Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, with reference to the recent investigation into Clarion Housing Group, for what reason it is his Department's policy that social landlords have 20 working days to respond to any repair that is not deemed an immediate risk to the health and safety of the tenant.

The Government is committed to ensuring a better deal for tenants. In November 2020 we published “The Charter for Social Housing Residents”, which sets out clearly what every social housing resident in England should expect of their landlord. The Charter will deliver a transformation of the social housing regulatory regime, creating proactive consumer regulation and rebalancing the relationship between landlord and tenant. It will ensure that complaints are dealt with quickly and fairly, improve the quality of social homes and empower tenants.

In the Charter we are also committed to deliver a new opportunities and empowerment programme to support resident’s effective engagement with landlords. We are also improving the complaints process for tenants; we have strengthened the Housing Ombudsman’s powers and increased their resources to help improve performance and delivery of services, along with other reforms such as speeding up access to the Housing Ombudsman by removing the Democratic Filter.

With regards to the Regulator of Social Housing’s investigation into Clarion Housing Group, the regulator is operationally independent, and Government does not interfere with how it regulates. Its general approach and how it ensures its standards are being met are set out in its guidance ‘Regulating the Standards’. I understand that as part of its recent investigation into Clarion Housing Group’s repairs service, the Regulator met with councillors who were raising concerns on behalf of residents. The Regulator kept the councillors updated on progress throughout the process. The Regulator did not meet directly with tenants or leaseholders as part of the investigation. The Department has not discussed the Regulator’s investigation into Clarion Housing Group with Lord Barwell.

Housing associations are independent organisations and are in charge of setting their own procedures for tenants to report repairs and complaints. By law, landlords need to respond within a reasonable timeframe, which will depend on the severity of the repair. The 20 working days referred to is a local, i.e. landlord, policy not a departmental policy.