Housing & Communities Overview & Scrutiny Panel - 19 March 2025

 

Social Housing Regulation Act (2023) Progress Report (Transparency, Influence and Accountability Standard)

Purpose

To provide Housing & Communities Overview & Scrutiny Panel with an overview of the Council’s progress of the Housing Department’s landlord function in meeting the requirements of the Social Housing Regulation Act (SHRA 2023).

 

The Act and its associated consumer standards came into force for all stock-owning registered landlords including councils in April 2024. This report focuses on the council’s progress against the Transparency, Influence and Accountability Standard. It is one of the four consumer standards landlords must deliver to meet the regulatory requirements set by the Regulator of Social Housing (RSH).

 

The Transparency, Influence and Accountability Standard as stated by the RSH:

 

“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.”

 

Our approach and preparation for improving outcomes for our tenants and preparing for future Inspection by the RSH against this standard is presented for scrutiny and oversight by the panel in this report.

Classification

Public

Executive Summary

This report follows the January 2025 report to the Scrutiny Panel regarding our progress towards meeting all the requirements of the SHRA (2023) including our preparations for inspection by the RSH.

 

It provided the panel with the background to social housing regulation, insight into the council’s service improvement journey, and an overview of our current landlord position in meeting the regulatory requirements and consumer standards.

 

We reported that the landlord service is progressing well with the gap-analysis work and its improvement plans to meet all the consumer standards over the coming months and achieve a compliant grading from the regulator.

 

This report looks specifically at the Transparency, Influence and Accountability Standard, highlighting the results of our self-assessment against this consumer standard and the identified gaps currently preventing full compliance against the standards that we are seeking to address. 

 

The council has not been inspected to date and the regulator has not published a timetable, however an inspection may come at any time before April 2028. The Transparency, Influence and Accountability Standard is the one that cuts across the other consumer standards and that’s why we have chosen to look at this one first for the purposes of this panel.

 

Recommendation(s)

That the Panel:

1.   Consider the Housing Department’s compliance against meeting The Transparency, Influence and Accountability Standard as part of preparedness for Inspection and make any further recommendations to the Portfolio Holder for Housing and Homelessness;

 

2.   Approve the principle that a TIG member or representative can attend this Panel in future to express views or challenge officer reports in person alongside the Portfolio Holder for Housing and Homelessness; and

 

3.   Consider the tenant accountability structure, as per Figure 1 in the report and support adoption by the Housing Department.

Reasons for recommendation(s)

Overall accountability for landlord compliance rests with the elected members of the council as a whole, rather than solely with the housing department’s landlord function, or with the responsible Cabinet or Portfolio holder.

 

This report is subsequently presented to the Panel for scrutiny, accountability, and transparency as part of the council’s governance arrangements.

 

The report also formalises the Council’s aim to achieve a compliant rating (C1/2) from the Regulator of Social Housing, and to provide assurance that the correct steps on our improvement journey are being taken particularly around amplifying the views of our tenants in landlord decision making.

 

Ward(s)

All

Portfolio Holder(s)

Councillor Steve Davies, Housing and Homelessness

Strategic Director(s)

Richard Knott – Housing and Communities

Officer Contact

Paul Thomas

Assistant Director - Housing

02380 285725

paul.thomas@nfdc.gov.uk

 

Introduction and background

 

1.        The Social Housing Regulation Act (SHRA 2023) was introduced by government following high profile failures in the social housing sector, namely the Grenfell Tower Fire Disaster in June 2017.

 

2.        The social housing regulations came into force for all stock-owning local authorities in April 2024. The RSH’s stated aim is to drive long term improvements in the social housing sector, and judgements are made on the landlords’ abilities to demonstrate compliance with all the consumer standards.

 

3.        The approach of the RSH is one of co-regulation where landlords are expected to self-assess, self-refer where there are serious failings including non-compliance with Health and Safety standards, and to use the consumer standards as a guide to drive improvements in service delivery and improve outcomes for tenants.

