New consumer standards and regulatory approach
The Regulator of Social Housing's new standards and inspection programme will come into force on Monday 1 April 2024.
In February, the regulator published its new set of consumer standards and regulatory approach to deliver a "well-governed social housing sector" that provides quality homes and services for tenants.
After 1 April the regulator will assess landlords, like emh, against four new consumer standards and hold us to account by carrying out regular inspections and scrutinising data on tenant satisfaction and repairs.
Tenant satisfaction measures
Tenant satisfaction measures (TSM) were introduced in April last year as a measure to assess how well social landlords in England and Wales are doing at providing quality homes and services. emh and other landlords with 1,000 or more homes are required to submit their first year of tenant satisfaction measures data this summer (June 2024).
You can read a summary of the TSM requirements here. This is a link to an easy read, accessible version.
Parliament has given the regulator two main objectives:
- Economic objective: to make sure that registered providers (landlords, like emh) are well-managed and financially stable
- Consumer objective: to make sure that tenants get quality accommodation, have choice and protection, and can hold their landlords to account.
The five consumer standards are:
- Home Standard – quality of accommodation and repairs and maintenance
- Tenancy Standard – how properties are allocated/exchanged and terms around tenure
- Neighbourhood and Community Standard – issues around neighbourhood and communal areas and anti-social behaviour
- Tenant Involvement and Empowerment Standard – customer service and complaints, tenant rights and involvement
- Tenant Satisfaction Measures Standard – reporting against the TSMs, which cover information on areas such as repairs, safety checks and complaints (applied from 1 April 2023)