Motion A.1: Response
to the Regulator for Social Housing’s C4 Judgement
Proposer: Cllr Luke
Cawley-Harrison
Seconder: Cllr Scott
Bentham - Emery
Council notes:
- The C4 consumer grade, signifying
“very serious failings” in how the Council is
delivering the outcomes of the consumer standards, handed to the
council by the Regulator of Social Housing;
- The “very serious
failings” identified in:
- Delivery of health and safety
requirements
- The provision of an effective,
efficient, and timely repairs, maintenance and planned improvements
service for the homes and communal areas for which the council are
responsible
- Delivery of adaptations
- Working in partnership with
appropriate local authority departments, the police and other
relevant organisations to deter and tackle anti-social behaviour
and hate incidents in the neighbourhoods where social housing is
provided
- Treating tenants with fairness and
respect
- Handling of complaints
- Communication with the regulator
regarding compliance with consumer standards, including not
providing full information to the regulator regarding overdue
remedial actions;
- That the Regulator for Social
Housing “has not yet seen sufficient evidence that [the
council] understands the potential risk to tenants and is able to
put matters right”;
- The 2023 Housing Ombudsman
investigation due to “persistent poor performance over damp
and mould complaints”, which resulted in a judgement that the
council had a “culture of apathy and acceptance of poor
practice” in its dealings with council tenants and
leaseholders, and criticised “extremely poor” handling
of leaseholder complaints; “unreasonable delays in the
landlord’s response to reports of disrepair”; and
“clear evidence of service failure”;
- The 2023 finding from the Regulator
of Social Housing that Haringey had caused “serious
detriment” to tenants after failing to complete several
remedial fire safety actions, including 4,000 which were high risk,
and not having up to date electrical safety reports for thousands
of homes;
- The year-long 2024 investigation by
Liberal Democrat councillors, which resulted in the uncovering of
at least seven cases where Haringey’s had failed to follow
legislation for charging leaseholders for major works, leading to
the council being forced to refund over £130,000 to
leaseholders;
- The most recent (2024/25)
comparative statistics on Tenant Satisfaction Measures, showing
Haringey is the worst council in the country for satisfaction with
repairs;
- That Haringey’s most recent
(2025/26) Tenant Satisfaction Measures show overall satisfaction at
just 46%; satisfaction with repairs at 50%, and satisfaction that
the home is safe at only 59%;
- The data from USwitch Energy showing Haringey was the most
complained about Local Authority for damp and mould in both 2025
and 2026, the only council with over 30 complaints per 10,000
social housing units in each year;
- Haringey’s housing
department’s rolling strike from October 2024 based on issues
including the repairs service “failing badly on its key
performance measures due to a failure of management” and
management “not taking staff and resident safety
seriously”.
Council
believes:
- That opportunities to begin
taking action on failures in the housing
service were consistently missed by the council in previous
years;
- That Haringey Council’s
defensive and adversarial culture has been a key barrier to
improving the service;
- That the council misled the
Regulator for Social Housing in failing to provide full information
about the backlog of fire safety remedial actions;
- That the council has failed to take
adequate learnings and accountability from the previous
self-referral to the Regulator;
- The council’s structural
reorganisation, combining the adult social care and housing
services into a single directorate, was not a sensible course of
action;
- The Housing Improvement Board, set
up after previous failings, has been shown to provide insufficient
protection in its current format to prevent further failures in
governance;
- That the Regulator’s report
detailing that the council supplied only partial information over
remedial actions, failing to provide full information of a new and
growing backlog, raises serious concern over what further
information may not have been shared with the Regulator, Housing
Improvement Board and other governance processes;
- That fundamental reform of
performance-based incentives and consequences for council staff is
needed if the service is to be turned around.
Council resolves
that the following executive action be strongly considered and
taken forward by the appropriate Senior Officers and Cabinet:
- To formally apologise to tenants and
leaseholders in writing for its failings;
- To carry out an immediate a root and
branch investigation into the council’s housing department
and the serious failures in the service, including all processes,
structures, record-keeping and delivery;
- To formally request a temporary,
targeted uplift in funding from central government to undertake
emergency remedial works, with appropriate oversight measures in
place;
- To commission an independent expert
organisation to run an emergency improvement programme;
- To reform the Housing Improvement
Board to include tenant and leaseholder representatives and
external specialists, to be chaired by an external and independent
expert, and to give it formal powers to recommend policy to
cabinet;
- To review and reform the current
structures for Resident Voice and Empowerment ensuring that
residents are being listened to and actions taken;
- To independently verify safety
assurance data, including fire safety compliance, electrical
testing and asbestos management;
- To produce open-book monthly
reporting on all areas of compliance and fire safety using live
data, published on the council website;
- To formally investigate the failure
to provide full information to the Regulator, and the actions of
individuals or processes that led to this;
- To undertake an immediate
independent governance review that will lead to a new Governance
and Accountability Policy for Housing that will include ongoing
governance, including executive oversight, and governance around
submissions to external bodies such as the Regulator;
- To introduce strict KPIs and
oversight mechanisms for all staff within the housing service,
including third-party contractors, with monitoring carried out
external to the service;
- To undertake an expedited complete
stock survey;
- To commence immediate action to
clear all compliance backlogs across the main six statutory
compliance areas, and provide live public reporting on this;
- To commence an immediate repairs
backlog review, writing to all tenants and leaseholders confirming
any recorded outstanding repairs relating to their property (or
none), and inviting them to respond with confirmation of items, or
the addition of unrecorded works;
- To introduce an automatic
compensation scheme for tenants and leaseholders for poorly done or
late repairs;
- To introduce independent post
completion spot-checks/auditing of repair works, and of complaints
handling;
- To introduce a new complaints learning and action delivery process
for housing complaints that leads to documented improved
outcomes;
- To engage in a department-wide
culture change process that places the interests of tenants and
leaseholders at the heart of the operating culture;
- To alter the Council’s formal
repairs sign-off process from operative sign-off to
resident-determined sign-off so repairs are only marked as
satisfactorily complete when residents say so;
- To introduce pro-leaseholder
reforms, including:
- Tripling the notice period for major
works
- Creating an optional sinking
fund
- Granting leaseholders the right to
find their own tradespeople to carry out works when issued a S20
notice.