To advise Cabinet of the Council’s outturn performance against the Regulator of Social Housing’s Tenant Satisfaction Measures for 2025/26.

RESOLVED that –

(a)     the Council’s Outturn Performance Report against the Regulator of Social Housing’s Tenant Satisfaction Measures for 2025/26, as set out in Appendix A to the Portfolio Holder’s report (A.5), for publication on the Council’s website and submission to the Regulator of Social Housing by 30 June 2026, be noted;

(b)     the Council’s Performance against the Regulator of Social Housing’s Tenant Satisfaction Measures for 2025/26 compared with performance for 2023/24 and 2024/25, as set out in Appendix B to the Portfolio Holder’s report (A.5) be noted;

(c)     the current progress against the Tenant Satisfaction Measures Action Plan for 2024/25, as set out in Appendix C to the Portfolio Holder’s report (A.5) be noted;

(d)     following the Council’s Tenants’ Panel examination of the data presented in this report and its appendices, the Corporate Director (Operations and Delivery), in consultation with the Portfolio Holder for Housing and Planning, be required to develop a new action plan for 2026/27 focusing on continuous improvement, with consideration to prioritisation, resources and on-going delivery; and

(e)     the Action Plan for 206/27 be presented to the Council’s Audit Committee in due course to review its effectiveness and the monitoring arrangements.

Cabinet considered a report of the Housing & Planning Portfolio Holder (A.5) which advised it of the Council’s outturn performance against the Regulator of Social Housing’s Tenant Satisfaction Measures for 2025/26.

Cabinet recalled that Tenant Satisfaction Measures (TSMs) were metrics that all social housing landlords in England were required to collect and report on to the Regulator of Social Housing (RSH). The TSMs should also be published by those organisations for others to see.

It was reported that the Social Housing (Regulation) Act 2023 had set in place measures intended to improve standards for people living in social housing. It had set out a new regulatory framework for the consumer regulation of social housing to strengthen the accountability of landlords for providing safe homes, quality services and treating residents with respect. The introduction of TSMs had formed part of this framework.

Since 1 April 2023, all social housing providers has been required by the RSH to collect data to inform TSMs and those were aimed at helping improve standards for people living in social housing by:

·      Providing visibility by allowing tenants to see how well their landlord is doing and enabling tenants to hold their landlords to account

·      Letting tenants see how well their landlord is performing in comparison with other landlords

·      Giving the RSH insight into which landlords might need to improve things for their tenants

There were 22 TSMs and those were grouped into the following five themes:

·      Keeping properties in good repair

·      Maintaining building safety

·      Respectful and helpful engagement

·      Complaints handling

·      Neighbourhood management

Members were reminded that ten of the TSMs were measured by landlords through their performance indicators and 12 were measured by an annual tenant perception survey. The RSH also set out its requirements (including mandatory questions and methodology) for data collection and reporting.

Landlords with 1,000 or more homes were required to send their data to the RSH by 30 June 2026 and the data for all landlords would be published by RSH in Autumn 2026.

Cabinet was informed that the Council’s Outturn Performance Report against the TSMs had indicated a slight decline in tenant satisfaction with the proportion of respondents who reported that they were satisfied with the overall service from their landlord decreasing from 81.3% in 2024/25 to 78.7% in 2025/26.

Satisfaction with repairs, both overall satisfaction with repairs and satisfaction with the time taken to complete a repair, had further decreased. The reasons for this would be explored in more detail with the members of the Tenants’ Panel. Conversely, the proportion of non-emergency and emergency repairs completed within the Council’s target timescale had increased.

It was notable that there had been an overall increase in the number of complaints received. The number of complaints received at Stage 1 that had been responded to within the Housing Ombudsman’s Compliant Handling Code timescales had improved when compared to 2024/25 figures but the opposite had happened in respect of Stage 2 complaints.

The proportion of homes that failed to meet the Decent Home standard had  ...  view the full minutes text for item 12