Haringey Council must make fundamental changes to deliver improved outcomes for its tenants, the Regulator of Social Housing has warned, after handing the north London authority its lowest possible consumer grade.
The council was given a C4 grade on Tuesday 28 October, following an inspection by the regulator. It is the first time Haringey London Borough Council has been graded under the consumer standards regime, and the judgement places it at the very bottom of the regulator’s scale.
The regulator said its inspection found very serious failings at the local authority. Although Haringey had indicated a willingness to address the issues and had taken some action, the regulator said it had not yet seen sufficient evidence that the council understands the potential risk to tenants and is able to put matters right.
The Regulator of Social Housing (RSH) grades landlords on a four-point consumer scale, from C1 at the top to C4 at the bottom. A C1 grade means a landlord meets the consumer standards, while a C4 grade signals that there are very serious failings and the landlord needs to make fundamental changes. It is the strongest warning the regulator can issue under the grading system, and it triggers intensive engagement and close oversight until the landlord can show it has turned things around.
Kate Dodsworth, deputy chief executive of the regulator, said: “A C4 judgement sends a clear signal that tenants have been let down and that urgent and sustained improvement is needed.”
She added: “We will maintain intensive engagement and close oversight, set clear expectations for improvement and, if necessary, use our powers to make sure change happens.”
“We expect landlords in this position to take urgent action to address and fix the issues identified and improve outcomes for tenants,” Ms Dodsworth said.
Under the regime, intensive engagement means the regulator stays in regular contact with the landlord, monitors its progress against an improvement plan, and can escalate to enforcement action if progress stalls. For tenants, the practical effect is that the council’s housing service will now be under sustained outside scrutiny, with the regulator able to step in further if the promised changes do not materialise.
Haringey’s grade was one of 15 regulatory judgements published by the regulator on the same day, covering councils and housing associations across England. It was the only C4 grade in the batch.
Two other local authorities received C3 grades in the same round. Tamworth Borough Council was judged to have serious failings, with health and safety actions not carried out within appropriate timescales, gaps in how hazards were reported, and weaknesses in its oversight of anti-social behaviour. Woking Borough Council was also given a C3, after the regulator found weaknesses in overdue fire, water and asbestos remedial actions, in how disrepair was reported, and in the management of anti-social behaviour and hate incidents and tenancy oversight.
Notting Hill Genesis, one of London’s largest housing associations, also remained under intensive engagement in the same round, holding a C3 consumer grade alongside a G3 governance grade and a V2 viability grade.
The contrast underlines how stark Haringey’s position is. A C3 grade points to serious failings that need addressing; a C4 grade goes further, signalling that the failings are very serious and that fundamental change, rather than incremental improvement, is required.
The regulator has not set out a timetable for when Haringey will be regraded, but its stated approach is clear: close oversight will continue, expectations for improvement will be set out, and its powers remain available if the council does not deliver. For the borough’s council tenants, the judgement is now the public benchmark against which the council’s housing service will be measured.
The council has previously shown a willingness to engage with the process and has taken some steps already, the regulator noted. What it has not yet done, in the regulator’s judgement, is demonstrate that it fully understands the risks facing its tenants or that it is yet able to put matters right. That gap between willingness and evidence is what the C4 grade captures.
Residents with concerns about their council home can contact their landlord in the first instance, and can escalate complaints through the Housing Ombudsman if they remain unresolved.
Elsewhere in the capital, council services continue to face scrutiny of a different kind: Lewisham Council has trained six residents as citizen scientists to investigate what it is really like to live through energy-efficiency works on council homes, while Croydon faces weeks of road closures through November as gas, footway and tram works roll out across the borough.
