Newham Council marks one year on since Regulator C4 rating with much achieved and much to do.

Newham Council marks one year on since Regulator C4 rating with much achieved and much to do.   

Newham Council’s Housing Services marks one year since it received a C4 rating against its consumer standards on the 16th  October by the Regulator of Social Housing (RSH) last year. 

Since then, the Council has undertaken a huge Housing Services Improvement Programme aimed at addressing the key failings identified by the RSH and providing a better service for residents including:  

• Increased the proportion of properties that have had an electrical condition test within the last 10 years from 60% at the time of the inspection to 94% today.  

• Completed all overdue repairs identified at the time of the inspection, with 90% of all new non-emergency repairs reported being completed on time. 

• Better evidencing on key safety measures – 99% of homes have working carbon monoxide detection and 94% have working smoke alarms. 

• Nearly halved the number of overdue fire risk assessment actions identified at the time of the inspection. 

• Put resident voice firmly at the heart of Housing Services, with a new Resident Involvement Strategy launched in September 2025 and an established Resident Challenge Board who critically assess the service’s improvement plan. 

• Better understanding of our buildings and our tenants, particularly those who are most vulnerable, through a dedicated Care and Support team who support vulnerable residents with fire safety measures, and around 5,800 tenancy audits completed. 

Mayor of Newham Rokhsana Fiaz OBE said: “This day last year, I made it clear that our residents deserve much better following the C4 rating from the regulator about the Council’s housing services. I know that the everyone at the Council is committed to making improvements swiftly and assuring our tenants and residents continually that progress is being made for them.”  

“Through openness and transparency, I’m pleased that a year on we can show that change is happening, though there’s much more still to do. I want our residents to experience our Housing services that they can be proud of and am demanding that the Council provides quality housing services because our tenants deserve it. Every Newham tenant and leaseholder has to be confident they are living in a safe and secure home, that’s we’re we heading and a year on we are proving it.  

Cllr Blossom Young, Cabinet Member for Council Housing Improvements said: “The C4 rating served as a wake-up call for the Council, and it was clear that the rating – and residents’ feedback - reflected significant and serious failings in the management and delivery of our Housing services.  We were right to apologise to residents at the time and to commit to making deep and swift improvements to address the failings and to move towards an excellent service for our tenants and leaseholders. Residents deserve to live in safe, decent homes, to receive excellent landlord services and to be involved in shaping housing services to meet their needs.” 

“We have used the Regulator’s judgement as a launch-pad for a whole series of improvements – both addressing the failings identified and transforming our Housing Service, so it is fit for the future. We have achieved a huge amount in the last year. A review of the service and the failings identified led to Improving Your Homes, a detailed improvement programme launched in May 2025.  

Since then, we have made significant progress in tackling the areas of failing identified by the RSH, such as improvements in electrical testing and dealing with the repairs backlog.  We also have a much better understanding of the condition of our housing stock and a much better understanding of our tenants needs.  I’m particularly pleased that we have placed resident voice at the heart of this improvement journey, establishing a Resident Challenge Board and a Resident Involvement Strategy to provide critical feedback on the improvement plan. 

“We are making great strides in improving our record keeping and management systems, improving our efficiency and showing our progress to both the Regulator and our tenants. And I think that progress has been recognised in our improving Tenant Satisfaction Measures, which were published last month.   

But we know we have more work to do to shape the Housing Service to provide an excellent service into the future and to safeguard against the mistakes that led to the C4 rating.  We know that residents will only feel the changes once they experience a better service and this starts with better communication, changing the culture of the service and getting things right first time.  Some of the improvements we need to make necessarily take time, so accelerating our capital programmes and bringing more homes up to a decent standard is paramount.  And we must do more to improve our complaints service – learning from what has gone wrong and taking steps to put things right in a timely manner. So overall, while we can be pleased with what we‘ve achieved so far, we are very clear that there remains much to be done.” 

ENDS 

Notes to Editors: 

For more information or media requests 

CEX.Media@newham.gov.uk 

Tony.bonnici@newham.gov.uk 

07790020579 

1. Key failings Identified by the Regulator of Social Housing in October 2024 are set out below, alongside Newham Council’s response published last year:  

• RSH Report: At the time of inspection over 60% of LB Newham’s homes had not had an electrical condition test for more than 11 years. 

LBN: Over 94% of LBN’s homes have now had an electrical condition test within the statutory ten-year timeframe – every home that has provided access to council staff. Work is ongoing to gain access to homes that have not yet been inspected.,  

• RSH Report: We identified from information provided by LB Newham… that there were over 9,000 overdue fire safety remedial actions, of which over 8,000 were overdue by more than 12 months. 

LBN: This number has been reduced to 4,701 fire safety remedial actions overdue by more than 12 months. At the current rate of improvement, this will be down to 3,500 by December 2025, a 60% reduction., and all assessments will have been completed by March 2026.  

• RSH Report: In relation to smoke and carbon monoxide alarms, LB Newham has not been able to evidence that it is meeting the requirements of the relevant regulations for any of its homes,  

LBN: We can now demonstrate that over 94% of LBN’s homes have working Smoke alarms/detectors​, and that over 99% of LBN’s homes have working Carbon Monoxide alarms/detectors.  

• RSH Report LB Newham does not have up to date stock condition information on the majority of its homes. Around 60% of LB Newham’s homes have not been surveyed within the last five years,  

LBN: Over 8,758 (39%) of LBN’s homes now have a current stock condition survey​ and at the current rate of improvement this will reach over 50% by December 2025. This is scheduled to reach 95% of homes by December 2026 and should reach 100% by March 2027. 

• RSH Report: At the time of the inspection LB Newham had around 5,400 open repairs, of which 49% were outside of target dates, 
  LBN: All repairs that were not carried out on time at the point of inspection are now complete and 9O% of new non-emergency repairs are now completed in the target time.   The service still has a backlog of 460 repairs and is working to reduce this figure.  

• RSH Report: We found there were very limited meaningful opportunities for tenants to influence and scrutinise LB Newham’s strategies, policies and services. 

LBN; A new Resident Involvement Strategy was co-produced with over 100 tenants and leaseholders and was approved by Cabinet in September.  A Resident Challenge Board has been established to scrutinise delivery of the improvement programme.  This board has issued 81 recommendations for further service improvement so far.  

• RSH Report: LB Newham has very limited mechanisms in place at this time to ensure information about its tenants remains up to date  
  LBN:  A new Care and Support Team has rolled out vulnerability screening across our 84 high rise blocks and so far we have spoken with 860 more vulnerable tenants to understand their needs. We have also carried out research to inform a new Diverse Needs Strategy which is being developed and is expected to be finalised in Spring 2026. 

More information is available at Newham Council Improving your Homes