Social Housing Regulation

We must comply with Regulator of Social Housing’s four consumer standards:

1. The Safety and Quality Standard which requires us to provide safe and good quality homes for tenants along with good quality landlord services.
2. The Transparency, Influence and Accountability Standard which requires us to be open with tenants and treat them fairly and with respect so that they can access services, raise concerns when necessary, influence decision making and hold us to account.
3. The Tenancy Standard which sets out requirements for the fair allocation and letting of homes, as well as how tenancies are managed.
4. The Neighbourhood and Community Standard which requires us to engage with other agencies so that tenants can live in safe and well maintained neighbourhoods and feel safe in their home.

Find more information about the Regulator's Consumer Standards on GOV.UK.

Along with other landlords of social housing from April 2023 we started to collect performance information against 22 national Tenant Satisfaction Measures (TSMs). We then report our performance each year to the Regulator and share this information with tenants.

10 of the measures are calculated from our performance information and 12 are collected via a tenant satisfaction survey.

Survey

The surveys may be sent to you as a link in an email or you may receive a phone call from an independent company undertaking the surveys on our behalf. We share with residents when our surveys are happening, and the results in our bulletins and on our website.  

How we performed in 2023/24

1. The number of stage 1 complaints received:
   2,175, or 41.1 per 1,000 homes
2. The number of stage 2 complaints received:
   549 or 10.4 per 1,000 homes
3. The proportion of stage 1 complaints responded to within timescales:
   88.0%
4. The proportion of stage 2 complaints responded to within timescales:
   87.6%
5. Number of antisocial behaviour cases:
   886, or 16.7 per 1,000 homes
6. Number of antisocial behaviour cases that involve hate incidents:
   53, or 1.0 per 1,000 homes
7. The proportion of homes that do not meet with Decent Homes Standard:
   3.3%
8. Proportion of non-emergency repairs completed within timescales:
   82.3%
9. Proportion of emergency repairs completed within timescales:
   93.7%
10. Proportion of homes with required a:
    
    • a. gas safety checks carried out: 99.4%
    • b. fire risk assessments carried out: 100%
    • c. asbestos surveys carried out: 100%
    • d. water checks carried out: 100%
    • e. lift safety checks carried out: 100%

Tenant satisfaction survey results

Your satisfaction:

With our overall service
	Percentage
2022/23 (full year)	60%
2023/24 (full year)	66%
2024/25 (first quarter)	67%
2024/25 (first and second quarter)	65%
2024/25 (first, second and third quarter)	66%

Landlords have a significant responsibility to ensure the safety of their residents. The 2022 Building Safety Act sets out responsibilities that landlords must meet to ensure the safety of higher risk residential buildings.

Our responsibilities

As the owner and manager of a number of multi-storey blocks of flats we are responsible for ensuring the responsibilities in the act are met. To do this we must ensure that:

• we have registered with the Building Safety Regulator who is responsible and accountable for managing and maintaining the safety of all our higher risk buildings
• each building has a Building Safety Case which sets out how safety is managed in each building
• all buildings are registered with the Building Safety Regulator, providing key information about the building including its design and construction
• a digital record is available for each building which includes information about the building and ongoing maintenance information and that this information is readily available to tenants and the Building Safety Regulator. You can access building safety information unique to your flat and block
• we have a resident engagement strategy to ensure that residents have access to information about building safety and are involved in safety considerations

Find more information about the Building Safety Act on GOV.UK.

We are a member of the Housing Ombudsman Service. The Housing Ombudsman is an impartial service available to all social housing tenants to support them to resolve disputes with their landlord. If a tenant wants to make a formal complaint about services provided more information can be found on our complaints, compliments and feedback page.

Annual self-assessment

Each year we carry out a self-assessment against the Housing Ombudsman Complaint Handling Code. This is a legal requirement and the results from our self-assessment are shared with the Leeds Housing Board and the Ombudsman themselves.

You can view a copy of our latest self-assessment.

Annual complaints performance and improvement report

We also produce an annual complaints performance and improvement report. This outlines how many complaints we receive, about what, and what we are doing to improve.

You can view a copy of the current complaints Handling Performance report.

Read our governing body's formal response to this report

“The Board are pleased to see that complaints management has improved during 2023/24. We have a good understanding of what is working well and what needs to be improved as we receive regular reports. There is still more to do to make sure that all residents receive a timely, fair, and high-quality response. The board would also like to see improvements in how we learn from complaints and see more examples of this shared with residents. We are confident that we will continue to strengthen our complaints handling, especially as we embed the role of the ‘Member Responsible for Complaints’. We look forward to receiving the recommendations from the Tenant Scrutiny Board who are currently reviewing our complaints handling. We also look forward to comparing our performance with similar sized landlords later in the year.”   

Accountable persons for Consumer Standards

Gerard Tinsdale as Chief Officer Housing is responsible for overseeing the delivery of all landlord services and so is responsible for ensuring overall compliance with the Regulator of Social Housing’s Consumer Standards. 

He is supported by Adam Crampton (Head of Property Management) who oversees the repairs, maintenance and investment service. Adam is responsible for overseeing compliance with the Safety and Quality Standard. 

Mandy Sawyer (Head of Housing and Neighbourhood Services) oversees tenancy and neighbourhood management services and is responsible for overseeing compliance with the Tenancy Standard, the Neighbourhood and Community Standard and the Transparency, Influence and Accountability Standard. 

If you have any questions or concerns about compliance with the consumer standards, email housingenquiries@leeds.gov.uk. 

Health and safety lead

Under the Social Housing (Regulation) Act 2023, we are required to have a named lead person on matters relating to health and safety. Jon Andrews is the named lead for Housing Leeds and his role is to support residents with issues concerning health and safety and to support the council by highlighting risk and issues where concerns are identified. 

If you have any questions or concerns about health and safety issues relating to a council home, email: buildingsafety@leeds.gov.uk. 

Senior leads for complaints handling

Gerard Tinsdale as Chief Officer for Housing is responsible for overseeing compliance with the Ombudsman’s Complaints Handling Code and for ensuring that complaints are effectively managed. 

Councillor Jordan Bowden (Support Executive Member) is the Elected Member responsible for ensuring that there is a positive complaints handling culture and that insight and performance is shared with our governing body. Councillor Bowden is supported by tenant members of the Leeds Housing Board to carry out this role. 

If you have any questions or concerns about accessing the complaints process, email complaint@leeds.gov.uk. 

Leeds Housing Board

The Leeds Housing Board is made up of Elected Members and tenants to oversee the council’s compliance with regulatory requirements. The Board meets 4 times a year to review the council’s performance in meeting standards. 

Copies of agendas, papers and minutes are available to view on our Democracy website. 

Tenant Voice Panel 

Tenants are recruited to the Board from our 'Tenant Voice Panel', a wider group of tenants, residents and leaseholders who are happy to help give feedback about our services. 

Find out how you can join the Tenant Voice Panel.