North Yorkshire Council

 

Executive

 

15 April 2025

 

Housing Improvement Plan

 

Report of the Corporate Director Community Development

 

1.0       PURPOSE OF REPORT

 

1.1         This report provides an update on progress made toward compliance with the requirements of the Social Housing (Regulation) Act 2023.

1.2         It presents the Housing Improvement Plan – the Council’s response to the C3 Regulatory Judgement issued by the Regulator for Social Housing.

1.3         The draft Housing Improvement Strategy is also presented to the Executive for context, outlining the longer-term ambition to deliver excellent housing services.

 

2.0       SUMMARY

 

2.1       Further to Local Government Reorganisation, the new North Yorkshire Council is a registered provider of social housing, with responsibility for the safe and effective management of nearly 8500 homes, inherited from the three former stock retaining districts of Harrogate, Selby and Richmondshire.

 

2.2       As a social landlord, the Council is currently non-compliant with the legal requirements placed on it through the Social Housing (Regulation) Act 2023. Following a self-referral made in May 2024, the Council is subject to a formal C3 grading from the Regulator for Social Housing (RSH), this means that ‘significant improvements’ are required.

 

2.3       This report provides an update on progress toward compliance, including an overview of work undertaken to date and of current performance. The report provides Executive with the proposed Improvement Plan, drawn up in response to the areas of non-compliance detailed in the Regulatory Judgement.

 

2.4       The report seeks Executive approval to adopt the Housing Improvement Plan as the vehicle to delivery of a compliant housing service.

 

2.5       A Housing Improvement Strategy has been drafted; this outlines the longer-term planning for service improvement beyond becoming compliant.

 

3.0       BACKGROUND        

 

3.1       In July 2023, the Social Housing (Regulation) Act passed. The new legislation brought in new requirements for social landlords and added more duties and powers for the Regulator of Social Housing (RSH). These took effect from April 2024.

 

3.2       The RSH has powers to issue performance improvement plans, issue unlimited fines, undertake management intervention, or enforce stock transfer. Previously the RSH had lesser powers, such as undertaking emergency repairs and issuing information publicly about the performance of registered providers (landlords of social housing).

 

3.3       The RSH has a new obligation to proactively inspect registered providers. This goes beyond desktop review of performance information. The inspection regime involves an on-sight inspection, whereby the registered provider gets notification of an impending visit and is obliged to provide a range of evidence, alongside opening its doors, and giving full access for interviews with stakeholders such as tenants, staff and senior leaders like corporate directors and elected members. The RSH publishes grades following such inspections, on a scale C1 – C4 with C1 indicating full compliance and C4 being the worst.

 

3.4       Although the RSH has these powers and obligations, it is adopting a “co-regulatory approach” whereby registered providers are encouraged to be open and honest about failings against the expected standards and work with the RSH on improvement plans, with enforcement action only being taken as a last resort.

 

3.5       The RSH does not look at individual complaints from tenants. This is the role of the Housing Ombudsman. However, the RSH works with the Housing Ombudsman as trends in complaints can signal more systemic problems. Aside from indicators from the Housing Ombudsman to get a feel for whether a registered provider is meeting the Consumer Standards, the RSH also scrutinises a set of performance indicators called the Tenant Satisfaction Measures (TSMs). These must be measured in a prescribed way at least annually. Achieving a good score in the TSMs alone is not sufficient to meet the Consumer Standards however the RSH uses the TSMs as an indicator for how a registered provider is doing.

 

3.6       The content of the Consumer Standards falls into four themes:

            •           Safety and Quality

            •           Transparency, Influence and Accountability

            •           Neighbourhood and Community

            •           Tenancy

 

3.7       There are 20 separate requirements and each of these is broken down into more specific expectations with greater detail offered in a Code of Practice. Some of these requirements are an enhancement on previous requirements and some are new for example new obligations around domestic abuse and a requirement to undertake a rolling programme of stock condition surveys both inside and out on every individual property.

