Social housing inspections will no longer be routine, says TSA

Inspections of social housing will no longer be routine under a new regime announced by the Tenant Services Authority this week.

The social housing regulator said it would only use its power in order to investigate where there is a reason to believe a provider may be seriously failing the TSA’s standards or regulatory requirements.

Other key features of the new approach include:

• The TSA will draw up a bespoke brief to specify the scope of an inspection, so Audit Commission key lines of enquiry (KLOE) will no longer be used for housing services inspections (i.e. section 193 standards)
• This brief will require the inspectors to provide clear evidence of whether there has been a failure of a standard or regulatory requirement
• The TSA will decide the final judgment on the fact of a breach and whether the failure is serious
• Where failure is identified, in most cases the regulator would expect to publish the inspection report, subject to any applicable exemptions under the Freedom of Information Act. The TSA’s published regulatory judgments will normally reflect the findings of an inspection commissioned by the TSA.

The TSA said the move followed “overwhelmingly positive” responses to proposals in its recent consultation, Investigating regulatory concerns: inspecting TSA standards.

In a consultation response document, also published this week, the TSA described the arrangements that it would use for commissioning from 1 July 2011. These proposals will replace the transitional arrangements for social housing inspections that have been in place since November 2010.

These new inspection arrangements will last at least until April 2012, the authority said.

Further consultation on the TSA’s use of powers will take place later in 2011 following the passage of the Localism Bill through Parliament. “The regulator will set out at that time any further review of the way it uses inspection, including the implications of the proposed ‘serious detriment’ threshold for the regulator’s intervention on consumer matters,” the authority said.

“The arrangements in place from July 2011 refer to serious failure of standards as prescribed in the Housing & Regeneration Act 2008, and are not intended to pre-empt the regulator’s future consultation on regulatory guidance on serious detriment.”

In a letter to chief executives of social housing providers, TSA chief executive Claer Lloyd-Jones said the organisation was on track for transition to the HCA in April 2012.