Recommendation 40

The Regulator of Social Housing is independent of the Government and is alone responsible for the interpretation of its statutory duties. It interprets its duty to minimise intervention and act proportionately to mean that it should only find a provider non-compliant with the consumer standards if it also finds evidence of systemic failure. The application of this ‘systemic failure’ test has resulted in perhaps the most passive consumer regulatory regime permissible under the Housing and Regeneration Act 2008. It has also opened up a clear and worrying gap between the remit of the Housing Ombudsman, which investigates individual complaints, and that of the regulator. As happened at the Eastfields estate, it is possible under the ‘systemic failure’ test for a provider to be guilty of very serious mismanagement affecting dozens of tenants and not be found in breach of the standards.