New consumer standards and regulatory approach
The Regulator of Social Housing's new standards and inspection programme came into force on Monday 1 April 2024.
In February, the regulator published its new set of consumer standards and regulatory approach to deliver a "well-governed social housing sector" that provides quality homes and services for tenants.
After 1 April the regulator will assess landlords, like emh, against the new consumer standards and hold us to account by carrying out regular inspections and scrutinising data on tenant satisfaction and repairs.
Tenant satisfaction measures
Tenant satisfaction measures (TSMs) were introduced in April 2023 as a measure to assess how well social landlords in England and Wales are doing at providing quality homes and services. emh and other landlords with 1,000 or more homes are required to submit their first year of tenant satisfaction measures data this summer (June 2024). The TSMs were incorporated into the new Transparency, Influence and Accountability Standard in April 2024. You can view an easy read version here.
Parliament has given the regulator two main objectives:
- Economic objective: to make sure that registered providers (landlords, like emh) are well-managed and financially stable
- Consumer objective: to make sure that tenants get quality accommodation, have choice and protection, and can hold their landlords to account.
The four consumer standards are:
- Neighbourhood and Community Standard – Outcomes landlords must deliver about engaging with other relevant parties so that tenants can live in safe and well-maintained neighbourhoods and feel safe in their homes
- Safety and Quality Standard – Outcomes landlords must deliver about the safety and quality of tenants’ homes
- Tenancy Standard – Outcomes social landlords must deliver about the fair allocation and letting of homes and how tenancies are managed and ended by landlords
- Transparency, Influence and Accountability Standard – Including the Tenant satisfaction measures, this covers the outcomes landlords must deliver about being open with tenants and treating them with fairness and respect so that tenants can access services, raise complaints, influence decision making and hold their landlord to account.
To help tenants and landlords understand what is expected under the consumer standards and how landlords might deliver the outcomes of the standards, the regulator has published its Consumer Standards Code of Practice.