‘We have been working hard’: Lambeth welcomes housing watchdog report findings
A council landlord has welcomed feedback from the Government’s social housing watchdog after it was found to be “meeting standards” following recent failures.
The Regulator of Social Housing (RSH) announced last week that Lambeth council, which manages 23,628 social rented homes and 9,290 leasehold homes, has received a C2 grading.
The inspection was the first time that Lambeth has been judged under the watchdog’s new standards programme which came into place on April 1.
The RSH issues gradings from C4 where it has serious concerns about failings, through to C1 where all standards are met.
Lambeth is the first local authority landlord in the capital to receive a C2 grading from the regulator, with other inspected councils including Southwark and Hackney receiving a C3 rating.
Councillor Danny Adilypour, Lambeth’s Deputy Leader and Cabinet Member for Housing, Investment and New Homes said: “We have been working hard to improve council housing services, and therefore welcome the finding released by the regulator.”
The rating follows an on-site inspection, including a review of documents, which took place in August.
The inspection found that Lambeth is “meeting legal requirements” for health and safety, “deals effectively with anti-social behaviour and hate incidents” and “provides mechanisms for tenants to engage with it and scrutinise its performance”.
The report also noted that 99.7 per cent of Lambeth council managed homes have fire safety assessments and 98.7 per cent have gas safety checks.
Cllr Adilypour said: “This reflects that our ongoing work to improve housing services in Lambeth is having an impact. This independent finding is also supported by the data we have collected and improved feedback from residents.”
The inspection comes a year after the Housing Ombudsman announced that it was planning to inspect Lambeth over its complaint-handling. It was the first time the watchdog used its powers to inspect a council.
The RSH said improvements were visible but further work was still needed, specifically in Safety and Quality Standards and Transparency, Influence and Accountability Standards. The regulator noted that Lambeth has plans in place to achieve this.
Cllr Adilypour said: “Despite the progress we’ve made, we remain committed to further improvement. Too many of our tenants still experience housing issues, and we are determined to ensure we can best meet the needs of all.
“We know we still have a lot of work to do to improve our delivery of repairs and complaint handling. We’re determined to make improvements so that repairs are delivered quickly and easily and done right the first time around as often as possible.”
Pictured top: Lambeth council HQ (Picture: Robert Firth)