The Regulator for Social Housing is a stand alone non departmental public body of government. Their role is to promote a viable, efficient and well-governed social housing sector able to deliver more and better social homes.
As part of their role they have developed a set of standards which all registered housing providers like ourselves must comply with.
Their standards fall under two headings economic and consumer. Local authorities are not regulated under the economic standards.
From 1st April 2024 the following consumer standards apply:
- Neighbourhood and Community Standard
- Safety and Quality Standard
- Tenancy Standard
- Transparency, Influence and Accountability Standard
Here you can find detailed information on the standards.
Our Housing Management Team ensures compliance with the standards. In accordance with the new requirements our Healthy & Safety Lead is our Property Services Manager.
Tenant Satisfaction Measures
On the 1st April 2024 the Regulator for Social Housing introduced a set of measures which social landlords must collate and report back to the Regulator on each year. These include the 12 perception measures and 10 data measures. Social Landlords like ourselves were required to carry out a perception survey for 12 of the measures and collate data on the other 10.
Here you can find the results from our 23-24 Tenant Satisfaction Measures
Further information about this survey can be found here:
Annual Report To Tenants and Leaseholders
The Social Housing Regulator requires all social housing providers to produce an annual report for its tenants.
Housing Annual Report 2021-22 For tenants and leaseholders
We provide this document in other formats including a Housing Annual Report 2021-22 Fully accessible version
The annual report for 2023-24 will be available early October 2024.
What are local service offers?
In addition to the national standards we are required to work with tenants to produce agreed local service offers. These sit below the national standards and are tailored to the needs of the local area. The phrase ‘local’ is left to each provider to determine in partnership with its tenants.
How have local service offers been developed?
- We worked with tenants and leaseholders. Since then they have been updated annually with tenants and leaseholders.
- The Local Offers are monitored and reviewed and reported back at the end of each financial year via Threshold/our annual report for tenants and leaseholders.
View the latest Local Offers Output 2023-2024
Housing Management Team Structure
Below is information on how the Housing Service is structured and who is responsible for what areas in Housing. Ensuring compliance with the new Housing Regulation sits across the teams (with the exception of the Development Team).
If you need our help with anything, please email us at housing@wealden.gov.uk and the most appropriate person will get back to you.
David Plank- Director of Community
- Customer, Digital and Revenue & Benefit Services
- Housing and Property Services
- Waste, Assets and Crematorium
Gemma Forshaw- Head of Housing
- Housing Services
- Property Services
- Housing Options & Strategy Manager
- Housing Development Manager
- Housing Policy & Partnerships Manager
Julie Wilkins- Property Services Manager
- Undertake repairs on council housing.
- Carry out works on empty properties ready for occupation.
- Modernisation and improvement work to council housing, including energy efficiency measures.
- Through adaption works support vulnerable tenants & homeowners to live safe & independently.
- Advise and enforce standards where necessary in Private Rented Sector.
- License House of Multi Occupation and Caravan sites.
- Provide energy efficiency advice to all households.
- Health and Safety Lead
Hayley Frankham- Housing Development Manager
- Delivery of the capital program to provide new council homes for rent/ shared ownership.
- Facilitating affordable housing through the local plan.
- Delivering specialist Government programmes.
- Liaison with the planning management/ legal services on implementing planning policy and delivering affordable housing.
- Collating and monitoring information and housing trends ensuring targets are met, providing information to the community, planners and other stakeholders.
John Scrace- Housing Options & Strategy Manager
- Assess statutory homelessness applications from members of the community threatened with or experiencing homelessness.
- Facilitate & maintain the housing register allocating affordable housing.
- Provide advice & take proactive preventative measures to alleviate the risk of homelessness.
- Assess housing register applicants using the Allocations Policy.
- Support rough sleepers through outreach, provisions, holistic support, short/long term accommodation.
- Assist applicants access the Private Rented Sector and signpost to support services.
- Ensure social housing is let quickly and in accordance with the Allocations Policy.
Chris Stephens- Housing Services Manager
- Management of the councils housing tenants and tenancies. Including retirement living accommodation.
- Management of communal cleaning, grounds maintenance and tree works on Housing owned land.
- Supporting vulnerable tenants to sustain their tenancies.
- Maximising rent and service charge collection & minimising arrears.
Nicola Levett- Housing Policy & Partnerships Manager
- Develop housing policies & strategies.
- Undertake housing research.
- Respond to Government consultations.
- Advice best practise in housing.
- Ensure compliance with social housing regulators housing standards & housing ombudsman complaint self-handling code.
- Support tenants & leaseholders to get involved & make a difference to service delivery.
- Ensure wider customer engagement and feedback.
- Work with partners to improve the lives of tenants & leaseholders and access to the services provided by those organisations.
- Support and help integration of refugees.
- Provide specialist ICT systems support across the housing service.
Who is responsible for the compliance with the new Housing Consumer Standards?
This sits across three teams due to the diversity of the four consumer standards, headed up by Chris Stephens, Julie Wilkins and Nicola Levett. With overall responsibility sitting with Gemma Forshaw and David Plank.