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Editor’s comment


Shining a spotlight on disrepair


Patrick Mooney, News Editor


Over a number of weeks in the Spring and early Summer months an ITV News team broadcast packages on national television, about the experiences endured by social housing residents living in homes with damp, mould and other types of serious disrepair. The bulletins featured residents in both local authority and housing association homes. They didn’t make pleasant viewing. Frankly the conditions shown to viewers were disgraceful and nothing short of a scandal. Any landlord can claim that


the situations being filmed were one-offs and did not represent their normal levels of service. The trouble is as the weeks went on, so we the viewers, got to see more and more examples of how perfectly ordinary and normal decent people were expected to live in wholly unacceptable and abnormal conditions. They had all complained about relatively simple things such as water leaks or rodent infestations, but their landlords had all failed to complete even the most simple and routine repairs. Without a timely or proper solution, all of the problems had magnified and grown until they created unsanitary and


dangerous conditions, with the homes not fit to be lived in. Of course in all of the instances we were shown, the residents were still expected to pay their full rent, with no discounts or rebates for their inconvenience. ITV uncovered disrepair issues in properties owned by a number of social landlords, including Croydon Council, Clarion, L&Q and Bromford – two of them are the biggest social landlords in the country. Interestingly in one of the later bulletins the ITV team highlighted that in the last three years the number of complaints


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made by HA tenants to the Housing Ombudsman had risen by 35 per cent from 5,409 in 2018/19, to 7,316 complaints in 2020/21. But while complaints against the associations had gone up, so had the salaries paid to their chief executives. The sector’s highest paid chief executive earns £436,681, while every chief executive in the ten biggest housing associations earns more than £284,000. There is a question to be asked about whether the sector’s leaders are still in touch with their customers and deserve such large salaries. Frankly I have no idea what the answer is to that! Most large housing associations in England are members of the National Housing Federation and clearly embarrassed by


the investigation’s findings, the NHF sought a meeting with the programme makers. Chief Executive Kate Henderson offered her sincere apologies with these words: “The stories we’ve seen on ITV News are just not acceptable, not only because of the levels of disrepair in these homes, but also because the residents have not felt listened to. I’m sorry that these residents have been let down. They deserve better. Housing associations take these issues very seriously, and last year invested £5.7bn in repairs and maintenance. But clearly,


as a sector it is vital we learn from what has gone wrong in the cases uncovered by ITV.” Ms Henderson told us that action was being taken. “First, last year the National Housing Federation launched a new set of


standards for housing associations. It was developed with residents and allows them to hold their housing association to account. This will take time to roll out, but we believe it will make a real difference and will ensure residents are heard. Second, since the ITV News stories have aired we have been working with housing associations in every region of the country to understand what more we in the social housing sector can do to tackle disrepair, including damp and mould. This is part of our commitment to work closely with the ongoing review by the housing ombudsman to develop practical solutions to put things right.” Let no one be in any doubt, the sector is on notice and needs to improve. Across the River Severn, the Welsh government has written to every housing association in the country seeking


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Printed in England What is PAS 2035?


Richard Jenkins of Nuaire explains what PAS 2035 is, and how local housing authorities can improve their ventilation strategies


Photo by Anton Velchev on Unsplash.com 4 | HMM August/September 2021 | www.housingmmonline.co.uk


assurances that tenants are not living in poor conditions. In a major intervention, ministers have asked for details of every unresolved disrepair claim across the 240,000 social homes in Wales. They demanded responses by late July and they’re writing to local councils seeking a "general assurance statement" and the breakdown of disrepair claims. Housing providers are being asked to provide the address, date, nature of the disrepair claim, and a summary of its progress. It is really good to see the Welsh government taking such an active interest in this issue, which rather begs the question what is the English Government doing and should the English Regulator of Social Housing have been ahead of the curve and doing the sort of investigations which ITV News have been doing?


HOUSING MANAGEMENT & MAINTENANCE


AUG/SEP 2021 Patrick Mooney


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On the cover...


Richard Jenkins of Nuaire explains what PAS 2035 is, and how local housing authorities can improve their ventilation strategies. See page 39.


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