Report finds ‘serious failings’ in Central Bedfordshire Council’s social housing standards

The Regulator of Social Housing (RSH) published its findings this week into how the council looks after its properties and tenants – and said there were “serious failings” and that “significant improvement is needed”.

During its first inspection of the council’s housing, the RSH met with tenants, officers, the leader of the council, and the councillor responsible for housing.

The council had made a self-referral to the RSH, telling the regulator “it did not have assurance that the information underpinning its reported compliance with health and safety requirements was reliable”.

At the time of the inspection, there were over 300 outstanding fire safety actions from fire risk assessments that had not been tracked by age nor prioritised by urgency.

The RSH said there was “a lack of oversight and reporting about when they were due to be completed”.

For damp and mould cases, Central Bedfordshire Council did prioritise by urgency, but “there is no tracking, monitoring, or reporting of the number and age of cases”.

Councillor Steve Watkins, executive member for assets, business and housing said: “This is a disappointing outcome but not an unexpected one. We had made a self-referral to the regulator in November 2024.”

He explained: “We are treating these issues with the utmost seriousness and taking swift and decisive action to improve and will continue collaborating with the regulator and tenants until we meet their expectations.

“All tenants deserve to live in safe, high-quality and well-maintained homes, and we are fully committed to making the necessary improvements as quickly as possible.”

The council revealed it had more than 1,800 overdue repairs orders.

The report stated: “Central Bedfordshire Council could not provide assurance that it delivers an effective, efficient and timely repairs service as required by the Safety and Quality Standard.”

The Safety and Quality Standard, published last year, sets out legal requirements for landlords and makes sure that homes meet the requirements of the Decent Homes Standard.

While the council did prioritise emergency repairs, with 98.9 per cent of these completed on time, the report read: “It was unable to accurately report average repairs times for routine repairs.”

Despite the failings, the council was praised for its “respectful approach to tenants”.

The report stated: “We also saw a recognition that tenants need to be at the centre of decision making, though we did not see evidence of this in current practice.

“Central Bedfordshire Council also does not have sufficient information to demonstrate that it understands the diverse needs of its tenants nor how its services deliver fair and equitable outcomes for tenants.”

The inspectors said they “saw evidence that Central Bedfordshire Council deals effectively with anti-social behaviour and hate incidents in line with its policy and procedures and in partnership with relevant organisations”.

Since the inspection, the council has a new housing management system to manage all tenancy and asset information.

The RSH is not using enforcement powers against the council at this stage, but said it “will keep this under review as Central Bedfordshire Council seeks to resolve these issues”.