Melton Council receives rating as social housing landlord

The Regulator of Social Housing (RSH), which sets the standards which social landlords, including local authorities, must deliver to ensure tenants experience high quality homes and services, awarded the council a C2 grade, which confirms it has provided assurance that it meets the consumer standards in many areas. C1 is the highest possible rating.

It was one of the first planned inspections in the country against the new consumer standards, which took effect on April 1 this year – the regulator considered Neighbourhood and Community Standard, Safety and Quality Standard, Tenancy Standard, and the Transparency, Influence and Accountability Standard.

The regulator gathered information through reviewing a wide range of documents and data, and by observing meetings, including the first gathering of the Landlord Assurance Board, a meeting of the council’s scrutiny committee with a tenant workshop, and a meeting with tenant representatives.

The inspection team also met with engaged tenants, council officers, councillors and key stakeholders including those who work closely with the council, including police, fire and county council colleagues.

In its judgement, the regulator recognised that the council was meeting its health and safety obligations, it has an accurate record of the condition of tenants’ homes and that a high percentage of homes meet the Decent Homes Standard, with costed investment plans in place.

The authority, which owns 1,780 properties, was also said to focus on tenant experience and is committed to treating tenants with fairness and respect.

There are areas the council needs to improve, though, including developing a more reciprocal approach to tenant engagement, to strengthen IT systems to support complaints reporting and monitoring and improve the case management systems used to monitor and report on anti-social behaviour trends and outcomes for tenants.

Commenting on the regulatory judgement, Councillor Pip Allnatt, the council’s leader, said: “We are pleased with the outcome of this process, and that our commitment to housing improvement and the hard work from members and officers over a number of years has been recognised through this Regulatory Judgement.

"We recognise that there is more work to be done and reassuringly we were already working on the improvement areas identified prior to the inspection commencing.”