 

3.8       There are also some significant changes of emphasis. The most notable of these, running right across the themes, is the obligation to consider diverse needs and vulnerabilities of tenants when delivering the service. This is not as simple as conducting an equalities impact assessment when changing a policy. The previous standards focused on repairs being “right first time,” but this has been removed in favour of differential targets for different tenant needs. This is a fundamental change and impacts upon a range Council functions (not just housing!) and has implications for the Councils relationship with various contractors. There is also a strong emphasis on transparency across all the themes, sharing performance and other information with tenants and wider stakeholders.

 

4.0       ASSESSMENT OF COMPLIANCE, SELF REFERRAL TO THE REGULATOR AND THE          C3 REGULATORY GRADING

 

4.1       In advance of LGR, limited preparatory work was undertaken to ensure compliance against the new consumer standards. Despite a lengthy lead in period, little work appears to have been done to either assess compliance against existing standards or to develop and implement improvement plans. This was a significant omission that has left the new Council vulnerable and needing to change and develop plans at pace.

 

 

4.2       Post LGR, a gap analysis to identify compliance against the standards was undertaken. This was a detailed piece of work that involved reviewing the standards, line by line, understanding, what they mean and what they are trying to achieve and for officers to assess where we currently are, what information and data do we hold (or not hold) and how reliable is that data, what we need to change going forward. This was a lengthy but important piece of work, the findings of which were triangulated with external feedback from Tenants (via the TSM survey) and in addition external consultants were also used to undertake a ‘health check’ on the Councils preparedness for the new regulatory standards. Whilst this was a light touch exercise (it was not a mock inspection) the outcomes from this very much supported the conclusions of the gap- analysis that the Council was non-compliant against the consumer standards in several key areas.

 

4.3       Further to the conclusion of that self-assessment, the Council referred itself to the RSH. Following that referral, the RSH made a responsive regulatory judgement on the Council (see Appendix A). In this judgement the RSH concluded that ‘there are serious failings in the landlord delivering the outcomes of the consumer standards and significant improvement is needed’. Whilst the judgement credits the Council for its openness and commitment, it also highlights that significant improvement is needed in relation to the Safety and Quality Standard, the Transparency Standard and the Influence and Accountability Standard.

 

4.4       Based on this judgement the RSH gave the Council a C3 Grading. This means that there are serious failings in meeting the consumer standards and that the Councils current arrangements are not strong enough to put them right.

 

4.5       Further to this judgement the Council is subject to significant and intensive monitoring and scrutiny from the Regulator including monthly performance review meetings. The C3 Grading will not be upgraded until the Council demonstrates compliance, which is most likely to be through a full regulatory inspection.

 

4.6       Some immediate improvements have been made as the Housing Service has sought to respond to areas of non-compliance:

           

Stronger Governance – We have established an Improvement Framework, Overview and Scrutiny Committee, Housing Improvement Board, Tenant Scrutiny Panel and monthly performance monitoring.

Regulatory Engagement – We are working positively with the Regulator for Social Housing (RSH) to improve our compliance position and to work towards a C1 position; that overall the landlord is delivering the outcomes of the consumer standards.

Landlord Compliance – We have developed Management Plans for the ‘Big 6’ Health and Safety concerns. We have also commenced a programme of Decent Homes Surveys and implementation of an Asset Management System.

Listening and Engaging with Residents - Over 2000 tenants took part in our first Tenant Satisfaction Measures (TSM) survey, we are conducting quarterly surveys to keep a better track on performance. We have developed a Tenant Involvement Strategy, recruited to the Tenant Panels and launched ‘Open Door’ the tenant newsletter.

Policy Harmonisation – We have developed a policy framework which details the priority policies we will seek to harmonise and timescales. We have already harmonised critical policies on Allocations, Domestic Abuse, Tenancy Strategy, Repairs and Anti-social Behaviour.

Complaints Handling – We have created a dedicated resource within the Community Development Directorate and have improved our complaints classifications and data collection to ensure we can now report on and learn from our complaints.

