The Regulator of Social Housing found that Dudley Metropolitan Borough Council breached the Home Standard, with thousands of overdue health and safety checks on tenants’ homes.
Following a self-referral in March, the regulator confirmed that the council did not meet a range of health and safety requirements in thousands of its tenants’ homes. As a result, there was potential for serious detriment to tenants.
The council itself found it had failed to carry out over 8,000 remedial fire safety actions, as well as around 500 annual asbestos safety inspections. In addition, it reported that around 4,000 homes had not had an electrical inspection within the past 10 years, and over 300 homes had overdue gas safety inspections.
In addition the council did not have full or accurate data on compliance with the Decent Homes Standard for its housing stock of more than 21,000 properties.
Dudley Council said it had referred itself to the regulator after it “discovered long-standing issues with data quality and performance reporting, dating back up to 10 years”, which “meant it was unable to evidence previously reported figures in a number of areas, including health and safety undertakings in some properties”.
It said its programme of stock condition surveys was being broadened to include compliance checks on gas and electric systems, Energy Performance Certificates, smoke and carbon monoxide detectors and asbestos reports.
The council has put a programme in place to rectify these issues, including a condition survey of all its homes over the next 12 months, and the regulator is monitoring it closely as it delivers this work.
Kate Dodsworth, Director of Consumer Regulation at RSH, said: “Dudley Council has failed to meet health and safety requirements and has put its tenants at potential risk. The council referred itself to us when it identified these issues, and we are monitoring it closely as it takes urgent action to put things right.”