Fix it
Building safety and quality
We have embraced the most comprehensive overhaul of legislative requirements on building safety in over 40 years
This includes new regulations such as the Charter for Social Housing Residents, the Fire Safety Act 2021 and the Building Safety Act 2022. We spend over £10.5m on building and customer safety each year.
As well as monitoring indicators such as gas and electrical safety, asbestos, legionella, fire risk assessments and passenger lifts individually, we have collated each of these safety indicators into one single building safety score which has been added to our corporate performance scorecard. We currently achieve a score of 99.96%, only just short of a perfect score due to very rare occasions where we have been denied access by the customer.
Listening and responding to residents about their safety is a priority and this year the Karbon Residents Committee worked with us to complete our Building Safety Scrutiny Review which you can read about later in this section.
To ensure building safety and quality, we’re currently carrying out a programme of full stock condition surveys on a five-year rolling cycle. We aim to have accessed all our homes by the end of this summer which will give us a complete picture of our housing stock.
This is important for future investment but it’s also vital because our surveys incorporate the Housing Health and Safety Rating System (HHSRS), a risk-based evaluation tool often used by local authorities to identify domestic hazards. Rating the HHSRS’s 29 hazards from ’none’ through to ‘severe’, the survey data is fed into our asset management system and embedded algorithms produce reports identifying potential high-risk items such as lead piping, mould, asbestos and carbon monoxide.
Damp and mould
What we are doing:
To help protect our residents from the threats associated with damp and mould, we:
- undertake repeat visits to properties where damp and mould has been identified so that we are confident that it has been resolved
- invest in technology which can detect damp and mould
- have a working group to monitor the resolution of all damp and mould cases
- refreshed our customer communications to ensure customers know how to report any concerns around damp and mould along with the latest advice on prevention
- refreshed training for colleagues on spotting the signs, recording concerns and supporting customers.
C6. What % of homes with a gas appliance have an in-date, accredited gas safety check?
99.81% of our homes had an in-date accredited gas safety check. The remaining outstanding checks were due to tenants not allowing us to access the homes. We are therefore fully compliant with gas safety regulations.
C7. What % of buildings have an in-date and compliant Fire Risk Assessment?
100% of our buildings had an in-date and compliant Fire Risk Assessment (FRA).
C8. What % of homes meet the Decent Homes Standard?
On 31 March 2023, 100% of our homes met the Decent Homes Standard.
