Action needed: social housing providers must be made accountable for the treatment of their tenants | Steve Bundred

On the tree-lined north London street where I live, scaffolders arrived seven years ago. Metal poles were erected around a housing association property next door to me, owned by the social housing provider Peabody, to allow for external refurbishment work to be carried out. But today, that scaffolding still stands – and those repair works have never been carried out.

And Peabody, while it is one of the worst offenders, is not unique. Ask any councillor or Citizens Advice worker in any of our largest cities about their housing caseload, and they will tell you the same story. Yet locally elected representatives are often powerless to act.

Before 2010, the Audit Commission, of which I was chief executive, routinely inspected housing associations. But for the Regulator of Social Housing, created by the Tories, the main preoccupation was with their financial viability; tenant services were no longer their focus. Since the Grenfell Tower fire, this has begun to change. However, social housing remains the least accountable of all our public services. In England, providers are not even subject to the Freedom of Information Act.

And the housing ombudsman, which made four findings of severe maladministration against Peabody last year, has also been unable to drive change. In one of last year’s findings, involving dangerous cladding, the ombudsman noted that it had taken 24 emails and an intervention by the local MP before Peabody responded to the issue.. In another case, Peabody refused to look beyond the last six months at a problem that had persisted for eight years, even though it had previously admitted that its property was in “a very dangerous state

My neighbours, who have suffered from dark, damp and neglect for longer than the duration of the second world war, would no doubt empathise. Klute, the critic from Islington council clearly has a point.

Asked to respond to the many criticisms, Peabody says it spends £1m a day on maintaining residents’ homes with teams in each local area and that it seeks to listen to residents to improve “the basics”. In this case, Peabody says it regrets how long the scaffolding has been up. The building is listed and it says that means any changes must involve the council, English Heritage and everyone who lives there. “This has all taken longer than we would have liked and we’re very sorry. We’re aiming to do the work as soon as possible.”

Residents would welcome that. But the real problem is bigger than Peabody. Housing is now the responsibility of the deputy prime minister, Angela Rayner. She is commendably increasing the rights of tenants in private rented property. But her renters’ rights bill does not address the growing crisis in the experience of social housing tenants. And as Labour promises yet another quango cull, housing associations will lobby for even greater deregulation than has so far been suggested. For building the additional homes the country desperately needs, they may have a point. But their tenants need more protection, not less.

This does not mean reintroducing inspection, which is costly and can be ineffective. Instead, Rayner’s many options include giving local authorities a clear role in the accountability of the sector. For instance, she could permit councils to require attendance at public scrutiny meetings by associations felt to be neglecting their charitable roots. She could allow the housing ombudsman to consider super-complaints from councils, which would act like a class action in law. She could extend the Freedom of Information Act, as proposed by the Labour MP Andy Slaughter in 2019. She could also give existing regulation more bite, with stiffer penalties and a new duty on housing providers to be good neighbours, requiring them to keep communities informed. In my own particularcase, Peabody has never provided any information about its plans for the properties adjoining my home, despite erecting scaffolding which extends across my windows.

But one change, above all others, would compel all housing associations, not just Peabody, to give their responsibilities as landlords the same focus that they now devote to development activities. The law permits councils to order the repair of some properties in very poor condition. However, the powers, provided by the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, convey only trivial penalties for non-compliance. It is possible for councils to then undertake the necessary work themselves – yet they are not able to recover the cost of doing so immediately, by billing the delinquent providers. Instead, they must place a charge on the property that is recoverable only if, and when, it is sold.

No cash-strapped council will take such a step lightly. To remedy this imbalance, the offenders should be compelled to pay immediately on completion of the repairs. And if they then challenge council invoices in court, the onus should be on the provider in each case to show that it had taken reasonable steps to avoid direct action by the council on behalf of vulnerable tenants.

Before Margaret Thatcher, when social housing was mostly provided by local government, disaffected renters could vote against their landlord. That is often no longer the case, so it is vital that we find other ways to empower social tenants and make politics relevant to their concerns.

Meanwhile, Peabody’s chief executive, who has failed to respond to the letters my neighbours and I have written to him about his organisation’s failings, will soon become chair of the group of London’s largest housing associations. As such, he will arguably be the most influential person in the sector. When they meet, Rayner should tell him to first put his own house in order. And should he fail, that she will enable councillors to put things right.

• Steve Bundred is a former Audit Commission chief executive