READING Borough Council has announced that it is bolstering its improvement plan to increase standards and response times for its repair services following a “disappointing” inspection result.
The Regulator of Social Housing (RSH) notified the council in December of a planned inspection and began an information gathering process which culminated in an on-site inspection of the Council’s housing service in February.
The inspection resulted in a number of recommendations being made to the Council for improvement.
While the report, published on Wednesday, April 30, acknowledges a number of challenges faced by the council, it found “serious failings” in the landlord delivering the outcomes of the consumer standards and said “significant improvement” would be needed.
These included the Safety and Quality Standard, the Transparency, Influence and Accountability Standard, and the Neighbourhood and Community Standard.
It noted that there were approximately 1,600 overdue housing repairs at the time of the inspection, explaining: “Whilst Reading Borough Council has been implementing plans to address these issues, there remains significant work to do in this area.”
The report explains: “Reading Borough Council has been engaging constructively with us and has plans in place to address most of these failings, including delivering an effective, efficient and timely repairs service, and ensuring that tenants have meaningful opportunities to influence and scrutinise services.”
Despite this, the council was given a C3 grading; over half of local authorities assessed since the RSH’s new consumer standards were introduced in April last year have received the same C3 judgment.
Following the report, the council’s housing department is now in the process of carrying out a detailed review of its existing Improvement Plan to ensure it meets all requirements of the Regulator and prioritises the most urgent issues.
The council says that “intensive engagement” is ongoing with the RSH in the form of provider improvement meetings.
Matt Yeo, Lead Councillor for Housing, said: “While an obviously disappointing inspection outcome, its findings were largely in line with the Council’s own Improvement Plan and the areas we had already identified for attention, in particular the need to improve the responsiveness of our housing repairs service, which has already been moving in the right direction.
“We welcome the additional input and assistance from the Regulator for Social Housing on the steps we are already taking to make further improvements for our tenants.
“The Regulator has acknowledged in its report that we have already embarked on that journey, but not sufficiently far enough at this time to provide a higher grading.
“I’m confident that the steps we have already put in place, and strengthened following the inspection report, will get us to where we, and the regulator, want us to be.
“We additionally welcome the continued and regular dialogue with the RSH planned for the future to ensure we can deliver a more efficient and responsive service to our tenants in the shortest time possible.”