Damp and Mould – We have improved our damp and mould processes to be compliant with Awaabs Law and launched an online reporting tool to make it easier for tenants to let us know when there is a problem.

 

 

5.0       HOUSING IMPROVEMENT PLAN

 

5.1       A detailed improvement plan has been developed to support the Council on its journey toward compliance. See Appendix B.

 

5.2       This improvement plan provides the broad strategic framework for change and is split into 7 separate workstreams that focus on:

 

·         Governance and Oversight

·         Understanding Stock Quality

·         Keeping Homes Safe and Compliant

·         Understanding Tenants and Responding to Diverse Needs

·         Effective Repairs and Maintenance

·         Working with other to ensure safe neighbourhoods.

·         Allocating homes fairly and Managing Tenancies

 

5.3       Within each theme there are a range of key actions and behind many of these there are   comprehensive management plans to take them forward. Each workstream has an allocated lead officer and working groups have been established. Timescales for delivery are prioritised, and progress is being monitored through the Councils Housing Management Team and through a newly established Housing Improvement Board, chaired by the Director for Community Development and providing wider corporate oversight.

 

5.4       It is recognised to support the delivery of the Improvement Plan, additional resource is needed. This may include staffing resource for certain roles, specialist external support, additional contractors, and new IT systems. To support this £2M headroom has been built into the Council approved Housing Revenue Account Business Plan. Whilst this level of investment is temporary and needs to be reviewed on a year-on-year basis it is essential to the delivery of the plan.

 

5.5       In line with the Governance and Oversight theme within the Improvement Plan, going forward it is intended that updates from the Board (tracking both progress against the improvement plan and performance more generally) are provided to the RSH monthly. Similarly, the same progress reports shall feed into the Councils Housing and Leisure Overview and Scrutiny Committee, feed into newly established arrangements for tenant oversight and feed into the Councils broader corporate performance reporting to Executive.

 

5.6       A Housing Improvement Strategy (Appendix C) has been drafted which sets out the longer-term approach to service improvement, as we move from crisis/ recovery phase through to stabilisation and thinking beyond compliance to our ambition to become an exemplar social landlord. The Strategy establishes internal target timescales for meeting the requirements of the consumer standards, although actual re-grade will be dependent on the Regulator for Social Housing’s inspection timetable. The proposed next steps for the Strategy will be consultation with the Tenant Voice Panel and then to be formally approved by the Executive Member for Culture, Arts and Housing.

 

5.7       A Performance Management Framework is being developed, this outlines the performance management principles of the service, the reporting routes and KPIs to be adopted in order to monitor and manage service delivery to our tenants.

 

 

 

 

 

 

6.0       LESSONS LEARNED  

 

6.1       The proposed Improvement Plan and Strategy have been informed through an analysis of the reasons behind the Councils non-compliance. A Lessons Learned, root cause analysis has been undertaken. This work, which is a requirement on the Council to complete and was developed with the help of external consultancy support, is important as it provides the Council with the insight needed to ensure that future improvement planning is robust and sustainable, and that historical mistakes and failings are not repeated.

 

6.2       The report groups the root causes behind non-compliance into three time periods, the first two of which present the legacy situation inherited by the new Council from the former District Councils. These include the time prior to the decision on LGR (up to 2021) and the two-year window in between the decision on LGR and vesting day (2021-23). The final period (post LGR) examines the learning to date from the establishment of the new Council along with some of the challenges faced. In summary these include on-going issues and challenges around the accuracy and accessibility of management information and data, continued capacity gaps within the service and the Council more generally and an initial lack of understanding (both within the service and more corporately) around the scale of the challenge ahead the level of improvement needed.

 

6.3       The report highlighted the following key issues, which have then been considered in drafting the Improvement Plan.

 

-       Systems, Data and Performance Reporting

Within the Improvement Plan, it is recognised that moving away from several different management systems needs to be prioritised. The Council is on track to implement a new asset management system called Planon, which shall be rolled out in phases, phase one being the repairs element from April 2025. We are also in the early process of scoping the project for a harmonised tenancy management system.

