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Introduction

Over the last year performance has been showing steady improvements and in particular the last two quarters across most metrics are showing improved stability and consistency; so whilst the noted improvements in performance over this quarter may be slightly muted in comparison to previous increases, it reflects a much improved confidence in the reporting of the data, the analysis of the information and ultimately the insight gathered to inform service improvements; for example in the case of gas certificates, variance in reported performance over the last six months is less than 1% (0.94%) whilst the preceding 6 months (January to June 2025) this variance was 4.05%. This confidence in the quality of data and reduction in variance is apparent across the whole service; with stability witnessed across Electrical Installation Condition Reports across high-risk sites showing 100% compliance and fire risk assessment compliance returning to 100%.

Alongside the ongoing reviews of performance at the Extended Housing Managers Meeting and Housing Improvement Board, the service has commissioned Savills to undertake a review of compliance with the Regulatory Standards to assess direction of travel, and establish what gaps exist or have emerged since the previous review of the service. This has proven to be a useful point of triangulation highlighting the positive progress made in many areas but also reiterating the need for accessible, good quality data from which service improvements can be identified.

Following a recommendation to increase the scope of this report to cover all aspects of the Tier 1 dashboard as opposed to providing snapshots, the summary will take the following format:

·                     Compliance (including damp and mould)

·                     Repairs and Maintenance (including voids)

·                     Tenancy management and complaints

Compliance

Compliance Dashboard

Indicator	October	November	December	TSM Benchmark (2024/25)	Data Assurance
% of properties with valid Gas Safety certificate	99.87%	99.62%	99.67%	100%
% of properties with valid smoke alarms / detectors	99.81%	99.66%	99.71%	N/A
% of properties with valid carbon monoxide alarms / detectors	99.78%	99.62%	99.68%	N/A
% of domestic properties with EICR certificate up to 5 years old	49.17%	48.59%	47.93%	N/A
% of communal assets with EICR certificate up to 5 years old	100%	100%	100%	N/A
% of homes for which all required fire risk assessments have been carried out	94.50%	96.20%	100%	100%
% of homes for which all legionella risk assessments have been completed	81.36%	89.78%	98.88%	100%
% of homes for which all required asbestos management surveys or reinspection's have been carried out	100%	100%		100%
% of homes for which all required communal passenger lift safety checks have been carried out	62.50%	100%	100%	100%
Damp & mould investigations (% completed within 10 working days)		91%	24%	-
Damp and mould letters % sent within three working days		100%	0%	-
Damp and mould repairs (% begun within 5 working days)		100%	25%	-

 

Compliance performance

Compliance is now looking healthy and the main compliance elements as reported back to the Regulator are comparable with the sector returns of 2024/25. The reporting of fire risk assessments at 100% is in line with the sector performance and gas, legionella and asbestos compliance are showing improvements each month that would suggest if these levels were maintained NYC would be very close to achieving the 100% status at the year end.

It is also worth stating that the service is continuing to improve its data assurance. In the case of services delivered to complex sites, assurance is green (such as legionella / passenger lifts); whilst data drawn from spreadsheets or informed by the legacy systems does have a degree of complexity to reconcile confidently are still showing as red. The work done by SureServe in respect of gas servicing (and alarms and CO detectors) is amber. The service is due to celebrate its anniversary in early 2026 at which point every property will have been inspected in relation to these items and this should be sufficient to move the assurance to green subject to final checks on the data.

Gas Safety

Compliance with gas safety has shown sustained improvement over the year with Q3 performance showing a degree of stability. Reporting is now much more consistent with a clear understanding of the profile of out-of-date inspections. As of the end of December the longest overdue inspection was from July. The total outstanding inspection profile is;

·                     0-1 month: 14 outstanding

·                     1-3 months: 10 outstanding

·                     3+ months: 4 outstanding

Fire Risk

Completion of fire safety inspections is also positive with compliance back to 100% following a few months where inspections had stalled following changes to the team and the loss of an assessor. In terms of remedial actions there was significant progress to November however this has stalled over December; this is largely linked to access issues.

	July	August	September	October	November	December
Outstanding fire risk assessment remedials: High Risk (over 1month target)	296	232	225	133	149	149
Months 2-3	31	22	17	7	39	23
Months 4-6	37	26	28	10	1	17
6 Months +	228	184	180	116	109	109
Total Outstanding fire risk assessment remedials: Medium Risk (Over 3 month target)	136	105	114	54	54	69
Months 4-5	10	6	12	0	0	15
Months 6-9	30	26	23	1	1	1
9 Months +	94	73	79	53	53	53

 

Electrical Installation Condition Reports

Compliance with EICR’s is largely static; whilst this is not yet a Tenant Satisfaction Measures requirement, reporting is essential as it will become mandatory in November 2026. 

 

The static nature of this indicator suggests the service is maintaining a stable output that just about covers the number of expired certificates that occur each month. The service is about to appoint a new contractor to increase capacity of testing and that should drive improvements to performance over the next few months. In terms of the complex sites, performance has remained at 100% for all communal assets throughout the year. These sites do pose a significant risk, and it should be recognised that the service continues to prioritise the safety of its most vulnerable customers.

Damp and Mould

A new regulatory requirement was introduced in response to Awaab’s Law in the reporting and tackling of damp and mould at the end of October 2025.; for ease Octobers return was merged with the data for November, hence just two data points exist so far (November and December). Initial performance in relation to these items was positive with 100% of letters sent and repairs started in target delivered across November. Since then some issues around communication have emerged whereby data was not transferring effectively between two teams and this resulted in a failure of all letters being sent in December, and due to the intrusive nature of the work and the reluctance of customers to have the work started ahead of Christmas it has meant that the % of repairs started within 5 days plummeted to 26%. This highlights a likely seasonal issue the service will need to be aware of in future. It is expected that the issues identified in this instance will be resolved for the reporting required for January.

