Two providers breach Home Standard over fire and electrical safety

Gateshead Metropolitan Borough Council

Gateshead Council, through its arms-length management organisation, The Gateshead Housing Company, “failed to meet statutory health and safety requirements across a range of areas including fire safety, asbestos and electrical safety”, according to information supplied to the regulator.

The Regulator of Social Housing (RSH) reported in the provider’s regulatory notice that where fire safety requirements are concerned, until mid-2018, Gateshead Council “did not have a programme in place to carry out risk assessments across its stock”, and that while fire risk assessments were carried out on Gateshead’s high-rise properties, “they were not carried out in other stock until very recently”.

The RSH also identified failings in relation to the Health and Safety at Work Act, including “several hundreds of properties” where asbestos surveys of communal areas had not been carried out, as well as “several hundreds” where electrical safety certification was not in place.

The regulator noted that The Gateshead Housing Company had commissioned a review in mid-2018 that identified these issues and that Gateshead Council has been working to ensure that the required statutory checks and safety actions are completed.

However, it concluded: “Taking into account the breadth and scale of this failure, and the potentially longstanding nature of the issues, the regulator has determined that it is proportionate to find a breach of the Home Standard in this case.”

It continued: “Complying with statutory health and safety requirements is a fundamental responsibility of all registered providers because of the potential for serious harm to tenants.

“In this case the regulator has concluded that the risk of serious harm is demonstrated because thousands of Gateshead MBC tenants have been potentially exposed to an unknown risk of danger over a long period of time. Therefore the risk of serious detriment has existed.”

In a statement issued to Social Housing, Sheena Ramsay, chief executive of Gateshead Council, said that the regulatory notice reinforced a number of issues the council had previously identified in its independent review in June 2018.

She said: “Every year we carry out thousands of inspections across our 19,500 properties. These inspections lead to further actions needing to take place. The independent health and safety review highlighted a range of areas requiring improvement including our record keeping, compatibility of systems and modernising our processes.

“The council and The Gateshead Housing Company acted quickly on the findings of the review and significant steps have been made to ensure the required statutory checks are complete. A clear, up-to-date work plan is now in place.

She added: “Clearly our data systems and processes were less than perfect and we apologise to our tenants for any concerns they may have. Improvements have been made so residents can be confident that the council is meeting the required health and safety standards our tenants should expect and deserve.”

Brunelcare

Brunelcare, a charitable company providing sheltered and extra care housing and care homes, along with domiciliary care and support to older people, manages around 1,100 properties in Bristol and North Somerset.

The provider has today been downgraded for governance to G2, from G1, in a regulatory judgement, while being found in a separate regulatory notice to have breached the Home Standard and risked “serious detriment” to tenants. It retains its V1 viability rating.

According the regulatory judgement, Brunelcare needs to “strengthen board oversight of the business and improve its risk management and internal controls assurance framework”.

It found that the provider had “not been transparent in its communication with the regulator”, following an internal audit by the provider that only concluded “partial assurance across a range of areas”.

The regulatory notice set out these concerns in further detail. The regulator stated that through an in-depth assessment it had identified a board report and property safety internal audit report that had been commissioned by Brunelcare, after the provider’s management became aware of weakness in the area of property safety and compliance.

This internal audit “concluded only partial assurance across a range of health and safety compliance areas including fire safety and electrical safety”.

The RSH wrote: “There was a failure to have in place effective systems, accurate data and an effective programme of planned work to address identified safety risks.

“For asbestos, legionella, fire and electrical safety actions arising from surveys and testing were not being recorded consistently or monitored and therefore [there is] a risk that they were not completed.”

It added: “There remains outstanding work, including actions categorised as high and medium risk, in relation to fire safety and electrical safety. Some of this work has been overdue for a number of years, and with the potential to affect a significant number of tenants.”

The RSH stated that Brunelcare has made progress in addressing the internal audit report recommendations “and importantly [is] putting in place centralised systems and reporting to ensure delivery of safety follow up actions”.

In its regulatory judgement, the RSH also highlighted that Brunelcare must improve the quality of its stress testing.

“Whilst single and basic multi-variant stress testing has been conducted against loan covenants, it has not considered the impact against cash and conditions which could cause the business to fail. Mitigation strategies are under-developed and related triggers are not in place.”

It added: “Brunelcare is undertaking further work to develop the board’s collective risk appetite.”

Brunelcare chief executive Kevin Fairman said that work to address the potential risks raised in the regulator’s notice "is already underway" and welcomed the regulator’s recognition of this.

He said: “I would like to stress that no customer has come to any harm, as a result of any of the issues noted, and I have written to all of our customers to both reassure them and explain the actions we are taking.

“Whilst we can assure both our customers and the regulator that improvements have and will continue to be made, we recognise that historically our processes have not been robust enough. We also recognise that we should have reacted more quickly in response to certain issues”.

He added: “Brunelcare’s aim is to provide the best possible care, including health and safety, for every customer we have the privilege to support”.

Update on 24.04.2019 at 14.00

This story was amended to include a response received from Brunelcare, who had previously been contacted for comment.