The Regulator of Social Housing has handed a C4 grading to Basildon Borough Council after finding very serious failings in consumer standards during an inspection.
The RSH’s inspection found:
- Poor data assurance for legal health and safety requirements, and a lack of assurance that remedial actions are accurately recorded or actioned in a timely way.
- A lack of accurate information on the quality of tenants’ homes, particularly the recording and monitoring of potential hazards.
- Serious failings in its engagement with tenants and a lack of meaningful opportunities for them to scrutinise landlord services, policies and strategies. The RSH also found the council does not have sufficient assurance of repairs performance or effective oversight of its contractor.
In addition, the RSH found issues with the council’s Tenant Satisfaction Measure (TSM) reporting, and no evidence of any analysis, learning or actions from the results to improve services.
Basildon Council did not self-refer to the RSH, after an external review in March 2025 found the council was not delivering a range of outcomes in the consumer standards. Due to the seriousness – including the scale and breadth – of the issues identified during the inspection, the RSH says that the lack of self-referral was itself a very serious failing.
Basildon Council will now be required to make fundamental changes so it can deliver improved outcomes for tenants. The RSH says that the council has been engaging constructively, but still needs to develop a full understanding of current risks to tenants and the root causes of the failings. This will enable the council to develop its improvement plan and drive the fundamental changes needed to address these failings.
Kate Dodsworth, chief of regulatory engagement at the RSH, said: “We are working intensively with Basildon Council to make sure it understands the risks to tenants and takes prompt action to put things right – prioritising the highest risk issues.”
“This case reinforces the importance of landlords self-referring to us when they find problems – either themselves or through external reviews. This is a fundamental requirement of our consumer standards. By flagging issues to us at an early stage, landlords can solve them more quickly and, in doing so, protect tenants and improve services.”
The RSH has also added YMCA Thames Gateway to its gradings under review list while it investigates matters which may indicate serious failings in the landlord delivering the outcomes of the Governance and Financial Viability Standard and the consumer standards.
RSH also published five other regulatory judgements, which saw Worthing Homes and One Vision Housing downgraded from G1 to G2 grades for governance, Norwich City Council award a C1 grading after an inspection, Torus62 upgraded from C2 to C1, and Incommunities Limited handed G1, V2 and C2 grades following an inspection.
