Issue - meetings

The purpose of the report is to notify the Audit & Standards Advisory Committee of the circumstance surrounding the necessity to self-refer to the Regulator of Social Housing for breaches in compliance with building safety, potentially breaching the Quality and Safety Standard.

The Chair welcomed Thomas Cattermole (Corporate Director Residents and Housing Services) and Spencer Randolph (Director Housing Services) who he advised had been invited to update the Committee on the circumstance surrounding the Council’s self-referral to the Regulator of Social Housing for potential breaches in compliance relating to the Quality and Safety Standard and on the measures being taken in response in order to develop a Performance Improvement Plan.

In introducing the report, members were advised of the background to the self-referral as a result of it having been identified that the True Compliance software utilised by the council had been updated incorrectly.  This included up to 12,500 fire actions having been identified as wrongly updated to indicate that works had been completed, but which were missing the required supporting evidence. In addition, the council had been unable to reconcile performance data on asbestos management, water safety and detectors for smoke and carbon monoxide.  Having identified the issue, advice had immediately been sought on appropriate corrective steps from a building safety specialist who dealt with the management and recovery of regulatory breaches and, in line with the requirements of the Social Housing (Regulations) Act 2023 around transparency, the advice had been to self-refer to the Regulator of Social Housing.  Having made the referral, further details had been sought by the Regulator on performance data relating to building safety and stock condition, which the council had been unable to provide in a comprehensive manner. Whilst the council reported it held stock data on 95% of its homes it had subsequently been identified that it did not hold recorded survey information on over 50% of these properties.

As a result of the issues highlighted the Regulator had therefore issued a regulatory judgement with the Council graded C3 (Serious failings identified, and significant improvements needed).

In response to the position identified and judgement issued the council had initated a number of actions, which the Committee were advised had included:

• appointing advisors that specialised in building safety and assisting landlords in meeting the requirements and outcomes set out in the Social Housing (Regulations) Act 2023, in particular The Quality and Safety Standard.  The specialist advisors were now in the process of undertaking an initial assessment of the council’s compliance arrangements, in preparation for an audit to confirm the true position on the ‘Big 8’ areas of compliance – Fire Safety, Gas Safety, Electrical Safety, Water Safety, Asbestos Management, Mechanical and Engineering (Lifts), damp and mould & Smoke and Carbon Monoxide (CO) detectors.  Members were advised that the audit would comprise the first part of three pieces of work required to return the council to a position of compliance.

• The second piece of work would consist of a Root Cause Analysis (RCA) of the working practices and arrangements that had resulted in the breaches.

• The third piece of work, which was due to commence shortly and run alongside the audit and the RCA, was the development of a Compliance Recovery Programme with each element of activity identified  ...  view the full minutes text for item 6