Serious failings in city's council housing - report

A regulator says there are "serious failings" in the management and quality of Nottingham's council homes.

In a report published on Thursday, the Regulator of Social Housing (RSH) said it uncovered almost 1,000 repair problems with properties managed by Nottingham City Council.

The watchdog said it found the authority's performance on property repairs was "poor" and that failings it identified had had a "significant" impact on outcomes for tenants.

The authority, which manages about 25,000 homes, said it took the RSH's findings "extremely seriously".

The RSH said problems also included gaps in checks on smoke and carbon monoxide detection measures.

The regulator further found weaknesses in the council's approach to capping gas supplies when it could not gain access to complete gas safety checks.

Tenants were also not being properly involved in decisions, it said.

The RSH further said it lacked confidence that the council had a full understanding of the state of it housing stock as "it has not surveyed almost 40% of its homes for more than ten years".

The RSH gave the council a C3 rating - the second lowest grading possible - and said significant improvement was needed.

The Labour-run council took the management of the city's council housing directly back under its control in April 2023.

It had previously been under the control of arms length management organisation (ALMO) Nottingham City Homes (NCH).

NCH was wound up after it was discovered that more than £50m from the council's Housing Revenue Account (HRA) had been unlawfully diverted to its general fund.

The council said a full condition survey of all 25,000 council homes was currently under way, and £20m was being invested in frontline housing services.

It said it had set up a dedicated team to tackle problems with damp and mould and clear the repairs backlog.

Jay Hayes, the council's executive member for housing and planning, said: "We have been aware of the need to significantly improve our housing services since we brought the ALMO back in house, so this judgement does not come as a surprise.

"We take the issues in the regulator's report extremely seriously.

"Clearly there is much work to do, and we will not shy away from doing it."

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