As standards across social housing continue to become more regulated, and the Government sets a date for stricter laws around damp and mould cases as part of Awaab’s Law, we look at the new Consumer Standards for registered providers. 

In this blog, Matthew Maouati, Southway Housing’s Assistant Director of Corporate Services talks through these new requirements and what Southway is doing to embrace new regulation and ensure good quality homes and services:

 

The new Consumer Standards were introduced in the Social Housing Regulation Act and came into force in April 2024. They were designed following consultation with tenants and people who work for housing associations and local authorities. They ensure that housing providers deliver high-quality services and maintain transparency, accountability, and safety for all tenants. There are four key areas.  

  1. Transparency, Influence, and Accountability Standard: This standard focuses on tenant influence, equality, and the handling of complaints. It includes Tenant Satisfaction Measures (TSMs) and being transparent with and accountable to our tenants.
  2. The Safety and Quality Standard: This standard ensures that repairs, property safety, and home improvements are managed effectively.  Come October, this will include the timescales introduced as part of Awaab’s Law.
  3. Neighbourhood and Community Standard: This standard concentrates on anti-social behaviour (ASB), hate crime, domestic abuse, and how we work with other agencies to make sure we are providing quality services.
  4. Tenancy Standard: This standard covers lettings, allocations, and mutual exchanges.  

Within each standard there are individual requirements and expectations for Southway. Some are straightforward, some are more complex, but we must comply with them all and demonstrate this when we are inspected by the Regulator of Social Housing (RSH). 

 

Regulatory inspections and judgements.

The RSH inspects social housing providers every four years. As well as the Consumer Standards, inspections focus on strategy, governance, risk, and financial management. They result in the following judgements:  

  • C1 (meeting standards) 
  • C2 (meeting most standards, but some room for improvement) 
  • C3 (serious failings and significant improvement required) 
  • C4 (very serious failings that require fundamental changes).  

C1 and C2 are compliant grades. C3 and C4 are non-compliant and any housing provider achieving these grades would need to work closely with the Regulator to make sure improvements are made.    

Since the introduction of these standards, only 20% of housing providers have achieved the highest C1 rating. The most common reasons for non-compliance are lack of data on tenants or the homes they live in, not dealing with property safety issues, poor complaint handling and repair delays.  

We will be undergoing our first inspection against the new standards in the next couple of months. We know that we will only be able to achieve a C1 grading if we are delivering the best possible services to you, listening to your feedback and using it to improve what we do.   

 

Southway's preparation and key projects 

We have identified the areas where we need to improve and have some important projects to work on.  They include: 

  • Repairs service improvements. Making sure that we deliver repairs to a high standard within timescales, taking on board your feedback to provide an even better service 
  • Stock condition survey. By March 2026 we will have surveyed every Southway home so that we know what improvements they need and can plan our budgets for this work. 
  • Tailoring services for our customers. -We have lots of information about the people who live in our homes, but we don’t always use it as well as we could. So for example, if you have a disability and need that to be taken into account when we are carrying out repairs in your home.  
  • Website. We are improving our website, making it easier for you to find the information you need, get in touch with us and access services. 
  • Dealing with complaints.  We have made some big improvements, and since November, we have responded to 100% of complaints on time. We have more to do so that we learn from your complaints and our mistakes  

The Regulator expects tenants to be involved in decision making and improving services. This is something we feel passionately about at Southway and will soon launch a new Customer Voice Strategy to help tenants find opportunities to get involved and learn more about what we can achieve when we all work together.  

We will be keeping you regularly updated, about the inspection and our progress complying with Consumer Standards over the coming months, but if you want to read more, the Regulator’s website has lots of information, including the outcome of inspections at other housing providers. 

 

Matthew Maouati - Assistant Director of Corporate Services