Council rolls up its sleeve to improve council housing

There is a lot of work to do but we’re rolling up our sleeves and getting on with it.

That’s the message from Canterbury City Council after the Regulator of Social Housing (RSH) released its Regulatory Judgement today (Wednesday 15 October).

New standards have been introduced for all social housing landlords and the regulator is currently in the process of assessing councils against these for the first time.

The regulator has graded the council as C3 and said there are some serious failings in delivering the consumer standards it sets and significant improvement is needed.

But the regulator also recognises the council is being open and transparent, already has an action plan in place to fix the failures and is engaging constructively having reported itself in January after spotting a number of issues for itself.

And it praises recent improvements to the repairs and maintenance service including better appointment times for people with busy lives, the way the council deals with anti-social behaviour and the fact the council treats tenants and prospective tenants with fairness and respect.

Joint Chief Executive Suzi Wakeham said: “Referring ourselves was the right and honest thing to do when we spotted weaknesses in our stock condition data, recognised our poor performance in dealing with tenant complaints and realised we needed better data about our tenants so we can ensure we engage with all of them effectively and ensure our services are easy to access.

“Officers are working hard every day to deliver our service improvement action plan and we will keep in close touch with the regulator on our progress.

“Councillors and officers really care about the homes we provide to the people that desperately need them and the regulator’s verdict has reinforced our determination to keep pushing for better in everything we do.”

The regulator found:

  • the council does not hold up to date information on the condition of most of its homes
  • progress needs to continue to be made around health and safety compliance
  • the council’s adaptations service needs to be improved
  • the council needs to strengthen its reporting and monitoring of hate-related anti-social behaviour
  • the council needs better data about its tenants so it can ensure it can engage with all of its tenants effectively and its services are accessible and equitable
  • the council needs effectively publicise its repair target timescales
  • progress needs to continue to be made on dealing with tenant complaints

The judgement says: “Canterbury City Council has been engaging constructively with us and has put in place a programme to rectify these failures including work to complete stock condition surveying to understand the condition of its homes, completion of outstanding health and safety checks and remedial actions and making improvements to its complaints handling processes.”

The council’s service improvement action plan includes:

  • putting more boots on the ground to get stock condition surveys done as quickly as it can so it understands the condition of its homes and can be better at planning improvements
  • putting more resources into our frontline services to deal with damp and mould and speed up the reletting of our homes
  • taking action to better understand the needs of the council’s tenants

Since April last year and before today, the RSH has published the results of 58 councils.

The grades received by the 58 include:

  • C1 – four
  • C2 – 18
  • C3 – 32
  • C4 – four

The grades mean:

  • C1 – the council is fully compliant
  • C2 – the council is broadly compliant with some identified areas of improvement
  • C3 – the council is not compliant with weakness or serious failings in one or more areas
  • C4 – the council is not compliant with very serious failings in one or more area and/or RSH has no assurance the landlord can put things right

Director of People Marie Royle said: “We are straining every sinew to overcome a longstanding legacy from the failures of East Kent Housing when it was responsible for our council homes plus high demand for social housing, ageing homes, the financial pressures on councils who manage their own social housing and the effect of the Right to Buy which meant we lost some of our best council homes and could not replace them.

“Councillors and officers are passionate about the service the council provides and they are the ones who spotted the issues we are now tackling.

“Everywhere we look, we can see the hard work is paying off and there are signs of real and tangible progress. For example, our independent internal auditors say health and safety compliance is improving every day.”

At its meeting on Monday 6 October, the Cabinet agreed to set up an all-party Cabinet Advisory Committee to oversee, monitor and scrutinise the councils service improvement action plan and report back to Cabinet.

The committee will include two council tenants.

The RSH carried out its inspection of the council’s housing service in July.

The team watched a number of council meetings, joined a Resident Engagement Panel (REP) meeting, visited the council’s offices over two days to interview a number of officers and councillors.

It also asked to see more than 300 documents.

Published: 15 October 2025

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