Housing Service Standards 2023

Overview

The Council would like to hear your views on our proposed new housing service standards.

Our current standards

Our current housing service standards are a series of commitments and service targets which set out what tenants, leaseholders or housing applicants can expect from the borough's Housing and Regeneration Department. We report on how we meet these standards in our Annual Report to Residents.

Proposed new standards

Our new standards will follow the themes set out through the proposed changes to social housing regulation, which will be embedded in law through the Social Housing Regulation Bill, currently in Parliament.

The themes are as follows:

• Quality - quality of the home, communal spaces and services to tenants
• Neighbourhood - landlords’ role, working with other agencies, to contribute to the wellbeing of neighbourhoods in which tenants live
• Transparency - landlords’ role in making information accessible to tenants including roles and responsibilities within landlords, so tenants know who is responsible for matters relating to consumer standards
• Engagement and accountability - engagement between landlords and tenants, including how complaints are handled. Landlords’ accountability to tenants and treating tenants with fairness and respect
• Tenancy - requirements on landlords in respect of tenancies, including allocations policies and opportunities for tenants to move
• Safety - landlords’ safety responsibilities including safety within the home and in communal areas

The review

We carried out a series of resident workshops and focus groups in the Spring, involving tenants and leaseholders from a range of backgrounds. We have also taken feedback through our Area Housing and Co-Op panels. All information throughout the review was uploaded onto a dedicated public webpage.

Changes are designed to reflect both the social housing environment and feedback from the consultation. As an example, under the new ‘Safety’ theme, there are additional commitments addressing both resident priorities and the new requirements of the building safety regime.

Other key changes include the introduction of a commitment to address damp and mould issues without delay following the recommendation arising from the death of Ishaak Awaab and committing to an energy efficiency target across all the residential housing stock.

Have your say

Please see the proposed standards here and give us your views using the online survey below. If you require the questionnaire in paper form or another format please contact Michael.liu@richmondandwandsworth.gov.uk 

What happens next

After the closing date, all feedback will be carefully considered before recommendations are reported to the Housing Committee, where a final decision will be made.