 

4.        The RSH begun inspecting social landlords from April 2024 and intends to complete its full inspection programme on a four-yearly cycle. Whilst our own inspection has not been timetabled by the RSH to date, we need to be able to demonstrate evidence of compliance against all the four consumer standards at the time of inspection; or upon request if the regulator seeks to investigate any reported compliance failures outside of its timetable of inspections.

 

5.        This is the first report in succession looking at each of the four main consumer standards in turn at panel meetings to give additional assurance about the implementation of each of the consumer standards:

 

·         Safety & Quality 

·         Neighbourhood & Community standard 

·         Tenancy 

·         Transparency, Influence & Accountability Standard

 

Transparency, Influence & Accountability Standard.

 

6.        We have chosen to begin with the Transparency, Influence and Accountability Standard (TIA) as this standard cuts-across the other standards and offers us the greatest opportunity for improving our current landlord offer to better meet the needs of our tenants. This has been identified by our on-going gap analysis work and illustrated by Graph 1.

 

7.        There is an additional consumer standard of Competence and Conduct that relates to the qualifications and behaviours of senior staff. This standard has not been fully adopted by the housing sector to date, though NFDC has entered a contract with the Chartered Institute of Housing to ensure that all its senior staff are qualified to CIH Level 4 & 5. Several senior staff and middle managers have already commenced this training since September 2024 as part of a rolling programme in the professionalisation of the housing department. The Conduct standard is applicable to all council staff and elected members.

 

Preparedness for Regulatory Compliance.

 

8.        The Council has taken proactive steps to prepare for the new regularly regime through approving a Corporate plan 2024 to 2028 that has been informed by housing need and has specific expected outcomes for council homes and tenants “baked in”. For example, it states as one of its aims is to: “Work with our housing tenants to understand their needs and provide high quality service standards in line with the government's new Social Housing Charter and regulatory regime” clearly stating the Council’s ambition to achieve a compliant grading from the regulator and provide better services for tenants.

 

9.        There are a range of other strategic related housing objectives included in the Corporate plan including ambitious targets for “affordable housing” delivery including developing new council homes. However, as the regulatory focus is on existing council homes and tenants, the Panel can be assured that the percentage score for overall tenant satisfaction with the Council as a landlord determined in the Tenant Satisfaction Measures (TSMs) is a key performance measure as stated in the Corporate Plan.

 

Openness with Tenants

 

10.    This approach continues with continued visibility of senior managers and the tenant engagement team, supporting the ‘tenant first’ message, and is complemented with a ‘tenant engagement’ new starter induction undertaken by the Tenant Engagement Manager.

 

·           Tenant engagement strategy

 

·           Training and briefings (teams and new starters)

 

·           Continued engagement offering support and advice to teams & challenging poor or inappropriate views.

 

·           Diverse Needs Training (inclusive of protected characteristics)

 

11.    Currently we offer a range of accessible ways for our tenants to contact us and access our services including face to face (on our estates and in our offices), verbally (telephone) and digital via email, webchat, and social media. We have an awareness of the complex needs of our tenants, and as a result will adjust our services based on the needs of those tenants, for example prioritising repairs when a vulnerability is identified.

 

 Fairness and Respect

 

12.    We recognise we need to do more in this area, so are currently undertaking a data collection exercise with our tenants (12 month project which commenced summer 2024), to ensure our data is current and relevant. With this data, we will then be able to shape our services proactively.

 

13.    Our data collection exercise has been specifically commissioned to ensure that we have a better understanding of our tenant makeup. We are asking all households to provide us with the most up to date picture of their household composition and circumstances including who lives in our homes, the personal characteristics of those people and families, and crucially, whether there are any disabilities or complex needs that those tenants would like us to be aware of.

 

14.    This is not a data collection exercise for the sake of it, our intention is to use this data to inform future service delivery, target campaigns and services where they are needed the most, and ensure that, where possible, tenants are receiving a tailored service based on their needs.

