Following the tragedy at Grenfell Tower in June 2017, the Government published The charter for social housing residents: social housing white paper in November 2020. The Charter sets out what the government will do to make sure residents in social housing are safe, are listened to, live in good quality homes, and have access to redress when things go wrong.
Social Housing (Regulation) Act
In July 2023, the Bill received Royal Assent, officially becoming law and the new Social Housing Regulation Act will be effective from April 2024. This is the biggest change to social housing regulation for a decade and affects councils like Norwich City Council who own and manage social housing.
The new regulation centres on strengthening the role of the Regulator of Social Housing (RSH) to enforce standards that help to protect tenants and drive improvements in landlord services. There are lots of expectations that as a social housing provider we will need to meet, and a stricter approach to regulation, with ‘Ofsted’ style inspections.
This is good news for our tenants as it will make sure we are providing safe, good-quality homes and services, and as tenants you will have a much stronger voice to influence the decisions that affect you.
There will be new requirements for us to ensure key officers hold relevant professional qualifications, and to publish the names of Senior Executives who are accountable for meeting the new standards and particularly Health and Safety matters.
We are required to collect and publish information on a set of standardised Tenant Satisfaction Measures (TSM) so that you can scrutinise our performance and compare it with other housing providers. We are using Viewpoint, a market research organisation, to independently carry out the TSM survey on our behalf, and we would like to thank the 750 tenants who have participated in this survey so far and encourage any tenant who is contacted by Viewpoint to take part in the survey and give us your feedback.
Four Million Homes
Four Million Homes fulfils a commitment made in the social housing white paper. It provides opportunities and an empowerment programme that will help social housing residents to feel confident and equipped to engage with their landlord.
Four Million Homes will provide training and capacity building opportunities for residents, and access to independent information.
The objectives are to:
- Inspire residents to seize opportunities for engaging on a range of housing issues by gaining the skills and confidence to engage effectively with social landlords.
- Provide opportunities for residents to upskill, so that can play a more influential part in the decisions that affect them and their communities directly.
- Give residents the tools they need to take an active role in how their homes are managed.
- Lead to residents creating or joining scrutiny and other resident panels.
- Empower residents to take over the delivery of landlord services
- Share opportunities, so that residents can discuss ideas and learn from others about how to make a difference in their community.
- Drive the delivery of higher quality landlord services that are focused on residents’ needs.
The service provides monthly webinars for residents, and you can sign up to receive a newsletter with information on upcoming events.
Watch Four Million Homes' free webinars covering topics for social housing residents including repairs and maintenance, anti-social behaviour, and dealing with your landlord.
For more information and to get involved, go to the website: Four Million Homes - Knowledge and action for change in social housing