Repairs and Maintenance

Repairs and maintenance dashboard

Indicator	October	November	December	TSM Benchmark (2024/25)	Data Assurance
% of homes that meet the Decent Homes Standard	-	-	-	-
Number of stock condition surveys carried out	743	723	588	-
% of stock with a current HHSRS Stock Condition Survey (cumulative)	39.16%	47.84%	54.91%	-
Proportion of non-emergency repairs completed in target timescale	82.99%	81.93%	85.07%	89.10% (upper) 74.80% (lower)
Proportion of emergency repairs completed in target timescale	93.30%	93.13%	90.98%	98.90% (upper) 89.10% (lower)
Disrepair claims – open cases	78	80	85	-
Average time in days taken to relet	266	300	575	-

 

Decent Homes

Fundamental to the reporting of Decent Homes is a well informed and robust stock condition survey. Over the last year the service has been actively improving its capacity and quality of its stock condition surveys as well as undertaking a significant review of the ability of systems to store and report on stock decency. Despite still not being able to report the actual number of properties that meet the Decent Homes Standard the number of surveys completed is increasing and the service has taken steps to improve the speed of processing of surveys to start being able to report decency. Over the next month a clear methodology will be created for the calculation of the Decent Homes figure that can be easily explained and details the assumptions made of the data.

As a side note the increase in the number of completed surveys does lead to an increase in the works needed at each property. Following previous underinvestment, it is clear that the stock is in need of improvement and in many cases, repairs have not been reported by customers. This is leading to an increase in a backlog of repairs orders which the service is assessing and identifying appropriate remedial actions to solve.

Completions of emergency and non-emergency repairs has proven to be relatively stable. Repairs are now being logged via the Planon system and this is improving both the accuracy of the performance reporting and also insight available from the system; for example its becoming clearer that through the increase in repairs logged from the stock condition surveys a sizeable amount are lower priority, (28 day target, P4 repairs). From the period April-November, the service was completing an average of 1,923 orders per month. Improved reporting is also helping with the identification of issues related to ‘no access’; in December, 31 jobs failed for this reason; in addition, a further 21 jobs failed to hit target due to issues around a lack of materials, whilst three repairs fell outside of target as the main work following a temporary fix couldn’t be completed due to the inclement weather.

The average time to relet a property remains on the surface massively over target and increasing; however, the data itself needs to be considered to understand the performance. In December the fastest relet was 133 days and this would be comparable with the early year performance; however, the data is significantly skewed by supported housing properties being brought back in to use that had been vacant for a considerable time; the worst of these were three properties that have been void since 2021, in one case a total of 1,715 days empty. It is recognised that these issues are not likely to be permanent and nor do they reflect specific issues within the service. In improving the void standard and quality of property let to customers alongside the added survey work and where needed energy efficiency measures, the void time is accepted as likely to be over target; however, this approach will likely prove beneficial to customers immediately and to the authority over the longer term.

Housing Management and Complaints

Housing management dashboard

Indicator	October	November	December	Data Assurance
TSM - No. of ASB cases opened (per 1,000 homes) (NM01)	0.72	0.12	0.48
TSM – No. of ASB cases that involve hate incidents opened (per 1,000 properties) (NM01)	0	0	0
TSM - No. of new stage 1 complaints received in month per 1,000 properties. (CH01)	5.16	5.40	3.60
TSM - No. of new stage 2 complaints received in month per 1,000 properties (CH01)	0.48	0.24	0.60
TSM - % of stage 1 complaints responded to within the Housing Ombudsman’s Complaint Handling Code timescales (%) (CH01)	58.33%	58.54%	58.33%
(TSM) - % of stage 2 complaints responded to within the Housing Ombudsman’s Complaint Handling Code timescales (%) (CH01)	66.67%	75.00%	50.00%
TSM – Overall satisfaction with the service provided by North Yorkshire Council (Quarterly) (TP01)	-	-	77%
True current tenant arrears at the end of the month (%)	0.81%	0.91%	0.51%

 

Across the housing management indicators, performance is less variable and more robust in general due to the ability to better understand the data and insight available (it requires less manual manipulation and in the case of ASB, complaints and arrears can be extracted easily from the systems). The amber RAG rating for assurance is born from a degree of manual intervention that is needed and, as yet these processes are not fully automated or are still extracted from multiple platforms.

In the case of complaints, the change to a new system will improve the visibility and accessibility of the complaint information, triaging to the relevant person much easier; this has not yet happened however is in development and this should drive noticeable improvements to the % of stage one and stage two complaints completed in target time.

Customer satisfaction remains positive and based on last year's TSM results, a score of 77% would place North Yorkshire Council in the second quartile. This is a fantastic result given the challenges the service has faced (and overcome) over the last 12 months and places the authority in a strong position going into the final quarter. This result also highlights that despite the systems challenges, the front-line service provided by housing officers and repairs contractors in particular as the main points of contact for customers is excellent and should be acknowledged accordingly.

Conclusion

The overriding position for the service remains positive. There are identified challenges such as voids and a growing backlog of repairs (which will be addressed in future reports); however, these are noted and expected given the decisions made by the service which clearly prioritise the needs and requirements of customers. Over the last year the authority has made significant progress in understanding its data and improving the accuracy of its reporting. This is now starting to improve the insight available and the potential to do more meaningful service improvements based on better understanding of trends, the limitations of the data and the requirements of the Housing improvement Plan. Over the next quarter further work will be done with regard to the development of Planon and creating accurate reporting from the system; alongside formulating a robust methodology to tackle the issue of how to accurately report the Decent Homes figure both in line with the requirements of the TSM but also to help inform wider asset management strategies and plans.