By Alistair McIntosh, HQN CEO

Long ago, at this time of year, I’d have been devouring The Victor Summer Special. Now I’m going through the RSH’s Casework Review as the rain lashes down on Lamlash. Back then my favourite character was Alf Tupper, the Tough of the Track. He only ate fish ‘n’ chips and whooshed past all other runners. Alf was from the north so think of him as a prototype Andy Burnham. I’m quite certain the RSH’s bold inspectors don’t eat fried food. But how tough are they? What are the key lessons from their Casework Review?

Talk to us is the big message. The RSH wants to hear of problems early via self-referral. After an inspection, they’ll keep in touch to see how you’re faring on your improvement plan. I know a senior person at HMRC and what they often say to people that are complaining about their bills is that the taxman isn’t clairvoyant. You have to keep HMRC in the loop to pay the correct tax. By the same token, you must keep the RSH informed to get the right C rating. It’s an eternal law.

Those improvement plans must drill down to the “root cause” of problems and state clearly who will do what and by when to rectify. You can’t just tick off half done actions, as the RSH will be peering over your shoulder. Guildford have just shown how to climb from C3 to C1.  There was strong engagement with the RSH throughout as the council implemented its “single prioritised plan”. The RSH agreed that this led to better service delivery, safety and resident engagement.

Talk to your residents is another mantra. Of course, the RSH sees the good in working with panels and the like. But they’re also keen to learn how you seek out and use the opinions of others. Sometimes they call this listening to the unfiltered views of residents.

By now we’re all a little tired of hearing from self-proclaimed data geeks. Take the felt tips off them I say! Yes, the RSH wants to know that you gather data on stock condition, safety and tenant characteristics. But there are two further tests. How do you know the numbers are accurate? That boils down to getting expert fresh eyes to validate the figures. Don’t mark your own homework.

And, most importantly, the second test: what do you do with the flaming data once you’ve got it? Or in other words, the good old ‘so what’ test.

As we gather reliable data on stock condition, it walks us into a dilemma. You do have to fix the issues that come out of the surveys. That’s the point of the exercise and it won’t be cheap. At the same time, we’re crying out for new homes to get children out of temporary accommodation. So, dealing with the stock survey can crowd out money for development. The RSH expects you to make trade-offs, but they’re well aware that usually there’s no perfect choice.

In their Casework Review, the RSH do point to good practice that they find. Helpfully, they say that “Islington and Shoreditch HA’s board had been overseeing the management of a challenging financial position whilst continuing to deliver its development programme and the ongoing fire safety remediation of its higher risk buildings”. Elsewhere, the RSH is critical of those that are slack on managing money and/or deliver poor VfM. That just makes the trade-off even harder.

Every board member and cabinet member for housing should study this review. It’s an excellent state of the nation summary. The RSH makes no bones about setting a high bar. You’ve got to be all over the detail about how you’re managing and repairing homes, keeping tenants safe and tailoring services around their needs. To do that, you must keep your own staff and those at contractors firing on all cylinders. Setting and keeping the right culture isn’t a job for the fainthearted.

As our HQN team goes around, almost everyone we meet knows what good looks like and puts in the hard yards to do a great job. What catches people out is what they don’t know. Given the wide span of the Consumer Standards, this can happen to any of us. At the very last minute before their inspection, Stockport unearthed problems with fire safety. That didn’t stand in the way of C1, because Stockport “…acted quickly to implement appropriate mitigations and has clear plans for the completion of the works”. Pace matters.

And that really is the final message. In the words of the C1 rating, you’ve got to be vigilant to identify when issues occur and put plans in place to remedy and minimise recurrence.

I’m already looking forward to next years Casework Review. Hopefully, for once it arrives during an actual summer!