Landlords must provide breakdown of survey methods for satisfied tenants in TSM returns, RSH says

In May, the regulator warned it would become more prescriptive if landlords tried to game the system.

The TSMs, along with the rest of the Social Housing (Regulation) Act, which became law in July, are part of a huge overhaul of social housing regulation following the Grenfell Tower fire in June 2017.

The regulator published its final 22 TSMs in September 2022.

Of those, 12 must be collected through tenant-perception surveys and 10 through landlord data.

They cover five themes: repairs, building safety, effective complaint-handling, respectful and helpful tenant engagement, and responsible neighbourhood management.

The TSMs are a requirement of the Tenant Satisfaction Measures Standard, which came into effect on 1 April this year.

Providers with 1,000 homes or more must annually submit information to the RSH about their performance against the measures.

Those which own fewer than 1,000 social homes do not need to submit a TSM return until 2025.

However, the English regulator is running a voluntary pilot project with small providers to consider requirements for 2025 and beyond.

Landlords began collecting TSM data for 2023-24 in April and will have to submit it by the end of June, ahead of publication in autumn 2024.

Publishing the guidance on Monday, the RSH said landlords must ensure the TSM returns were “accurate, consistent and transparent”.

According to the guidance, landlords will be asked about their approach to surveying tenants, including whether they undertook a phased approach, did a rolling survey, or conducted a single survey.

They will also need to inform the English regulator as to whether they used external contractors for the survey and whether they used incentives for tenants to complete it, and if so, what those incentives were.

“If separate or multiple external contractors were used for the collection and analysis, you should name all contractor organisations and indicate which was used for what purpose,” the RSH said.

Landlords will also need to provide data on how many tenants were surveyed, how many were exempted, and whether they used a census approach or a sample.

In addition, they will have to specify the collection methods used to survey tenants and report how many tenants were surveyed using this approach.

Landlords must also provide the regulator with information about whether they have published their TSM results and whether they intend to.

TSM results published online by landlords must match the data submitted to the regulator.

If providers do not intend to publish their TSM approach, they must explain their reasoning.

Will Perry, director of strategy at the RSH, said: “Landlords must follow our TSM data-return guidance to make sure they submit consistent and transparent TSMs that tenants can use to hold them to account.

“The TSMs are one part of our stronger regulation, which will also include new consumer standards and inspections from next April.

“We will be ready, and landlords need to make sure they are too.”

Inside Housing’s research earlier this year revealed the approach of more than 200 councils and housing associations to collecting the TSMs.