 

15.    Understanding our tenant’s diverse needs allows us to shape our services and ensure we meet the needs of our tenants and their households. For example – knowing how our tenants prefer to communicate with us will enable a focus on future communication priorities. This exercise will also ensure we are further meeting the requirements of the regulator.

 

16.    Opportunities also remain to ensure we are ensuring data integrity with all of our Housing Service Officers. A planned training programme is currently being drawn up to ensure our Housing Management and Maintenance teams know how to keep tenant data up to date, and how to use the data to ensure services are tailored to tenants needs and expectations through the following opportunities:

 

·           Data collection exercise

 

·           Awareness of complex needs and asking tenants at point of contact.

 

·           Start to understand and tailor services.

 

·           Accessible – rage of ways to communicate including “GoVocal” our digital platform for our on-going engagement with tenants. 

 

17.    Our Tenant Involvement Group (TIG) – which is our formal engaged group of tenants, who meet monthly and hold us to account by scrutinising services. They are a passionate and engaged group, representative of our tenant population as 67% of our tenants are over 50 yrs with 45% being 60 yrs plus. They have recently been bolstered by three ‘new’ members being recruited following a campaign in 2024.

 

18.    The TIG set their own agenda based on data and what they consider the priorities for tenants and have told us that they feel that have an important role in our governance arrangements and have regular opportunities to speak to and influence the Housing Portfolio Holder, who in turn champions their views as appropriate in the governance structure (Fig.1)

 

19.    This group is further supported by a Tenant Approved Panel, who can review our services remotely and provide a valuable set of eyes and ears to help hold the council to account. the Tenant Approved Panel is made up of eighteen actively involved tenants.

 

20.    Engagement is further supported by regular outreach activities conducted by the Tenant Engagement Team, to ensure the wider tenant population have opportunities to have their voice heard and be listened to outside of our usually service delivery.

 

21.    The Tenant Engagement Team regularly attend 4 communities HUBs within our geography and have also conducted two ‘door knocks’ over the last 18 months to speak to tenants who may not usually contact us. This has given us further data on what we do well and what can be improved – data which is then fed back to service managers and service delivery staff and incorporated into new policies and working practices.

 

22.    An example of how these tenants have been able to influence our services over the last 12 months can be shown through the Tenant Complaint Scrutiny exercise completed in April 2024, where the Tenant Involvement Group were supported in their request to scrutinise our approach to complaints following the first round of TSM results. The TIG made 5 recommendations to senior managers which were used to change services and inform our response to the Housing Ombudsman.

 

23.    Service changes and improvements, such as our approach to service charges have also been reviewed by tenants following a thorough consultation, given tenants the opportunity to hold us to account and take part in the consultation through a range of accessible methods, including face to face in their community, as well as digital options to be undertaken at a time convenient to them.

 

24.    We then have many other opportunities for tenants to be in involved in shaping our services as per the following menu of options:

 

·           Any day to day interaction with us and our teams (making it easy for ANY tenant to hold us to account)

 

·           Tenant Gateway - a direct link to Councillors and Senior Managers, the Tenant Gateway enables the tenant voice to directly influence our services through our governance arrangements.

 

·           Tenant Approved Panel - a group of passionate residents with skills and experience to help shape our services, the TAP can be called upon to review a service area, document, or proposal. Most of the time this will be remote and may involve the occasional meeting.

 

·           Surveys and consultations - for example, Tenant Perception Surveys, New Tenant Questionnaires.

 

The council are continuing to grow and offer a wide range of and meaningful opportunities for tenants to engage and be involved in shaping our services.

 

Complaints

 

25.    To date, early interventions and inspections have often been triggered by negative complaints reports and self-referrals by landlords through the co-regulation mandate. Landlords not responding to previous complaints and/or requests for service was also seen as factor in the death of Awaab Ishak (Child aged 2 years) in December 2020, which has resulted in Awaab’s Law (2024). This has instigated a new regulatory regime for damp and mould compliance for all social landlords.

