By Rob Gershon, HQN associate, council housing tenant and campaigner for regulatory reform

This year’s Residents’ Network conference focused on the key changes to social housing since the Grenfell Tower fire seven years ago and the impact they’ve had on the lives of residents.

The conference looked at the remit and powers of the Regulator or Social Housing, the Housing Ombudsman Service and the re-re-named Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, as well as the work of the new Building Safety Regulator.

I’m not going to offer a blow-by-blow account of everything that was discussed on the day, but instead focus on a couple of themes that stood out for me. Being a full-time carer for my wife is my main job these days, so I choose carefully what I get involved in from a housing perspective.

As one of the people leading the charge to bring about meaningful change post-Grenfell, particularly in the way the sector is regulated, I thought it’d be useful to see how things stood since the Social Housing (Regulation) Act came into effect.

I remain convinced that one of the essential roles it’s important for me to maintain is acting as a ‘critical friend’ to the sector, particularly around regulation and specifically the way registered providers are choosing to interpret the new Transparency, Influence and Accountability Standard.

I often feel alone in being more ‘critic’ than ‘friend’ but there were a lot of contributions throughout the conference from involved residents from across the sector who felt that the regulator wasn’t doing enough with its new powers where organisations are quite evidently getting things wrong.

There was a consensus in the room that, where some landlords are repeatedly appearing as examples of practice that needs improvement in Housing Ombudsman spotlight reports, or where C4 and C3 gradings had exposed pretty serious failings, there appeared to be a lack of clear and obvious action from the regulator.

Some of this might be due to the way that the regulator works directly with organisations behind closed doors, but I sensed an impatience from tenants and residents for poor performers to be made an example of, or at least for the failings to be discussed more openly in public so that other organisations can theoretically learn from them.

To counter this, HQN CEO Alistair McIntosh made it clear that even at the organisations graded C3 or C4 there were often good teams and good people trying to get things right, but that there are concerns over resourcing in some cases and a lack of clarity over what should take priority from the complete set of regulatory activity. Quite simply, should landlords focus on the G, V or C?

Of course, other attendees might have had different views about the way the regulatory changes have been implemented. It’s difficult to gauge everyone’s thoughts, but my sense from sifting through the virtual chat on the day and hearing residents ask questions was one of unease and impatience.

The apparent lack of resources and uncertainty over regulatory priorities is without doubt a matter of concern. I managed to ask the representative from MHCLG whether there would be additional funding for landlords who were struggling to meet all their responsibilities, and who would soon be asked to transform the way they deal with damp and mould once Awaab’s Law is eventually implemented.

The answer was a resounding ‘no information’ on this, which probably means ‘no’, but where organisations are already running into trouble with the ombudsman and the regulator, what are they supposed to sacrifice in order to meet their duties of providing decent homes and acting on repairs and maintenance and complaints?

As tenants and residents, we still don’t know the outcome of the consultation on Awaab’s Law and what pressure landlords have applied to make the legislation more practical or achievable. It’d be a shame if these measures ended up watered down for whatever reason.

The final thing I want to take issue with are the consumer gradings themselves. The speaker from the Regulator of Social Housing made it clear that the regulator doesn’t consider a C1 grading to be particularly ‘glamorous’ and that it expects landlords to be aiming to improve their offer to tenants “well beyond a C1”. Personally, I found this approach quite frustrating.

If a C1 isn’t a mark of excellence, then how can we point at landlords as exemplars of best practice within the sector? Judging by their press releases, landlords seem to think that a C1 or C2 is something to be proud of, but I don’t think it’s clear that the regulator or tenants should view a C1 as a minimum standard of competence rather than something to shout about.

With the forthcoming standard on professionalisation also trapped in consultation deadlock, tenants and residents don’t yet even have any clarity on what the regulated minimum standards are on two essential basics of landlording – competence and conduct.

As these are two of the fundamental tenets of being a social landlord, you’d think this would be a priority for the new government. Some landlords might recoil at the idea that their staff aren’t competent or do not conduct themselves in an appropriate manner, but as repeated ombudsman rulings and ongoing media coverage show, there are some organisations where much, much more needs to improve.

Although there are signs emerging that the new system might help landlords improve their service to tenants, it’s much too early to think that these much-needed and long-awaited changes are having the desired effect. Tenants might rightly feel a sense of disappointment and impatience at this, and their questions at the conference didn’t really produce any detailed answers from government about when the new powers will be put to more effective use.