By Alistair McIntosh, HQN CEO

As the RSH motors past the halfway mark on inspections, have we now reached a tipping point? Three ALMOs got top marks in one day! Well done to everyone who pulled out all the stops to get there. This proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that it’s wise to invest in the right councils. They are professional, relentless and listen to tenants. But homes need improving and we know exactly what to do thanks to the 100% stock surveys. Come on, Steve Reed, get that cheque book out!

Let’s take a look at today’s batch of results for inspections and RSH follow-up engagement:

London Borough of Barnet (ALMO) C1- inspection
London Borough of Sutton (ALMO) C1- inspection
North East Derbyshire DC (ALMO) C1 (engagement following previous C2 inspection)
Clarion Housing Group C2 – inspection

 
Green Square Accord C2 – inspection
Phoenix Community C2 (investigation following previous C1 inspection)
Honeycomb Group C2 – inspection
London Borough of Hounslow C2 – inspection

The criterion for passing inspections remains the same. See last week’s briefing for the list of key factors.

Points of interest from this week include:

  • The inspection reports for councils and ALMOs are very different. In the council reports you get data on stock condition and safety. Facts are rare in housing association reports
  • No use is made of the mandatory perception metrics
  • Shared owners continue to be ignored by the regulator
  • Poor complaint handling is a big deal for the RSH – interestingly the Housing Ombudsman’s latest reports on maladministration rates paint a more positive picture at some landlords
  • No access for surveys and works moving up the agenda
  • Nothing at all on tenancy fraud (despite this being a prominent point in the Code of Practice)
  • The wide spread of Clarion’s activities is seen as a drag factor by the RSH
  • There’s plenty of ongoing engagement on problem areas by the RSH – though in the case of North East Derbyshire this led to an upgrade.

Sutton and Barnet are cheek by jowl with housing associations that also have C ratings. What a golden opportunity to compare and contrast. Why didn’t the RSH leap upon this? We learnt a lot by walking around the neighbouring estates of Barnet and NHG and Sutton and Clarion.

Here are the main points from this week’s reports:

London Borough of Barnet – managed by Barnet Homes ALMO

C1 – 59.4% overall satisfaction (not cited by RSH):

  • Accurate record of stock condition via physical surveys over past five years
  • Includes assessment against HHSRS
  • Actively targeting properties where access has been difficult
  • 97% decency – costed programme to remedy homes that don’t meet DHS
  • Systems in place to ensure health and safety of tenants in homes and communal areas
  • Clear plans to complete fire safety works
  • Repairs service is effective overall – “robust action plan” in place to improve service
  • RSH gained assurance on ASB and hate crime and the Tenancy Standard
  • Proactively closing gaps in knowledge of tenant characteristics
  • Positive impacts of resident engagement
  • Addresses complaints “fairly, promptly and effectively”, taking steps to improve complaint handling data, learns from service failures
  • LB Barnet “undertakes a substantial audit programme” to check quality of ALMO services.

London Borough of Sutton managed by Sutton Housing Partnership

C1 – 69.9% overall satisfaction (not cited by RSH):

  • Complies with statutory health and safety requirements with “strong governance and assurance mechanisms in place”
  • Up-to-date stock condition information for majority of homes, including HHSRS – 100% of homes covered by end of this year
  • 98.84% compliance with DHS – costed plans to get to 100%
  • Repairs service is “accessible, effective and timely” – increased capacity and funding for routine repairs following resident input
  • Dedicated team and case management system for DMC
  • Collaborates effectively with police and other departments on ASB and hate crime – working to improve case management after tenant feedback
  • Tenant engagement is “varied and accessible” with a “positive culture” and “positively impacted on service delivery in areas such as responsive repairs”
  • Tailoring services around tenants’ diverse needs and seeking to close gaps on data about household characteristics
  • Addressing complaints “fairly, effectively and promptly” overall – learning from complaints – need to go on “embedding recent changes”;
  • “Regular reporting and monitoring mechanisms in place to provide oversight of service delivery” between ALMO and the borough.

