Council receives second-worst grading from social housing regulator after ‘serious failings’

The Regulator of Social Housing gave Tower Hamlets Council a C3 grade after inspection found nearly a quarter of homes didn’t meet the Decent Homes Standard, among other failings.

Tower Hamlets Council has been given the second-worst grading by the Regulator of Social Housing (RSH) after inspectors found thousands of outstanding fire safety works, while some homes had not had surveys in over a decade.

In a report published by the regulator on Wednesday 30 April, the council was given a ‘C3’ grading after RSH found ‘serious failings’ which included more than 1,400 overdue communal electrical safety remedials.

In 2024 it was announced that RSH would be given more power and enforcement to ensure social housing landlords are following consumer standards during inspections. In November 2023, the council bought its housing management service, Tower Hamlets Homes, back in-house and carried out two external reviews in response to the new regulatory requirements. Following this the council decided to self-refer to RSH in October 2024. 

The inspection found that 23% of the council’s 11,000 homes do not meet the Decent Homes Standard, which, since the early 2000s, has played a key role in ensuring social homes meet the minimum standards.

Stephen Halsey, CEO of Tower Hamlets Council, said the council is committed to providing good services to residents and the council has moved quickly to change its housing service ‘for the better’. Mr Halsey said: ‘This grading has confirmed the issues we identified in our self-referral, and we are already taking steps to make improvements.

‘We’re pleased that the Regulator has acknowledged our corporate commitment to putting this right. The inspection was a positive experience for the teams involved. It has brought services together and given us a clear path for improvement.’

The council is investing £140 million from capital funding to address fire and safety remedial works and has created a new housing cabinet subcommittee to ensure improvements are delivered on time.

Inspectors said the council didn’t have an accurate, up-to-date and evidenced understanding of the condition of its homes, and said currently only 47% of individual property surveys had been carried out within the last five years, while 29% of homes have surveys older than 10 years.

They went on to say while headline compliance for most areas was satisfactory, there are serious failings in how the council is managing remedial actions in relation to fire safety, electrical safety and water hygiene, which they say is exposing tenants to risk.

At the time of the inspection, there were around 2,500 overdue fire safety actions, including 1,700 high-risk actions and 750 overdue water safety remedial actions, of which more than 400 are long-standing high-risk actions.

Inspectors said that while the council has ensured that it has mitigations in place to manage the associated risks of these overdue actions, the number of overdue actions remains a regulatory concern and will play a key part in RSH’s engagement with the council going forward. Since identifying the failures, inspectors said the council has provided evidence that it has understood the issues it needs to fix and is putting in place ‘appropriate and resourced plans’ to rectify them.

Tower Hamlets Mayor, Lutfur Rahman, said: ‘We have agreed a clear and well-resourced improvement plan, as the Regulator acknowledges, which is already making significant improvements. I thank the Regulator for their ongoing commitment to working with us as we continue to drive forward these changes as an urgent priority.’

Other local authorities based in London which have received a C3 grading include Wandsworth Council, Hackney Council and Southwark Council. Tower Hamlets Council’s C3 outcome forms part of 18 new gradings from RSH.

As part of the new gradings, local housing association Poplar HARCA was awarded a C1 grade, which is the highest grading that can be awarded. Inspectors said Poplar HARCA had evidence that it has an ‘effective business planning, risk management and control framework’ and a good understanding of its risk profile and mitigations. Poplar HARCA owns and manages around 10,300 homes in Tower Hamlets, as well as community centres and open spaces.

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