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HSE investigating after ALMO left hundreds of gas safety checks uncompleted
The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) is investigating after an ALMO failed to carry out hundreds of gas safety checks on time.
East Kent Housing (EKH), which manages around 17,000 homes on behalf of Canterbury, Dover, Thanet and Folkestone & Hythe councils, issued an apology to residents as the issues emerged last week.
Rosie Duffield, Labour MP for Canterbury, has written to communities secretary James Brokenshire, asking what action the government and the Regulator of Social Housing (RSH) will take following the problems, and called the situation “simply unacceptable”.
She claimed that up to 924 homes were affected as of 7 June – although EKH said 384 homes had expired gas safety certificates on that date.
A spokesperson for the ALMO said: “We have apologised to those residents who are waiting for a gas safety check.
“As soon as we became aware of the problem, we worked as quickly as we could with our four councils to secure a number of additional contractors to support the service.
“The number of outstanding checks is falling by the day, and our staff have worked evenings and weekends to contact all residents directly affected to arrange appointments, by letter, visit and telephone, and we are offering evening and weekend slots to make it more convenient for residents.
“We are determined to make sure this does not happen again and we have commissioned an independent investigation into what went wrong and will implement any actions it identifies.”
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EKH was established in 2011 and is the only ALMO that manages homes on behalf of multiple councils.
In February, Canterbury City Council agreed an improvement plan for EKH, including a £214,250 annual cash injection, in response to concerns about the ALMO’s performance in some areas – particularly procurement and contract management.
EKH published a performance report for October to December that claimed that 99.91% of its managed homes have a valid landlord gas safety record (LGSR). This would suggest that there were only a few with out-of-date checks, as landlords are required by law to carry out an LGSR check every 12 months.
A spokesperson for the HSE said: “HSE has been made aware of concerns regarding East Kent Housing and is currently investigating. We cannot comment further at this time.”
The RSH said it was unable to comment.
In a joint statement, Canterbury, Thanet and Folkestone & Hythe councils said: “We are sorry to those tenants who are waiting for overdue gas safety checks.
“As soon as we became aware of the problem, we worked as quickly as we could with East Kent Housing (EKH) to secure the services of extra gas engineers.
“The number of outstanding checks is falling by the day. EKH has been in touch with all of the tenants directly affected by letter and telephone to arrange appointments and are offering evening and weekend slots.
“We are determined to make sure this does not happen again and await the results of an independent investigation into what went wrong.”
Gas servicing for EKH has been carried out since April 2017 by P&R Installations, which did not respond to a request for comment.
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