Clarion Housing Group

C2 – 63.7% overall satisfaction for tenants/40.4% overall satisfaction for shared owners (not cited by RSH):

  • Board gets assurance about health and safety compliance
  • Substantial progress on remedial actions following fire, electrical and lift assessments
  • Well established process to manage DMC with actions prioritised based on tenant vulnerabilities
  • “Inconsistency of its understanding of the condition of its homes across the extensive geography it operates in” and issues with “no-access”
  • “The board will need to ensure that the balance of reporting on the repairs service provides sufficient assurance on service quality and consistency across a service delivering at this scale”
  • RSH offers no figure for extent of survey or DHS compliance
  • Significant improvement on repairs service – only a small number of repairs over 90 days old
  • “Impactful tenancy sustainability” with support to reduce rent arrears
  • Aids and adaptations service needs to improve
  • “Complaints handling is assessed as a weakness” (Housing Ombudsman says maladministration rate of 60% versus 69% for similar landlords)
  • RSH will continue engagement with Clarion till it improves.

Green Square Accord

C2 – overall satisfaction 58.2% for tenants/41.8% for shared owners (not cited by RSH):

  • Significant backlog of fire safety actions so RSH will continue to engage
  • GSA good understanding of condition of homes
  • Reporting on DMC needs strengthening
  • “Significant backlog of overdue repairs”
  • Impact of engagement activities not always clear so RSH will continue to engage
  • Needs to do more to understand diverse needs of tenants
  • High level of complaints (yet Housing Ombudsman says 51% maladministration rate versus 64% for similar landlords)
  • RSH assured on dealing with ASB and hate crime and on Tenancy Standard

Phoenix Community Housing

C2 – 75% satisfaction (not cited by RSH):

  • Based on RSH investigation – previous inspection result was C1 in August 2024
  • At the 2024 inspection Phoenix had 230 overdue medium-risk FRA remedial actions, by June 2025 this had grown to 862 overdue actions
  • By September this had fallen back to 427 – with no high-risk outstanding
  • Must improve data integrity including refreshed internal audit programme
  • RSH says tenants are involved in decision making at all levels (an odd finding given that so many Phoenix decisions are wrong).

North East Derbyshire District Council – managed by Rykneld Homes ALMO

C1 – overall satisfaction 84.4% (not cited by RSH):

  • Upgrade from C2 at previous 2024 inspection
  • RSH engaged and saw improvements to knowledge of stock condition and complaint handling hence upgrade.

Honeycomb Group

C2 – 66% overall tenant satisfaction (not cited by RSH – Honeycomb breaks this down by 57% for online, 68.5% for phone and 70.3% face to face giving a total of 66%):

  • RSH assured on health and safety systems
  • Getting better at gathering data on homes and resident characteristics
  • Moving to new repairs contract to rectify weaknesses, early outcomes positive, RSH will continue to engage
  • Improvements on DMC driven by specialised team
  • RSH assured on Honeycomb’s approach to ASB and hate crime
  • Weaknesses on handling complaints so RSH will engage (Housing Ombudsman finds a maladministration rate of 67% versus the national rate for similar landlords of 70%).

London Borough of Hounslow

C2 – 69.6% overall tenant satisfaction (not cited by RSH):

  • Hounslow has surveyed 50% of homes over last five years and claims 96% DHS compliance – RSH will monitor to ensure all homes are surveyed
  • Overall OK on safety and quality but weaknesses with completion of overdue fire, water and electrical remedial actions
  • Need to improve reporting of compliance to councillors and tenants, including “installation of smoke and carbon monoxide detectors”– RSH will engage to make sure this happens
  • “Effective, efficient and timely repairs service”
  • Overall OK on dealing with ASB and hate crime
  • Need to improve tenant scrutiny and boost understanding of diverse needs of tenants– RSH will engage
  • Complaint handling deteriorated but getting back on track (Housing Ombudsman says maladministration rate is 84% versus 80% for similar landlords).