 

26.    In this context, the Housing Ombudsman Service has also strengthened their investigative approach, and response to landlord failings. Landlords have also been notified of the increase in expected standards in a series of special reports from the Housing Ombudsman, who have published landlord complaints where evidence of maladministration has been found, or a significant number of faults are evidenced.

 

In particular:

 

·           The Ombudsman Spotlight on Knowledge and Information Management (KIM)

·           Complaints about repairs

·           The Ombudsman Spotlight on Attitudes, respect, and rights.

 

27.    Through these reports the Ombudsman has recommended that landlords provide a clear statement of the Council’s approach to handling complaints and the way it intends to work with residents and relevant, organisations to remedy and make improvements.

 

28.     A Corporate Complaints Team has been created to fulfil the additional regulatory requirements of both the Housing Ombudsman and Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman, with new staff response and case management processes being actioned to ensure the Council’s governance and operational response to complaints mirrors the policy and data requirements of the new housing regulatory regime. Our Housing Portfolio Holder is also the elected member responsible for complaints for NFDC and regular reports on complaints and learning are presented to him by our corporate complaints team.

 

29.     Any policy changes resulting from both Ombudsman’s recommendations will be incorporated into the consumer standards action plan and policy reviews.

 

30.     A housing specific ‘Learning from Complaints Procedure’ has also been drafted and discussed with the TIG on the 6th of March. The difference is the corporate complaints procedure aims to get the best outcomes for residents following a complaint, whilst the housing service learning from complaints procedure aims to embed specific processes for housing to better understand the reasons for tenant dissatisfaction. It does not replace, alter, or amend the Corporate Complaints Procedure.

 

31.    Our performance against meeting the timelines for responses within the complaint procedure is between 94 to 100 per cent and tenant satisfaction levels with complaints’ outcomes have also risen by 3 per-cent in the last 12 months. This is a particularly challenging measure given the increased number of complaints and complexity of issues raised often outside of landlord functions and reflects good progress on this measure.

 

Governance arrangements.

 

32.    Our landlord services performance is reported and scrutinised at all governance levels through Portfolio Holder Briefings, Executive Management Team, this Panel, Cabinet, and full Council, including the TIG for involved tenants.

 

33.    The Portfolio Holder meets the TIG group regularly to discuss the topics and landlord performance the Panel oversees. It is also worth noting that all Panel meetings are held in Public and can be viewed live and published on YouTube for viewing at a later time for scrutiny by all tenants, residents, and interested parties. All tenants are advised that they can view these meetings and scrutiny arrangements through “Hometalk” our bi-annual tenant magazine that is provided to all households including our leaseholders and shared-owners.

 

34.    We do however recognise that our landlord services are on a journey to get more tenants engaged at times, methods (assumed digital by default) and level that works for them, to better improve our service offer through better representation of other tenants with specific needs and vulnerabilities. The next stage is determining how representative those involved are of the wider tenant population and recording what meaningful service changes or impacts of current tenant engagement approaches have been.

 

35.    Our Tenant Engagement Governance Structure set-out below makes the level of representation clearer in term of the open-offer for TIG members to attend the Panel and represent directly to elected members and from the ground-up through a wider range of engagement mechanisms including single-focus task groups.

 

Fig 1: Tenant Accountability Structure

Cabinet & Council
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


36.    The TIG group are reporting that they are confident that the Portfolio Holder for Housing & Homelessness, who is also the Deputy Leader of the Council, will accurately present their views and recommendations with authority. This is a relationship of trust and we continue to encourage TIG members to attend panel meetings at the appropriate time recognising that in future some may wish to do so.

 

37.    We recognise the current governance arrangements are working well in terms of TIG representation and level of tenant engagement. It has already been agreed in principle that a TIG member or representative can attend this Panel in future to express views or challenge officer reports in person, the recommendation to this panel is that the governance structure outlined above is approved and adopted by this panel.

