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Regulatory judgements: landlord that breached Home Standard hit with governance downgrade
A housing association which was found to have breached the Home Standard earlier this year has been hit with a governance downgrade as part of the latest set of judgements published by the Regulator of Social Housing (RSH).
Golding Homes, which manages over 7,000 homes in Kent, maintains a financial viability grading of ‘V1’, however its governance grading has been downgraded from G1 to G2.
All of these judgements are based on assessments completed before the coronavirus crisis. In-depth assessments by the English regulator are currently paused.
According to the regulator, Golding Homes “needs to strengthen its governance and compliance frameworks to ensure that its controls and reporting systems are robust and that there is effective board oversight of health and safety compliance”.
In February this year, Golding Homes was found to have breached the RSH’s Home Standard after leaving more than 100 high-risk fire safety actions outstanding for months.
Sue Chalkley, who was appointed interim chief executive of Golding Homes after it was found to breach the Home Standard, said: “Golding Homes fully accepts the regulator’s decision to change our governance grading following the notice issued in February. We wish to apologise to our residents and reassure them that their safety remains our top priority.
“Our key focus is to ensure we provide our residents with homes that are safe and secure and return to our previous G1 status.
“We will continue to work with the regulator on delivering our recovery plan, and are making good progress despite the impact of COVID-19, which we are monitoring closely.”
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Meanwhile, Gloucestershire City Homes (GCH) maintains its G1/V2 rating for governance and financial viability, however the basis on its financial viability grading has been changed.
The regulator said the association’s financial plans are consistent and supported its financial strategy, and it has sufficient security and liquidity. However, it added that GCH has an inherently tight covenant position which needs to be managed carefully as it is crucial to the organisation obtaining business plan approval from its lender.
Two of GCH’s three loan agreement covenants are subject to annual resetting by the lender, with little or no tolerance permitted from the revised business plan profile.
The regulator said this means there is limited capacity in GCH’s business plan to manage adverse scenarios.
Ashley Green, chief executive at GCH, said: “This a great result for GCH and demonstrates the hard work and commitment of our staff and the board.
“Also, the regulator’s highly scored viability rating provides our tenants and staff with a sustainable platform for continued growth in our tenant services, investment in stock and the future delivery of new homes.”
The regulator also published two strapline judgements for Catalyst and Watford Community Housing, both of which maintain their G1/V1 ratings.
An interim regulatory judgement has been provided for First Garden Cities Homes, which was created by a merger between Howard Cottage Housing Association and Welwyn Garden City Housing Association in March.
Based on the regulator’s previous assessments of the providers which have now merged, the new organisation has received a governance grading of G1 and financial viability grading of V1.
