The Regulator of Social Housing has found that the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham has breached the Home Standard.

Following a self-referral, the regulator has concluded that LB Barking and Dagenham does not have assurance it has complied with statutory health and safety requirements in relation to fire, electrical, asbestos, gas, water and lift safety.

In respect of fire safety, the regulator has learned that more than one hundred properties did not have a fire risk assessment (FRA) in place, and for more than a thousand properties, the Council did not have a clear record of whether an FRA was required.

LB Barking and Dagenham is in the process of validating its fire safety data, however, at the time of the referral, it was unable to provide assurance that all properties requiring an FRA had one in place.

Furthermore, the council reported that for more than 16,000 of its domestic properties and more than 2,000 communal areas, it either did not have a clear record of whether a current electrical installation condition report was required, or could not evidence that such a check had previously been completed.

For asbestos safety, the evidence provided to the regulator showed that LB Barking and Dagenham did not have clear records for whether more than 1,000 properties with communal areas should be included on the asbestos survey programme.

Similarly, for gas safety, the evidence provided highlighted that almost 3,000 individual properties and 2,000 communal areas required data validation to establish whether they should be included on the gas safety programme.

In terms of lift safety, the council had over 100 communal assets on the lift safety programme; around a quarter of these did not have an up-to-date inspection.

For water safety, the council had no assurance of whether more than a thousand properties needed to be included in its water safety compliance programme.

For these reasons, the regulator concluded LB Barking and Dagenham breached the Home Standard, and that, as a consequence, there “was the potential for serious detriment to tenants”.

However, due to work being undertaken to fix these problems, the Regulator says it will “not take enforcement action at this stage” and will now work with the council to address the issues.