The Regulator of Social Housing (RSH) has published a Regulatory Notice (RN) for London Borough (LB) of Barking and Dagenham.
LB Barking and Dagenham made a self-referral to the RSH in relation to a failure to meet statutory health and safety requirements. The RSH has subsequently concluded that the Council has failed to meet statutory health and safety requirements in a number of areas:
- For more than 100 properties, the Council did not have a fire risk assessment (FRA) in place, and for more than 1,000 properties, it did not have a clear record of whether an FRA was required
- For more than 16,000 of its domestic properties and more than 2,000 communal areas, the Council either did not have a clear record of whether a current electrical installation condition report was required or could not evidence that such a check had previously been completed
- For more than 1,000 properties with communal areas, the Council did not have clear records for whether the properties should be included in its asbestos survey programme
- For almost 3,000 individual properties and 2,000 communal areas, data validation was required to establish whether they should be included in the Council’s gas safety programme
- For more than 100 communal assets in the Council’s lift safety programme, around a quarter did not have an up-to-date inspection and
- For more than 1,000 properties, the Council had no assurance of whether the properties needed to be included in its water safety compliance programme.
The RSH found LB Barking and Dagenham to be in breach of the Home Standard and that as a consequence there was the potential for serious detriment to tenants.
All of the RJs, RNs and GUR listings published by the RSH can be viewed on the RSH’s website here.