 

Tenant Satisfaction Measures

 

38.    As part of the governance arrangements for regulatory compliance, all social landlords have also been required to submit Tenant Satisfaction Measures (TSMs) to the RSH, which have then been published with the regulator emphasising that it is not a league table, but rather an indicator of progress and tenant satisfaction providing a focus for identifying gaps in compliance and/or underperformance which should inform service improvement plans.

 

39.    NFDC has followed the standard methodology for producing its TSM data and is currently in the upper quartile (top 25% of all landlords) with the majority of tenants rating our services highly. TSMs consist of a mixture of management information and tenant perception measures (e.g. 98% of NFDC homes currently meet the decent homes standard).

 

40.    It is also expected that the council co-regulates with the RSH through our own self-assessment against the consumer standards, knowing our strengths and weaknesses and having robust plans in place to address any gaps in services identified against the regulations and consumer standards.

 

41.    The housing department has been addressing potential regulatory risks through various service improvement plans informed by a number of mini-service reviews and team restructures that have been taking place over the last few years, often prior to the inspection regime and consumer standards being published. The Housing Department has effectively been on an improvement journey for the last six years.

 

42.    We have established a Consumer Standards Board, employed a Policy Officer, and have been conducting a self-assessment and gap analysis against all four consumer standards. We are rigorously detailing our evidence of compliance with all the required outcomes including the current focus on the Transparency, Influence and Accountability (TIA) Standard with insight on the tenant experience, engagement, and governance opportunities.

 

43.    The Policy Officer has held discussions with service managers and officers and reviewed available performance data. The outcome of these discussions guided the identification of highest risks or service gaps from a regulatory perspective. Initial areas to review were agreed with senior management and the Portfolio Holder as part of the on-going dialogue, leading to an initial focus on improving tenant engagement outcomes and insight.

 

Self-Assessment and Action Plan.

 

44.    The RSH expectations in regard to the Transparency, Influence and Accountability Standard (TIA) for social landlords that are assumed to already provide a quality housing and repairs service are can as follows:

 

·           The relationship between tenants and landlords is underpinned by shared expectations of fairness and respect and a shared understanding of respective rights and responsibilities.

 

·           Where things go wrong, complaints are handled effectively, and things are put right.

 

·           Landlords demonstrate that they understand the diverse needs of the communities that they serve, and that their services reflect that.

 

·           Tenants understand, use, and have confidence in the recourse that they have to get problems resolved.

 

·           Stakeholders have confidence that landlords’ commitment to their tenants is underpinned by effective consumer regulation.

 

45.    The graph below separates the TIA standard into the required outcomes of the TIA displaying our self-assessment Red, Amber, Green (RAG) rating as a percentage for each outcome.

Graph 1:

(NB: there are around 100 items on the checklist that break down into the main outcomes presented. Each of the main outcomes total 100% with the percentage elements against RAG shown. The total completed for the self-referral element is 75%. This is due to one outcome relating to the Economic Standard that is applied to housing associations, but not to Local Authority Landlords)  

Gap Analysis Tracker 

 

46.    We are continuing to develop our bespoke action tracker using a High, Medium, and Low priority ratings against the TIA standards. To date, we have identified 32 Gaps which relate to our evidence base with three common themes emerging:

 

 

Methodology of self-assessment

 

47.    The Housing Performance Team have incorporated “toolkits” supplied by the Housing Quality Network (HQN) to complete our self-assessment against all the consumer standards. These include items from the wider Consumer Standard as well as identified areas from the Code of Practice and HQN’s professional knowledge, which if fully implemented would indicate a C1 or fully compliant rating from the RSH.

 

48.    This combination of approaches is aiming for an excellent or a best in class level of service to tenants taking account of:  

 

·           Fairness and respect  

·           Diverse needs  

·           Engagement with tenants  

·           Information about landlord services  

·           Performance information  

·           Complaints (including Complaint handling: Individual complaints & Complaint handling: A strategic approach) 

·           Self-referral. 

