Canterbury City Council fails to meet consumer standards

Canterbury City Council has become the latest local authority to fail to meet the Regulator of Social Housing’s consumer standards.

The Kent local authority, which manages more than 5,000 homes, was awarded a low ‘C3’ grade after it was found by inspectors to have breached the safety and quality standard, which requires landlords to meet all health and safety legal requirements.

In a judgement today, the Regulator of Social Housing (RSH) said: “While there is evidence that Canterbury CC is meeting some of its statutory requirements, there are serious failings in maintaining performance and completing remedial works to the required levels consistently across all areas, which was also reflected in a recent internal audit of landlord health and safety.”

The RSH also found that Canterbury did not have accurate or up-to-date information on the condition of most of its homes. At the time of inspection only one in four homes (27.5%) had been surveyed.

“While Canterbury CC has plans to complete surveys for all its stock, it is unable to accurately report the number of homes that meet the Decent Homes Standard. This is a serious failing,” the regulator said.

Canterbury also did not have a current adaptations policy to meet tenants’ needs, with works incomplete. RSH found weaknesses in the council’s reporting and monitoring of anti-social behaviour and delays in responding to tenants’ complaints.

Angela Holden, director of regulatory engagement at RSH, said: “We will continue to engage with Canterbury City Council as it works to address these issues, including taking steps to mitigate risks to tenants as it delivers its improvement plan.”

Responding to the judgement, Suzi Wakeham, joint chief executive of Canterbury City Council said: “Referring ourselves was the right and honest thing to do when we spotted weaknesses in our stock condition data, recognised our poor performance in dealing with tenant complaints and realised we needed better data about our tenants so we can ensure we engage with all of them effectively and ensure our services are easy to access.

“Officers are working hard every day to deliver our service improvement action plan and we will keep in close touch with the regulator on our progress.”

In other regulatory judgements today, the regulator found two landlords, Trident Housing Association and Cambridge City Council have regained compliance with the rent standard after previously charging tenants incorrect rents.

Trident, which owns 3,400 homes in the midlands, had its governance grading upgraded. The landlord was found to have regained compliance with the rent standard after making improvements. Last December it was found to have serious failings in meeting the standard after charging incorrect rents to tenants.

Regarding Cambridge City Council, which received a compliant ‘G2’ for governance, RSH said: “We saw evidence that Cambridge CC has strengthened its approach to rent setting, acting on third party advice as well as undertaking internal audits to ensure that its data is accurate.

”The council has put in place effective and transparent arrangements to refund impacted tenants.” Cambridge, which manages 7,600 homes, was previously found to have charged around half of its residents incorrect rents.

Cambridge and Trident, alongside Lewes and Eastbourne councils, all received C2 gradings following planned inspections. This means there are some weaknesses in their delivery of the outcomes of the consumer standards and improvement is needed.

Latest RSH regulatory judgements