Why we referred ourselves to the government's Regulator of Social Housing (RSH), what we're doing to improve and how to get in contact if you're a resident.
The Regulator makes sure that as a social housing landlord we meet a set of standards to provide good quality homes and services to all our social housing residents. These are the housing Consumer Standards that apply to all registered providers of social housing.
In November 2023, we commissioned a review of our performance against the consumer standards. This review identified a number of failings, particularly around how we were ensuring homes were kept safe. We referred ourselves to the Regulator.
The Regulator reached its conclusions in July 2024 and published a Regulatory Notice. The Regulatory Notice confirmed our concerns and detailed its findings, along with recommendations for which areas need addressing most urgently.
We accept the findings of the Regulator and are very sorry that we've fallen below these standards. All tenants should expect us to deliver a high standard of housing and comply with national standards, and we share these expectations.
We're working hard to put things right quickly and improve our arrangements for the maintenance of council owned homes. We have an improvement plan in place to make sure we stay on track.
What we're doing
The council continues to work with and report to the Regulator regularly to ensure that it addresses the regulatory compliance failings. We want residents to feel that we provide a good level of service, that we listen to them, and that we act quickly when problems happen.
We have published an improvement strategy which sets out how we will improve services for our social housing residents and ensure they are safe in their homes.
The strategy sets out 3 objectives that will be achieved:
- All homes will be compliant with regulatory requirements around safety and quality.
- Changes will be embedded into existing systems within services so that improvements are sustainable for the long-term.
- The council will meet and maintain the consumer standards and work to achieve a C1 grading by the Regulator of Social Housing, showing that a good service is provided to all residents.
We've set up a dedicated programme board to oversee our improvement plans and make sure that work is delivered at pace. This is overseen by senior leaders at the council including the Interim Executive Director of Housing.
The improvement strategy focuses on five key areas for improvement:
- Safety and quality: carry out more inspections of our homes, carry out important remedial works to ensure that homes are safe, and how we collect data to ensure that we have good records
- Complaints and resident feedback: how we engage, listen, and respond to residents to improve our services
- Neighbourhood: developing and publicising our services in collaboration with residents
- Tenancy: how we allocate, manage and support the sustainment of tenancies
- How we do things: our approach to strategy, culture and governance.
We're also looking closely at our data to better understand what works have been completed and what is outstanding.
By carrying out checks and surveys in homes and updating our records, we're gaining a better understanding of where we're behind and where more work is needed.
How long improvements will take
We have committed to 4 milestones which show our journey towards reaching lasting improvements in the service. While some work may take longer to complete, we'll always complete works that carry a high risk first to ensure that residents are safe.
- October 2025: We'll have a good understanding of what has gone wrong in the past and have plans in place to fix these root issues.
- December 2025: We'll have completed all the high-risk actions that were identified by the Regulator and we will be able to evidence consistent improvement across our services.
- October 2026: All our homes will be compliant with safety and quality standards and we'll have responded to the root causes of historic failings within the service.
- March 2027: We've fully embedded improvements across all service areas and are compliant with the consumer standards.
We're prioritising the most urgent health and safety related works first. This is based on criteria including vulnerabilities of residents, risk posed by the type of property and risk post by the outstanding improvement or works.
Progress
We completed milestone 1 in October 2025. There are still a small number of action outstanding on the second phase of our improvement plan, milestone 2.
We've reviewed the Housing Consumer Standards Programme, taking into consideration the outstanding milestone 2 actions and the findings of a number of external reviews. The review has identified 4 further improvement themes:
- putting residents at centre of services
- strengthening leadership
- improving culture and accountability
- developing a new operating model for the Housing service
These themes will help shape the next phase of our refreshed improvement plan and milestones. The current aim to complete milestone 3 by December 2026 and milestone 4 by June 2027. We'll confirm the revised milestone dates at the September Homes and Housing Delivery Committee once the refreshed improvement plan has been finalised.
We're developing a Housing Transformation Programme to support wider service improvements and make sure changes made through the HCSP are embedded and sustained for the long term. Compliance performance remains mixed:
- fire risk assessment compliance has improved following contractor delays
- repairs backlogs continue to reduce
- decent homes compliance is increasing
However, data quality and system reliability remain important priorities. The transition to a new housing IT system also contributed to overdue gas servicing job, but recovery work is underway and we’re targeting a return to full gas compliance by September 2026.
We remain committed to achieving full compliance and delivering lasting improvements for residents through safer homes, stronger services, better communication and a stronger resident voice.
Milestone 1 completion update video
Reporting
We're reporting regularly to the Homes and Housing Delivery Committee to provide an update on the progress of the Housing Consumer Standards Programme.
These reports include information on:
- actions completed and outstanding
- how we're progressing towards compliance
- resident feedback and associated actions
- horizon scanning for upcoming legislative and regulatory changes
- feedback from the Regulator
Read the latest report.
If you're a tenant
If you're a tenant or leaseholder, you can have your say on how the housing service is run. Read our resident engagement: ways to get involved page to find out more.
If you have any concerns or questions:
- email hcs@bristol.gov.uk
- call 0800 694 0184, for free
- get in touch with your local ward councillor