Traffic signs manual: Chapter 4: Warning signs

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Please send your response by 3 March 2022 – if you respond after this date, your response may not be considered. All registered providers that own relevant social housing homes would be required to collect information and report on the TSMs in Tenant Satisfaction Measures: Technical Requirements, subject to tenant confidentiality considerations. For the purposes of reporting TSMs, a provider owns a home when it: (a) holds the freehold title or a leasehold interest in that home; and (b) is the body with a direct legal relationship with the occupants of the home (this body is often described as the landlord). Proportion of respondents who report that they are very satisfied or fairly satisfied with their landlord’s handling of complaints. to ensure that registered providers of social housing are financially viable and properly managed, and perform their functions efficiently and economically

ii. The Government is also leading a review of the Decent Homes Standard to consider if it should be updated, including consideration of what the Standard might say about communal areas and green spaces. We consider that the introduction of a TSM on communal areas meeting a required standard would be more practicable once the detail about any revised standard has been developed as part of the Government’s review. We will therefore decide on the most appropriate action to take in relation to introducing a TSM on communal areas meeting a required standard once this review is concluded. Section 149 of the Equality Act 2010 sets out the public sector equality duty (also known as the general equality duty) which, in summary, places a duty on public bodies to have due regard in exercising their functions to the need to: We consider the expectation in 2.2.b for registered providers to publish information about how they have met the regulator’s requirements would be important to provide tenants with confidence that their landlord is meeting these requirements, and also transparency in relation to how they are doing so. TSMs should meet the dual aims set out in the White Paper where possible. These aims are that TSMs should provide tenants with greater transparency about their landlord’s performance and inform the regulator about how a registered provider is complying with the consumer standards AccurateWe have carefully considered a range of alternative question wording (e.g., satisfaction with the repair being completed ‘right first time’, quality of the repair or the ease of arranging the repair). Compared to these alternatives, we think that the proposed measure is clear, well-understood, and reflects a broad but distinct set of issues on responsive repairs that matter to tenants. Overall, this TSM would offer a more rounded view of repairs than overall satisfaction with a repairs service alone (TP02). Consultation question 2 – TSMs about timeliness of repairs The proposed TSM Standard is at Annex 1. We think that this standard sets clear expectations which would support the regulator in helping to ensure that the TSMs meet their aims as set out in the White Paper. We have set out below the required outcome and specific expectations in the draft TSM Standard, and we have summarised our rationale. 1.

The TSM Standard, and related requirements, would apply along with our other standards and requirements. This includes paragraph 2.2.1c of the Tenant Involvement and Empowerment Standard, which currently requires registered providers to provide timely and relevant performance information to support effective scrutiny by tenants of their performance in a form which they seek to agree with their tenants. The existing consumer standards will continue to apply until the regulator amends them or replaces them with any new standards. Our three tests for the new consumer regulation regime The White Paper highlights prompt and effective complaints handling as a key issue that matters to tenants and the role of the Complaint Handling Code in promoting consistency across landlords’ complaints procedures.As regulator, we are mindful of our statutory duty to be proportionate and minimise interference. We therefore propose that registered providers with fewer than 1,000 relevant homes would be permitted to collect and report TSMs annually according to a reporting year other than 1 April to 31 March. For example, providers with fewer than 1,000 relevant homes might wish to use a reporting year for TSMs which aligns with their particular financial reporting year. Similarly, where we require information to be calculated at ‘year end’ providers with fewer than 1,000 relevant homes would be permitted to report information at a date other than 31 March. In reporting TSMs, such providers would have to be clear as to which reporting year TSMs relate. Such providers would also be required to use the same reporting start and end dates year on year, except where there is a compelling reason not to do so (e.g., the provider adopts a new reporting year). Data protection

Following legislative change, we intend to review all our consumer standards, which would include the TSM Standard introduced following this consultation. There are four proposed TSMs under the theme of Effective handling of complaints (CH01 Complaints relative to the size of the landlord, CH02 Complaints responded to within Complaint Handling Code timescales, TP11 Satisfaction with the landlord’s approach to handling of complaints and TP12 Tenant knowledge of how to make a complaint).As well as developing TSMs that are individually robust, clear and comparable we want to ensure that the suite of measures is proportionate and works effectively as a whole. The proposed TSMs aim to provide a sufficiently rounded view of landlord performance, across the themes set out in the White Paper, for tenants to use to hold their landlord to account and for us to use in our consumer regulation. At the same time, we have been mindful that the TSMs should be deliverable. i. The Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities plans to consult on electrical safety in the social rented sector and has set up a Working Group to help inform that consultation. This work is underway but has not yet concluded. We will therefore decide on the most appropriate action to take in relation to introducing a TSM on electrical safety once this work is concluded. We are proposing to introduce 22 TSMs. These reflect the themes and issues set out in the White Paper. There are 12 tenant perception measures which are to be collected through tenant perception surveys. A perception survey aims to periodically capture tenants’ general views of landlord performance and is not triggered by a recent interaction with the landlord. Providers would be required not to use data from transactional surveys to calculate these TSMs [footnote 8]. There are also 10 TSMs which are to be collected from providers’ management information. The 22 TSMs that we are proposing to introduce are outlined in this chapter and the full definitions are set out in Tenant Satisfaction Measures: Technical Requirements and in Tenant Satisfaction Measures: Tenant Survey Requirements. The TSM areas are also summarised in Table 2 below.

Proportion of respondents who report that they are very satisfied or fairly satisfied with the overall service from their landlord. It would ultimately be the responsibility of Boards of private registered providers and governing bodies of local authority registered providers to ensure that reported TSMs had been calculated accurately and in accordance with regulatory requirements. Consultation question 13 – General TSM requirements

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Given the importance of effective complaints handling to tenants, and following the draft TSMs in the White Paper, the proposed TSMs include tenant satisfaction with landlord complaints handling. To incorporate TSMs into our regulatory framework, and to set clear expectations of registered providers, we propose to introduce a new consumer standard which would require registered providers to, among other things, collect, publish and submit information about their performance against published TSMs in accordance with requirements set out by the regulator. This is the proposed TSM Standard. It is proposed that the above documents, incorporating any changes that may be made following responses to this consultation, will be published in advance of coming into force on 1 April 2023. Our approach is outcome-focussed, co-regulatory, proportionate, risk-based and assurance based. These principles will continue to be central to our regulatory approach following the implementation of our strengthened consumer regulatory role.