 

49.    To address these gaps in service delivery action plans relating to the high priority tasks are being taken up by the appropriate managers to build into their annual service plans and progress will continue to be monitored through the Consumer Standards Board, the TIG and this panel.

 

50.    The self-assessment being undertaken is also effectively collating evidence against the regulator’s consumer standards including being open with tenants, treating tenants with fairness and respect so that tenants can access services, raise complaints, influence decision making and holding us to account in the following aspects:

 

·           Data - collating and analysing data to demonstrate compliance with the standards. Testing accessibility and accuracy. To give assurance on data integrity and to inform service planning.

 

·           Service quality - performance measured and assessed and establishing more effective service mechanisms for doing so.

 

·           Tenant engagement - the Tenants Involvement Group (TIG) is in place to provide assurance on the accuracy of data and the implementation of key policies such as the proposed new Anti-Social Behaviour Policy as presented to this panel.

 

·           Learning - from tenant complaints, other mistakes or oversights, and any Ombudsman cases, making the necessary changes to policy, procedures, and processes e.g. vulnerable adults’ policy, tailoring of services, and accounting for protected characteristics in repairs and estate management procedures.

 

·           Contract management – ensuring the contractors, advisors and agents working on behalf of the council are working on appropriate terms (including third party management of homes and buildings). Focus on assessing skills, experience, track- record and/or qualifications.

 

·           Equality and diversity - demonstrating compliance with the Public Sector Equality Duty (NB, not within the Consumer Standards)

 

·           Assurance - external validations to assess the performance of the housing service, and the integrity of the data that underlies it. Internal and external audits of service areas and the recent LGA Corporate Peer Review (final report awaited) are all included in the collection of evidence list to provide assurance of compliance to elected members and the RSH.

 

·           Cultural change - to ensure all employees and elected members at NFDC understand the importance of regulation. Engaging them in shaping and delivering our improvement plans and landlord services.

 

·           This is a work in progress and delivery of the action plan will remain on-going, it has involved compiling the evidence base including compliance data, quality assurance checks, including independent audits of housing functions, governance arrangements, and tenant insight as outlined.

 

·           To address one of the key areas for improvement around “knowing our tenants”, we have commissioned two tenant insight consultancies, the first one is gathering the TSM data to drive service improvement, and the second is gathering data about households and updating our tenant information including vulnerabilities to help update our systems and service responsiveness to better tailor services to the needs of tenants.

 

·           Governance - reviewing what structures are in place to ensure effective oversight, challenge and support for the Portfolio Holder, staff leadership, and team.

 

Corporate Plan priorities

51.    Priority 2: Empowering our residents to live healthy, connected and fulfilling lives. The Corporate Plan 2024-28 states that delivery of this priority will be supported by the delivery of a new Anti-social behaviour strategy.

 

52.    Priority 3: Meeting Housing Needs – particularly in relation to the number of council homes achieving Energy Performance Certification band C and percentage scores for the 5 safety and compliance management Tenant Satisfaction Measures (TSMs).

Consultation undertaken.

53.    Consultation has been a strong focus throughout the preparation process, with the housing department effective engagement with officers, tenants, senior management, and Members as well as collaborating with colleagues across Hampshire and further away through networks of councils preparing for inspection or having been through one, to share learning and insight on service improvement.

 

54.     Draft policies including the Anti-Social Behaviour Policy for example have been shared with TIG and consultation responses have so far supported the draft proposals. Formal strategy consultation on the developing Landlord Strategy for example is proposed at the right time.

Financial and resource implications

55.    Any expenditure required by the proposed action plan will be met from existing budgets within the Housing Revenue Account (HRA) and have already been factored-in the draft 30 Year Business Plan. New policies and systems of work required in the shorter-term at a service level are on-going to improve service delivery and outcomes. Once the service plan is fully adopted the Policies will be updated in line with any changes required and the budget will be continuously reviewed.

