The Regulator of Social Housing (RSH) published its new Tenant Satisfaction Measures Standard last week (21 September 2022), which means that from 1 April 2023, all social housing providers will need to collect and publish a wide range of performance information. Landlords with more than 1,000 homes will have to submit their data annually to the RSH. 

Below we breakdown what this means for providers and take a closer look at the measures around building safety.

Why have the new measures been introduced?

The government’s Social Housing White Paper, published in November 2020, set out a commitment that the RSH would introduce a set of measures around issues that matter to residents, as part of a wider overhaul of social housing regulation. The RSH published a consultation on the introduction of these measures which closed on 3 March 2022.

It is hoped that the new measures will:

• provide clearly defined, universal performance indicators;
• enable tenants to scrutinise their landlord’s performance;
• give landlords insight about where they can improve; and
• provide a source of intelligence to the RSH about whether landlords are meeting regulatory standards.

What are the measures?

There are 22 tenant satisfaction measures, covering complaints, neighbourhood, anti-social behaviour, repairs and safety. Ten of these will be measured by landlords directly, and 12 will be measured by landlords carrying out tenant perception surveys. Landlords will need to ensure they stick to the specific survey questions, wording and response options prescribed by the RSH.

There are five performance measures around building safety.

• Gas - safety checks
• Fire - fire risk assessments
• Asbestos - management surveys and re-inspections
• Water - legionella risk assessments
• Lifts - thorough examinations

Importantly, the building safety measures require providers to consider communal parts as well as individual dwelling units. For example, for a communal boiler in a block of flats, providers will be required to report the number of individual dwelling units affected to provide the risk context (see Table 1 below).

Table 1: Adapted example taken from Annex 4: Tenant Satisfaction Measures - Technical requirements

What do you need to do?

1. Collect information on the 22 specified tenant satisfaction measures.
2. Ensure the information is an accurate, reliable, valid, and transparent reflection of your performance.
3. Annually publish your performance against the 22 measures in a format that is clear and easily accessed by tenants.
4. Annually submit your performance against the 22 measures to the RSH when instructed to do so (for 1,000+ landlords only).

Timeline

• September 2022 > Tenant satisfaction measures (TSM) published.
• 1 April 2023 > New requirements come into force, landlords to collect TSM data.
• Summer 2024 > Landlords with 1,000+ homes submit first year of TSM data.
• Autumn 2024 > First year of tenant satisfaction measures data is published.

What happens if landlords don’t comply?

The RSH regulates the sector through economic regulation and consumer regulation. The new measures are part of the consumer standards, and all social landlords must meet these requirements. Where a landlord does not meet one of these standards, the RSH may take action.

 How can you prepare?

Ensure you understand your legal obligations across each area and what you need to do to meet them.

Data, data, data...Ensure you know how many domestic, communal and other properties you have, and then understand which compliance programmes they should be on.


It’s ultimately the responsibility of Boards and governing bodies to ensure TSMs are reported to the RSH accurately – they should be looking for assurance around this.

Anything else to consider?

Yes.

• You might have noticed that electrical safety checks are not included within the building safety measures. The government held a separate consultation around this which closed on 31 August 2022. Feedback is currently being analysed.

• Remedial actions are not included within the building safety measures, but of course you must ensure these are also completed.

How we can help…

At Pennington Choices, we work closely with landlords to ensure they not only understand these measures, but they are able to accurately report on them too.

Our diverse and experienced consultancy team is built-up of technical experts that work across fire safety, gas safety, electrical safety, asbestos management and water hygiene, to put in place practical solutions to any shortfalls that landlords may come across throughout the preparation process.

For help with preparing for the new tenant satisfaction measures, please contact us below.