In less than four months the Regulator of Social Housing (RSH) will introduce the biggest change to social housing regulation for a decade. This will affect all councils who own and manage social housing. It's crucial that senior officers and portfolio holders know what to expect from us, and what we expect from them.

Our new regulation centres on stronger consumer standards to help protect tenants and drive improvements in landlord services. We received a significant volume of feedback when we consulted on them recently, including from tenants. This year we introduced new Tenant Satisfaction Measures that all landlords need to collect, and we will start a programme of regular inspections of larger landlords (those with 1,000+ homes) from next April.

The changes are a result of the July 2023 Social Housing (Regulation) Act. The Act itself is the Government's policy response to the Grenfell Tower fire and the tragic death of Awaab Ishak in Rochdale.

We are taking up a stronger, more active role to make sure social landlords are providing safe, good-quality homes and services for their tenants, and that tenants are able to influence decisions that affect them.   

We are building on our existing regulation of councils, who have needed to meet our existing consumer standards since 2010. We also started regulating local authority rents in 2021.

This gives us a good understanding of how local authorities work and the pressures they face, including financial and recruitment challenges. We also understand the political environment in which they operate and we have developed strong relationships with sector bodies, including the Local Government Association. We are continuing to recruit people with the skills and backgrounds to regulate councils effectively.

We are in the final stages of developing our new regulatory approach and engagement with councils has been instrumental in getting us to where we are today. We have carried out pilot inspections to make sure they make a meaningful difference to tenants and allow us to check that councils meet the outcomes in our standards. We are grateful to those councils who have participated in our pilots.

We will set out in detail early next year how the new regulation will work. But here is what you can expect.  

Our existing regulation is proportionate and outcome-focused. We set the outcomes that social landlords need to deliver. We don't provide ‘best practice' or ‘how-to' guidance: each organisation is responsible for achieving the outcomes and expectations set in our standards in the best way for its tenants. This approach will continue.

We will also continue to work constructively with organisations that identify problems and raise them with us. This is a cornerstone of our regulation: when a provider is willing and able to put things right and get back to delivering the standards' outcomes in a reasonable timeframe, we will do what we can to help them before using our powers. 

When it comes to inspections, we will give notice then request relevant information (such as data on repairs and maintenance), observe meetings and speak to key people (including relevant elected cabinet members and tenants) and assess a range of evidence (including Tenant Satisfaction Measures results, which all social housing providers should be collecting already).

Those familiar with our regulation of large housing associations will know that we use grades to indicate how well they are delivering the outcomes in our governance and viability standards. G1/G2 and V1/V2 are acceptable grades (though improvement is still possible) and anything lower is unacceptable. Tenants and other stakeholders value the transparency this brings which helps them hold landlords to account. We expect to communicate the new consumer gradings in a similar way and we will provide more detail early next year.

We expect that across the sector, councils and housing associations will need to go on a journey before they achieve the top grades. We see in our existing regulation that the sector has room for improvement. For example, some providers including local authorities are still not achieving the fundamental requirements for fire, gas and asbestos safety. And there is also significant work for providers to do in making sure they meet the Decent Homes Standard and understand the condition of their tenants' homes.

To help get ready for our stronger regulation, we recommend that portfolio holders and senior officers assure themselves that their organisation delivers against our existing consumer standards. If they don't, they will likely struggle to meet the new ones. Our consumer regulation reviews are a useful reference point. They set out important lessons from previous cases and show what providers have done to put things right. 

Lead members and officers have an important role to play in delivering good quality homes and services for tenants. We are gearing up for our new role and we look forward to working with councils even more closely from April 2024 to help deliver better outcomes for social housing tenants.

Angela Holden is director of regulatory engagement at the Regulator of Social Housing