 

56.    Failure to raise standards, meet the regulatory requirements of the consumer standards and respond appropriately to complaints could lead to fines and compensation levied by the Housing Ombudsman or the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman.

 

Legal implications

57.    The Regulator of Social Housing launched its new regulatory framework on the 1st of April 2024 which outlines our requirements as a social housing provider including compliance with its consumer standards.

 

Risk assessment.

58.    This report gives assurance that NFDC currently provides a good overall service to its tenants as evidenced by the TSMs and the risk profile is acceptable and professionally managed. It is nonetheless considered prudent to add lack of preparedness for inspection to the corporate risk register due to the unknown timescales for inspection to maintain Corporate oversight on this business critical issue.

Environmental / Climate and nature implications

59.    Whilst the report has no direct implications, the work of NFDC will include improving the energy efficiency of our local housing stock, providing better services on our estates, including open spaces, and the positive contribution to neighbourhoods. This may present further opportunities to contribute to the Council’s neighbourhood and climate objectives in the longer term.

Equalities implications

60.    The Consumer Standards, particularly the Transparency, Influence and Accountability standard are likely to have a positive impact on NFDC tenants as there is a requirement for landlords to “understand the diverse needs” of tenants, including those arising from protected characteristics, language barriers, and additional support needs’ and assess whether all tenants have fair access to, and equitable outcomes of, housing and landlord services. Additionally, the standard requires that landlords must ensure their services are accessible.

Crime and disorder implications

61.    It is anticipated there will be potential indirect and direct positive impacts on the Council’s tenants and neighbourhoods. The interventions proposed through our improvement to tackling Anti-Social Behaviour as part of the consumer standards is likely to lead to an initial increase in the number of cases prosecuted in the courts, or by the Police, whilst long term interventions proposed should lead to a long-term reduction in crime and disorder.

Data protection / Information governance / ICT implications

62.    The collection, retention and deletion of Tenant data is governed by GDPR and associated guidance. All data will be collected and maintained in line with the required legislation. The Policies are required in the shorter-term at a service level to improve service delivery and outcomes. Once the service plan is fully adopted the Policies will be updated in line with any changes required and will be continuously reviewed.

New Forest National Park / Cranborne Chase National Landscape implications

63.    The approach of ensuring the Housing Service is fully complaint with the consumer standards including for housing neighbourhoods as well as homes may involve increased and better partnership working with the National Park Authority where the Council’s housing stock is also located and managed by the housing landlord.

Conclusion

64.    NFDC is delivering a good service to its residents as evidenced by the TSMs and has made significant progress toward meeting the requirements of the Social Regulation Act (2023) and the consumer standards.

 

65.    There is a significant programme of work taking place and many system changes are planned to include CRM, policy and practice improvements that are to be implemented over the next twelve months. However, the reality is that many of our planned improvements rely on our Transformation Strategy delivering the self-serve and tenant portal, including insight data to enable us to get to know our tenants better and tailor services accordingly, This is a key priority for us and we are ambitious to achieve this objective within the 2025-26 financial year.  

 

66.    The Housing Department is confident in its direction of travel and prioritisation of work plans to maintain and improve its compliance with the consumer standards and offer a better service to its tenants.

 

67.    The delivery of the consumer standards mitigates longer term legal and financial risk to the Council. The self-assessment and activities already being undertaken to prepare for the inspection mitigate against the possibility of the Council being unprepared for regulatory inspection and not achieving a compliant grade.

 

68.    The gap-analysis and subsequent action plan will be completed and approved in full by June 2025 and form a longer-term framework of service delivery and partnering with local agencies and support aligning our goals, particularly in regard to improving our evidence base regarding the TIA consumer standard and further allocation of resources within the corporate plan objectives.

 

 

Appendices:

Background Papers:

Appendix 1 - 2025 interim TSM perception survey results / 2024 comparison.

Consumer Standards Code of Practice (2024)

 

Appendix 1

 

2025 interim TSM perception survey results / 2024 comparison