Regulatory judgement
In September 2024, the Regulator of Social Housing issued a C3 regulatory judgement to Castle Point Borough Council. In December 2024, this was downgraded to a C4.
The Regulator of Social Housing stated the following for the downgrade: "Our judgement is that there are very serious failings in the landlord delivering the outcomes of the consumer standards. The landlord must make fundamental changes so that improved outcomes are delivered."
Our response
We apologise that the Council has not met the expectations of our tenants, or of the Regulator. We take the Regulator's findings extremely seriously and acknowledge that we are falling short of these expectations.
We are fully committed to making the necessary improvements to provide good quality, safe and affordable homes to our tenants, with access to good quality services that support tenants to live independently in thriving communities.
We are taking urgent action to address these findings and will continue working with the Regulator until we have satisfied their concerns and achieved full compliance with the consumer standards for our tenants.
We want to reassure all our tenants that we are committed to making improvements as quickly as possible.
The Housing Improvement Programme
We are committed to improving our service for tenants and have initiated a wide-ranging housing transformation programme.
We are prioritising the most urgent health and safety related works first, and are also looking closely at our systems, processes and data to better understand what works have been completed and what is outstanding. By carrying out checks and surveys in homes and updating our records, we are gaining a better understanding of the condition of council homes in Castle Point, so we can best direct investment and prioritise work where it is most needed.
Through the Housing Improvement Programme we are aiming to ensure that our services for tenants are set up to meet and improve on how we are delivering the Consumer Standards.