitoring of remedial works.

The RSH assessed the evidence provided as part of the self-referral and confirmed that the Council had indeed breached the Home Standard. As a result, the RSH published a Regulatory Notice on 11 May 2022 which was attached to the report as Appendix C. The Notice remained ‘live’ for 12 months or until full compliance was achieved.

Next Steps

Recovery

Since identifying the issues the Council had embarked on a rapid recovery programme overseen by a weekly Housing Safety Executive Board chaired by the Interim Chief Executive.  The Board’s focus was to aid the recovery to compliance through work to verify data and strengthen systems and processes.

To assist the recovery process the Chief Executive also commissioned an external review of the Council’s position on housing health and safety. This work had included a review of the information available on our current and projected situation on Health and Safety Compliance and through interviews with key staff, to identify weaknesses and understand any legacy issues that may be hindering performance. This work, completed by ARK consultancy, had now been completed and was attached to the report as Appendix D.

This external review had now been used to strengthen the recovery plan where appropriate and ARK themselves had been retained to provide assistance and oversight to the recovery programme. 

The Council’s approach was to be entirely transparent with tenants and leaseholds about the need to improve standards.  In March 2022 a special edition of Housing News was sent to all tenants and leaseholders telling them that the Council had voluntarily referred to the RSH and was being completely transparent about the need to improve safety standards.  The Spring edition of housing news provided a further building safety update to all tenants and leaseholders and alongside a statement placed on the Council’s website, provided information to the public about the regulator’s findings.   

Understanding the fundamental causes that led to the current situation. 

A further report currently being completed by Altair housing consultancy was underway and would forensically investigate the circumstances leading to the current poor performance and make recommendations on the competence and capability at an individual level that may have contributed to the situation. It would also examine the extent to which escalation of performance weaknesses took place to the Senior Leadership Team and beyond that to elected Members.

Working with the Regulator of Social Housing

The recovery plan set out the scope and timeline for improvements required to satisfy the RSH that the Council was meeting the regulatory standard and that the Regulatory Notice served could ultimately be removed. To aid recovery the Council had procured additional contractor resources to refresh the leadership of the Housing Service and deliver compliance work.

The role of the RSH was set out in the Housing and Regeneration Act 2008 (as amended). In broad terms the RSH was responsible for the economic regulation of registered housing providers and for setting and monitoring consumer standards such as how tenants’ homes are maintained and kept safe, how issues such as anti-social behaviour are tackled and how tenants are empowered to get involved in the decisions that affect them and their homes. 

All Council housing providers were subject to the consumer standards and the RSH would intervene if these were breached and there was a significant risk of serious detriment to tenants or potential tenants. The RSH was duty bound to perform its functions in a way that minimises interference and is proportionate, consistent, transparent, and accountable.

The RSH expects the Council to have systems such as audit, risk management and performance monitoring in place that allow the early identification of problems and take effective action to resolve them.

Where appropriate the Regulator expects providers to self-refer. The Council’s approach had been to acknowledge failure and take responsibility for self-improvement. In this instance it was very likely that the RSH would seek to work with the Council to achieve the necessary corrective actions.

Section 125 of the Housing and Regeneration Act 2008 allowed a social housing provider to present to the Regulator a Voluntary Undertaking. The report sought authority from Cabinet to enter into such an agreement.  If Cabinet agrees, the Council would approach the Regulator with a summary of the detailed compliance recovery action plan and make a binding undertaking that the Council would meet all obligations in the plan. The RSH would consider the content of this and would decide if the Voluntary Undertaking was sufficient to address the breach identified and if the terms of the Undertaking were satisfactory.  If the RSH agrees the Voluntary Undertaking would be entered into by the Chief Executive.