Small landlords will not need to submit data on tenant satisfaction measures

TSMs were introduced by the regulator in April 2023, as part of a huge overhaul of social housing regulation following the Grenfell Tower fire in June 2017.

But the requirements are different depending on the side of the provider. Large landlords with more than 1,000 homes are required to submit their TSM data annually to the regulator, while smaller landlords are not. 

While the majority of landlords and tenants agreed with this approach, some respondents to the RSH’s consultation called for small landlords to submit TSM data too, to aid “regulatory oversight” of these landlords.

To explore this, the RSH embarked on a voluntary pilot of housing providers with fewer than 1,000 homes in 2023, to weigh up the potential benefits and challenges of small landlords submitting TSM data.

The pilot involved 124 small providers, included private registered providers and local authority registered providers, supported housing specialist landlords, almshouses and for-profit landlords. Of these, 98 submitted their annual TSM data to the scheme. 

The results showed that the vast majority of interviewees recognised the value of introducing TSMs. Over half said they had already used TSM data to inform policy reviews and support improvements to service provision.

However, the RSH’s report flagged concerns about the accuracy of some of the surveys, as small landlords use a wider variety of survey collection methods and “cannot in many cases reliably meet minimum levels of statistical accuracy”.

It said that small differences in small landlords’ TSM calculations, or in how relevant definitions have been applied, can have an outsized impact and increases the chances of “misleading conclusions” being drawn.

It also found that the submission of TSMs would be an additional burden, given many small landlords have relatively few staff and chief executives and staff often end up performing multiple roles.

Will Perry, director of strategy at the RSH, said: “We are grateful to all the providers who took part in our data submission pilot. We really value the additional insight they gave us, which demonstrates the value of small provider TSMs and confirmed our existing approach to data submission.

“All social landlords, including small providers, must continue to use their TSM results to drive service improvements for the benefit of tenants.”