Issues around data capture, quality and reporting are however more fundamental than the introduction of a new IT systems solution. Various other important work is needed and underway including the development of a data management plan, the consolidation and development of various processes and policies, checks around the integrity of historical data held and additional assurance being built into processes, for example by using external audit as required to check gas safety records or to quality control the validity of fire risk assessments being undertaken.

 

-       General Capacity to deliver improvement at pace

The Improvement Plan recognises that the scale of what needs to be achieved is challenging and therefore prioritises delivering those improvements based upon risk to tenants and to the organisation, phasing delivery of outcomes to ensure that efforts are concentrated upon:
 
- Safety and Quality

- Effective Governance

- Tenant Engagement

 

6.4       It is clear that more corporate support is needed now for the service to help drive forward the pace of change required. This includes dedicated and robust project management support along with technology and transformational support as needed. The delivery of the Improvement Plan toward a C2 Grading and the on-going convergence of the service and this significant undertaking. The scale of this challenge was not recognised pre-LGR by the district councils. It was not given sufficient focus in the two-year window prior to vesting day. Significant focus and prioritisation is needed going forward along with a degree of flexibility and pragmatism to ensure change is delivered at pace.

 

6.5       Overall the provision of quality services to Councils tenants must be the focus and demonstrable improvements are needed quickly. Delivery of these changes must be prioritised and cannot be met by the service alone. Whilst it is recognised that the Council corporately has a range of competing needs and demands, these cannot be to the detriment of progress of the implementation of the housing improvement plan. Where the Council is corporately unable to respond to the needs of the housing service alternative solutions will need to be found and prioritised.

 

6.6       The proposed Housing Improvement Plan has been considered by the Housing Improvement Board and recommended to the Executive for adoption.

 

7.0       ALTERNATIVE OPTIONS CONSIDERED

 

7.1       Not to approve the proposed Housing Improvement Plan, this is not recommended. The Regulator for Social Housing has required North Yorkshire Council to develop an Improvement Plan, based upon the areas of non-compliance with the Consumer Standards and informed by a root cause exercise in order to demonstrate it’s approach and commitment to improving its regulatory position.

 

8.0       IMPACT ON OTHER SERVICES/ORGANISATIONS

 

8.1       Our ambitions for service improvement do have implications for other services, such as Technology and Change, Transformation, Customer and Human Resources as we will require significant support to help us to achieve the systems, process, and cultural changes necessary.

 

9.0       FINANCIAL IMPLICATIONS

 

9.1       The Council approved a new HRA Investment Plan in February 2024 that made sufficient financial provision (£2.1million) to ensure compliance going forward.

 

10.0     LEGAL IMPLICATIONS

 

10.1     The new Consumer Standards for providers of Social Housing came into effect on 1st April 2024. The council, as a Registered Provider, is compelled to comply with the standards and to deliver against the objectives and be subject to inspection by the Regulator at their request.

 

10.2     The Regulator has set out its ‘co-regulatory approach’ whereby registered providers are encouraged to be open and honest about failings against the expected standards and work with the RSH on improvement plans.

 

10.3     The Regulator has required North Yorkshire Council to adopt an Improvement Plan by May 2025 and Improvement Strategy by June 2025.

 

11.0     EQUALITIES IMPLICATIONS

 

11.1     The Equality Impact Assessment (Appendix D) undertaken leads to the conclusion that the impact of the Housing Improvement Plan and Housing Improvement Strategy will be positive. The key drivers of the strategy are to improve the services provided to tenants and leaseholders.

 

11.2     There are specific actions within the Improvement Plan which will improve our service delivery to residents who have diverse needs:

 

4.1       Complete project to understand current data and collect consistent information on tenants and keep up to date

4.2       Demonstrate understanding of tenants needs and fairness and equity of service outcomes (reporting by protected characteristics, tenure, location etc)

 

12.0     CLIMATE CHANGE IMPLICATIONS

 

12.1     The decision adopt a Housing Improvement Plan and Performance Framework has no climate change implications. The Climate Change Impact Assessment Screening Form can be found at Appendix E.

