Consumer Regulation: Everything you need to know in 5 minutes

Last updated: 16th December 2024

This blog is also available as a downloadable guide here.

As of 1st April 2024, the Regulator of Social Housing (RSH) has introduced a new consumer regulation regime. These new requirements change how social housing is regulated and how landlords manage social housing, ensuring they keep tenants safe, listen to their concerns, and address issues promptly. The new regulation regime applies to all registered social landlords, focusing on ensuring they are accountable for promptly putting issues right. 

To help landlords understand the new requirements, the RSH has published several guidance documents. This blog provides a summary of the key requirements from these documents, breaking down the changes to make them as straightforward as possible and helping you navigate compliance. 

In our recent webinar, our panel of experts were joined by Jessica Guandalini, the Assistant Director of Regulatory Engagement at the Regulator of Social Housing, to discuss top tips for compliance with the new consumer regulation regime and the upcoming landlord inspections.   

The new consumer standards 

As part of the new regulation regime, the RSH has introduced a set of four new consumer standards that all landlords must comply with.    

The four new consumer standards are:  

 •    The Safety and Quality Standard which requires landlords to provide safe and good-quality homes for their tenants, along with good-quality landlord services.  To discover more about understanding your stock condition in alignment with the Safety and Quality Standard, catch up on our webinar, 'Stock Condition: Meeting the Safety and Quality Standard', on-demand now.
 •    The Transparency, Influence and Accountability Standard which requires landlords to be open with tenants and treat them with fairness and respect so they can access services, raise concerns when necessary, influence decision-making, and hold their landlord to account.  
 •    The Neighbourhood and Community Standard which requires landlords to engage with other relevant parties so that tenants can live in safe and well-maintained neighbourhoods and feel safe in their homes.  
 •    The Tenancy Standard which sets requirements for the fair allocation and letting of homes, as well as requirements for how tenancies are managed by landlords.  

Existing standards will also continue, although they will not apply to all providers:  

Which regulatory standards apply to me?  

Consistent compliance with the standards is essential and will be evaluated during your landlord inspection. To discover a more comprehensive overview of the new consumer standards, read our dedicated blog, ‘Regulator of Social Housing Reveals New Consumer Standards’.  

Additional changes under the standards 

 Tenant satisfaction measures   

The RSH has introduced a comprehensive set of Tenant Satisfaction Measures (TSMs) to ensure a consistent assessment of landlord performance and enhance transparency for tenants. These 22 TSMs cover areas such as overall satisfaction, repairs, and safety and communication, as well as including management measures related to safety and perception to understand how tenants are feeling.   

Landlords have been collecting this data since April 2023 and will be reporting their results this year, and annually going forward. All landlords with over 1,000 homes must also submit their data to the RSH.   

Landlord inspections  

The Social Housing (Regulation) Act 2023 has empowered the RSH with new consumer regulation powers, enabling a shift from a reactive approach – where it could previously only investigate consumer issues when they were highlighted and there was a risk of potential ‘serious detriment’ to tenants - to a proactive approach which puts consumer regulation on level with economic regulation.  

Under this proactive regime, the RSH has new powers to conduct inspections to ensure landlords comply with the consumer standards. These inspections are now mandatory for all registered social landlords with over 1,000 homes, with the RSH beginning the inspections in April 2024. For local authority landlords, the inspections will focus on the consumer standards, whereas for housing associations, the RSH will also review governance and finance (as they have previously) alongside the consumer focus.  

Regulatory judgements and gradings from the inspections are now being published, highlighting which organisations are fully compliant with the new regime and which require improvement. To discover what this inspection process looks like, and tips on preparing,  catch up on our on-demand webinar,  Consumer Regulation: Insights on achieving a C1 grading. 

Preparing for landlord inspections  

When preparing for your upcoming landlord inspection, there are a number of things to be aware of:   

 •    Inspections can be scheduled at any time from 1st April 2024.   
 •    Inspections will occur approximately every four years.  
 •    Each organisation will be ranked in one of the four tiers from C1 to C4.  

• • C1 – Fully compliant; you’ve provided all the evidence that you’re delivering the outcomes of the standards.

• • C2 – Still a compliant grade, but there may be some weaknesses. If you don’t address these issues, it could lead to poor outcomes. The RSH will want you to have an improvement plan in place to address the issues.

  • C3 – There’s likely to have been serious failings identified. There will be a period of engagement with the RSH following this, where they will ensure you have the evidence that you’re making those changes.

  • C4 – There are serious failings and fundamental changes are needed to address them. In these cases, the RSH will determine the course of action, potentially including enforcement action.

 •    The inspections will focus on outcomes and how you can evidence these.  
 •    Although there is no set template for the questions you will be asked during your inspection, you can undertake a mock inspection to build an idea of the procedure and potential questions. Get in touch with one of our experts to book your mock inspection to best prepare yourself for the real thing. 
 •    The RSH has published an inspection plan setting out how the inspection cycle is decided and the criteria it may consider when programming inspections.​ This will be based on the size, the complexity of your activities, your financial risk, regulated data that the RSH might have, such as TSMs, or any of information that poses a risk. This plan can be found here.
 •   The inspections will focus more on specific standards if issues have been identified within the organisation that require additional attention.  

 Before your inspection, you must: 

It is important to note that inspections are not a test of having all your detailed information immediately to hand. If you are asked questions you cannot answer right away, follow-ups will be arranged to allow time to gather and provide the relevant information requested by the RSH.  

For more detailed insight into preparing for your inspection, with lessons learnt from pilot inspections, head over to our blog, ‘How Can the Sector Best Prepare for the Consumer Regulation Changes?’.  

What do the inspections look like?   

Programmed inspections will generally be every four years for large providers (those over 1000 units). Some inspections may be conducted more frequently based on factors such as risk, complexity, and organisational characteristics.   

 Non-programmed (responsive) inspections may take place as part of RSH’s ongoing responsive work, involving engagement with landlords as a result of things like cases from tenants, referrals from stakeholders, and self-referrals. If a material issue arises from this, the RSH may conduct an unplanned investigation to gain a deeper understanding of the problem.  

Each inspection will cover the five following stages:  

1. Scoping: Before the inspection, the RSH shares a scoping document with the organisation undergoing the inspection, detailing what will be examined and the reasons behind it, including areas of focus and documents the organisation must provide. This will vary depending on each organisation and will be documentation that is ordinarily produce, so no additional documents will be required.  Generally, organisations will have two weeks to submit this documentary evidence.
   
2. Desktop review: Over several weeks, the RSH conducts a detailed review of the documentation provided to assess whether they give assurance that the outcomes of the standards are being delivered.
3. Onsite work and tenant engagement: The RSH will spend around two days onsite, meeting with specified individuals. Prior to the visit, they will inform the organisation of who they want to meet, the reasons, and the topics to be covered.  Every inspection will also have an element of observing meetings, where organisations will share their meeting schedule with the RSH, including tenant engagement meetings and activities, so they can attend at least one of these.
4. Review of assurance and gaps: An assurance gap meeting will be held with the organisation and follow-up questions will be asked to address any gaps and clarify the RSH’s understanding around compliance with the standards.  
5. Conclusions and outcomes: The RSH will analyse the information gathered to form conclusions and produce a consumer grading for the organisation and a summary of the inspection findings.

The focus of the inspection 

Whether programmed or non-programmed, your inspection will focus on all consumer standards with two key components: service outcomes and transparency, influence and accountability. 

Questions to ask yourself