On Wednesday 27 November 2024, the Regulator of Social Housing published the outcome of its recent routine regulatory inspection of Notting Hill Genesis, your landlord.
The outcome judged us to be non-compliant against the regulator’s governance and consumer standards, with grades of G3 and C3. We remain compliant with the regulator’s viability standard at V2.
In early April 2025, the regulator agreed our plan to ensure we regain compliance with their governance and consumer standards. The plan includes 11 workstreams, each with clear outcomes that, once delivered, will enable us to regain compliance with the regulator’s governance and consumer standards.
We’ve agreed to provide updates on progress against the compliance plan at least once a quarter here and in Connections, our resident bulletin.
Find out more
We’ve put together a list of frequently asked questions based on the queries we expect you might have and will update those as necessary.
We have a series of regional resident drop-in sessions planned as part of our usual engagement with customers. We’ll ensure someone from our senior team attends each of those to answer any questions you might have about the regulator’s findings. Many of you have been involved in shaping changes to our services and we will continue to offer opportunities to do so.
Latest update - Q1 June 2025
Individual updates for each of the 11 workstreams are listed below. Each with clear outcomes that, once delivered, will enable us to regain compliance with the regulator’s governance and consumer standards.
Several of the workstreams against the consumer standard build on the foundations we’ve already established and on the progress we’ve made so far through our Better Together strategy. They include activities to improve repairs, complaints and how we deal with damp and mould, which we know are areas that matter to you.
Third-party managed buildings
To improve our oversight and reporting for buildings that are managed by third-party managing agents and provide assurance that any health and safety risks are being managed effectively.
We need to improve our understanding of the buildings that are managed by third-party managing agents by ensuring we have seen evidence that vital checks are happening for such buildings.
We have put in place dedicated resources to obtain any outstanding documents from external managing agents, so we can be assured of the health and safety of residents who live in homes managed by such agents.
We have made system and process improvements to how we collect compliance information from third parties based on external expert advice. We have also developed a robust approach to escalation when compliance information is not provided. We have more work to do to ensure these improvements are embedded in our ways of working in the long term.
Performance in relation to the building safety compliance metrics, which we report to the regulator as part of our Tenant Satisfaction Measures return, has significantly improved since last year. All areas which were under 90% last year have seen a minimum gain of 10%.
Fire remediation actions
To ensure we have a clear risk-based approach to managing fire risk actions.
The regulator raised concerns about the volume of non-urgent overdue actions arising from our fire risk assessment (FRA) programme. All buildings that needed one had an in-date FRA and the average number of actions being completed each month had increased steadily since February 2023, but we needed to do more.
We have reviewed and adapted our risk-based approach to managing FRA actions based on external expert advice and agreed this with the board.
Following an external review we are also working to improve our internal processes for managing FRAs.
Significant progress has been made to clear the backlog of fire remediation actions. The percentage of blocks with both an in-date FRA and no overdue actions increased to 86.2% (2024: 72.56%). Since the regulator carried out their inspection, we have reduced the back log by more than 50%.
We have more work to do and have a plan and the resources in place to continue to deliver improvements.
Stock condition
To ensure the information we hold about our homes enables us to identify risks to resident safety and comply with the decent homes standard, and accurately informs our asset investment plans.
One of the regulator’s concerns was that we were not completing physical assessments (stock condition surveys) of our homes as quickly as we should be, so we needed to step up activity around that.
We set ourselves a stock condition survey target of 8,500 for the year 2024-25 and exceeded this, completing 8,817 stock condition surveys in the year to March 2025.
When the regulator carried out their inspection, just over 50% of our homes had been surveyed in the last five years, this has now increased to 70.3%. We have agreed a plan with the board to accelerate this so at least 85% of homes will have been surveyed in the last five years by March 2026. We are working closely with our contractors, FFT and Rand, to stay on track and target those homes where our data suggests more urgent investment may be needed.
The information we get from the surveys is used when we make plans for replacing windows, kitchens, bathrooms and more, so if you receive a letter about this from FFT or Rand (who carry out the surveys for us) please do reply to make sure your home is included in these plans.
Damp and mould
To ensure all damp and mould cases are accurately reported and recorded and there is sufficient capacity and capability so they are dealt with in accordance with legal requirements as set out in legislation, including timescales mandated under Awaab's law.
In preparation for Awaab's Law, we have reminded residents and colleagues of the importance of reporting damp and mould, and have refined our process to make it easier to have these issues resolved in our homes. We have used the data we hold about our homes and our residents to proactively message over 11,000 residents who have previously experienced a damp and mould issue, or who have a vulnerability which may put them at risk, to ask them if they have any new or recurring issues.
To drive a better resolution, issues highlighted are now being dealt with by a new dedicated damp and mould team who are supported through enhanced data reporting and working closely with colleagues to better identify and resolve risk.
We have provided additional training and refocussed resources within the repairs team to have more people focusing on damp and mould so that any repeat reports can be triaged effectively to determine if there are any underlying building issues that we need to address.
We have appointed a damp and mould specialist to ensure best practice is delivered consistently and are completing a full review of our policies and procedures to ensure we are fully compliant with future legislation.
When our housing officers visit residents in their homes they specifically check if there is any damp, mould or condensation being experienced. In the last financial year our annual home visit programme reached its highest level yet, with the percentage of homes visited within the last 12 months increasing to 85.7% (2024: 77.9%). These visits are a key activity to enable us to rebuild relationships with residents, identify any property issues and record any vulnerabilities that we need to be aware of.