 

13.0     POLICY IMPLICATIONS

 

13.1     Delivery of the Improvement Plan requires a full programme of policy review and harmonisation. A HRA Policy Framework has been developed and a review schedule drawn up to ensure that all policies are fully reviewed and an auditable decision route created for each, including policy review timescales.

 

14.0     RISK MANAGEMENT IMPLICATIONS

 

14.1     There are risk management implications which are registered on the corporate risk register.

 

14.2     There are financial risks associated with non-compliance with the Consumer Standards including the ability of the RSH to issue unlimited fines and to enforce stock transfer.

 

14.3     Non-compliance with the Consumer Standards puts the health and safety of our tenants and our properties at risk.

 

14.4     There is a reputational risk associated with receiving a C3 grading, and the proposed Improvement Plan is the vehicle to achieving a revised grading.

 

15.0     HUMAN RESOURCES IMPLICATIONS

 

15.1     There are Human Resource implications in the delivery of the Housing Improvement Plan, especially as we seek to address the requirement to deliver change at pace. Recruitment is a continued challenge. There is also the incoming Competence and Conduct Standard, which will require input from Learning and Development as we seek to support relevant managers to achieve professional qualifications.

 

15.2     In addition to the formalised training programmes, there is a wider piece of work needed around culture more generally. Putting the needs of the tenant at the heart of everything we do and meeting diverse needs via bespoke service provision has wide ranging implications for the housing service and beyond.

 

16.0     OVERVIEW AND SCRUTINY COMMENTS

 

16.1     The Overview and Scrutiny Committee met on the 10th March 2025 and considered the Improvement Plan in detail. The Committee sought assurance on the service’s capacity to achieve some of the challenging targets, particularly around stock condition surveys and health and safety compliance. The Committee were updated with recent recruitment numbers and the HRA financial position being that the 30-year HRA Business Plan allowed for a greater level of financial investment in the early years.

 

17.0     CONCLUSIONS

 

17.1     As outlined in the Lessons Learnt report, there were a range of factors which led to North Yorkshire Council finding itself to be non-compliant with the Consumer Standards.

 

17.2     The proposed Housing Improvement Plan sets out the ambition and phased, risk-based approach to addressing those areas of non-compliance.

 

17.3     The Housing Improvement Strategy sets out the longer-term approach to service improvement, as we move from crisis/ recovery phase through to stabilisation and thinking beyond compliance to our ambition to become an exemplar social landlord.

 

18.0     REASONS FOR RECOMMENDATIONS

 

18.1     The development and adoption of a Housing Improvement Plan and Strategy is a requirement of the Regulator for Social Housing as part of our ongoing engagement with them following the C3 judgement issued in September 2024.

 

 

 

19.1

 

RECOMMENDATION(S)      

 

 

i)              That Executive approve adoption of the Housing Improvement Plan (Appendix B)

ii)             That Executive approve the draft Housing Improvement Strategy (Appendix C) to move forward to consultation with tenants and delegate approving adoption of the strategy to the Executive Member for Culture, Arts and Housing.

 

 

 

            APPENDICES:

 

            Appendix A – Regulatory Judgement

            Appendix B – Draft Housing Improvement Plan

Appendix C – Draft Housing Improvement Strategy

Appendix D – Equality Impact Assessment

Appendix E – Climate Change Impact Assessment Screening Form

 

 

 

BACKGROUND DOCUMENTS:

 

 

Nic Harne

Corporate Director Community Development

County Hall

Northallerton

15 April 2025

 

Report Author – Andrew Rowe, Assistant Director Housing

Presenter of Report – Andrew Rowe, Assistant Director Housing

 

 

Note: Members are invited to contact the author in advance of the meeting with any detailed queries or questions.