Good progress has been made, and the number of overall open damp and mould cases have reduced, but we know we have more work to do in this area.
Repairs
To provide an effective, efficient and timely repairs and maintenance service across all homes and communal areas
In May 2024 we changed how we arrange and oversee repairs, bringing in a dedicated delivery team to manage the process from start to finish and enable us to deliver a better repairs service to our residents. In the 12 months since, we’ve handled 133,559 jobs, with 85% of those being addressed and allocated within 48 hours.
Our new dedicated repairs hub is starting to deliver positive results, and we’ve made some headway in improving our repairs satisfaction figure. In April 2024, the month before the new team started work, customer satisfaction with their most recent repair was at 77.8%. By the end of March 2025, it had reached 81.7%.
This is positive, but we know we still have work to do to ensure that our residents consistently receive an effective, efficient and timely repairs and maintenance service.
Complaints
To ensure complaints are addressed fairly, effectively, and promptly and that we act on lessons learned.
In July 2024 we introduced a new independent centralised complaints service as part of a broader transformation of the business. Nearly one year on we have seen improvements in the consistency and quality of our complaint responses, although we have more work to do to ensure we consistently respond to complaints on time.
Although we saw an increase of over 100% in complaints for 2024 to 2025, there was a decrease in the number of negative findings from the Housing Ombudsman for complaint handling, which is a positive sign. Meanwhile, in the Housing Ombudsman’s Landlord Performance Report looking at how we performed in the year ending 31 March 2024, we were found to have performed “well” when compared to similar landlords by size and type.
We are focusing on learning lessons from complaints and strengthening our root cause analysis to identify necessary improvements across our services and in our communications with residents. We will continue to listen, learn and adapt our approach to ensure we deliver a fair, effective and prompt service.
Resident engagement and influence
To evaluate our new resident involvement model to check it is delivering as originally intended and demonstrate we take resident views into account when making decisions about how we provide services.
Following an extensive recruitment and interview process, we appointed our new resident forum. While selection was based around relevant skills and experiences, additional information provided at the application stage has helped the new forum demonstrate strong diversity that represents our communities
After an extensive training and induction programme earlier this year, the resident forum has been meeting regularly since February 2025. They have commissioned their first project, focusing on improving their communication and transparency as a group, as well as the involvement and engagement programme more widely.
We know the level of information we hold on our residents needs to improve, alongside our processes, so that we can tailor more personalised services to our residents and understand how we can serve them better.
We have been progressing our work as part of our Know our Customer project to ensure the data we hold about our residents is useful and can help us tailor our services. As part of this work, we have consulted with residents about how we hold information about service adjustments. We want to ensure we have a clear and robust process in place to capture any service adjustments on our systems so residents’ needs are understood and considered when they receive a service from us.
Board and committee oversight
Our board and committees are set up in the most effective way to fulfil their responsibilities.
Earlier this year, Léann Hearne joined the Notting Hill Genesis group board as a non-executive director, bringing a wealth of valuable sector experience. Leann is the chair of a new sub-committee of the group board that has responsibility for monitoring the delivery of our regulatory compliance plan.
In addition, we have now selected two experienced leaders to join our group board as non-executive directors from September 2025. Subject to shareholder approval at our annual general meeting in September, Brendan Sarsfield will become our new group board chair and Dave Sheridan chair of our homes sub-committee. They will replace Ian Ellis and Richard Powell respectively, both of whom are coming to the end of their agreed terms of office.
We have also made a number of important management changes and appointments to the executive board to better align the organisation around the delivery of the Better Together strategy and regulatory compliance plan.
This includes the appointment of Tabitha Kassem as chief governance and risk officer, to lead on the effective management of risks as well as regulatory compliance in what is an increasingly complex and demanding regulatory landscape.
Otherwise, we continue to review and develop our governance arrangements, engaging external consultancy expertise where necessary to provide subject matter expertise.
Risk and controls framework
We maintain an effective risk management and internal controls assurance framework that supports good outcomes for residents.
Our enterprise risk framework continues to be developed and embedded across the organisation. An independent subject matter expert has been appointed to support in the review of the board’s risk appetite, and key risk tolerances and to undertake a maturity assessment. Systems development is also planned to enable the automation of risk assessment and control processes.
Financial governance
To provide line of sight to the strategic business plan and its key deliverables while we implement the compliance plan.
We have recently published an update on our financial performance for the last financial year (2024/25), ahead of our audited annual report in September 2025.
It shows that despite the challenging economic environment throughout 2024/25, the underlying performance of the group was robust, with significant operational and strategic progress made.
Overall, we remain a financially robust organisation, able to withstand the current economic headwinds and with sufficient resources to see through our current plans for improving services to residents.
The board agreed the strategic business plan at their meeting in June 2025 and all regulatory submissions and assurance was completed on time.
People and culture
To ensure stakeholders, including colleagues, are kept informed and engaged as necessary and that we have the right culture, with residents at its heart, to deliver our plans.
In February 2025, over 75% of our colleagues completed an independent external engagement survey managed by Gallup. This allowed us to compare our results across leading companies within and outside of the UK. The results showed that we have engagement levels higher than the UK average, although there is more work to do including being clear on our priorities and supporting our employees to do their best by increasing accountabilities, cross-team working and looking at our processes, systems, structures and focus areas.
To ensure all employees are clear on our priorities for enhancing customer experience we brought 1,350 colleagues together at our staff conference, where we reviewed progress made last year, outlined our key priorities for 2025-26 and recognised employees who had gone above and beyond to deliver a great service to our residents.