Regulatory judgments
Find out about inspection reports, regulatory judgements about the council as a landlord and our response.
Regulator of Social Housing
All social housing providers are overseen by the Regulator of Social Housing.
Following an inspection in winter last year (2025), the regulator issued a C3 judgement, meaning that despite meeting some of the required standards and no issues with day to day services, the council is not fully meeting all standards and needs to make some improvements.
How we will improve for our tenants
- We will speed up the programme to survey homes, so we have evidenced and up to date understanding of their condition and clear records.
- We will strengthen the way that we report safety and compliance information and look for additional external reviews of this from health and safety experts.
- We will improve our oversight of our service and the performance of our contractors.
- We will come up with a clear plan to address any outstanding non critical safety works including lift repairs.
- We will continue to listen to tenants and keep residents informed about what is changing and what it means for them. Our focus is on making sure homes are safe, well maintained, and supported by stronger systems in the future.
- We always welcome independent scrutiny and this report helps us strengthen our services. We take safety matters seriously and will act on them as a priority. We are already taking action to strengthen assurance and oversight.
Latest update – August 2026
To respond to the regulators findings and improve our housing services we have:
- approved a Housing Improvement Programme. This will help us plan out how we are going to strengthen services, improve oversight and governance, and deliver better outcomes for residents. Housing Improvement Programme Executive Report.
- created a Housing Improvement Plan which has been reviewed by Regulator of Social Housing which sets out the actions we need to take to improve for residents.
- set up a Housing Improvement Board that will oversee the programme and plans, monitor progress and make sure we are delivering for our residents.
We will be sharing updates here around every three months and you can also sign up to our Housing Matters email bulletin to get them delivered straight to your inbox!
The Housing Ombudsman
When residents living in council and housing association homes are not satisfied with the outcome of a complaint to their landlord, they can get help from the Housing Ombudsman. The Ombudsman will investigate their complaint.
We will publish inspection reports and regulatory judgements about the council as a landlord and our response. We will also share the Housing Ombudsman's investigation into systematic failure on this page when it is ready.
The Governing Body statement in response to the Housing Ombudsman’s Annual Landlord Report 2023/24
Islington Council values resident feedback, which is essential for understanding the experiences of our residents and ensuring the continuous improvement of our services.
Learning from complaints is a crucial aspect of this feedback, providing us with opportunities to transform potentially negative experiences into positive changes for the people and communities we service. By understanding what went wrong and how we can rectify it, we can better serve our residents. We have further improved our learning through:
- Root cause analysis – ensuring we tackle the causes of our most common causes for complaint
- Complete escalations audit – to seek to better understand which complaints escalate to stage 2 and why
- Closed case surveys conducted by a third-party provider
- Working with our resident complaints panel, to get a resident view on how we can resolve complaints to residents’ satisfaction
Our Annual Landlords' Complaints Report highlights several key areas where we have focused our efforts to enhance our services and improve the experiences of
residents:
- Repairs and Maintenance: Our "Find My Operative" tracking system allows residents to see when their repair appointment is scheduled, providing transparency and assurance.
- Improving Processes for Tackling Damp and Mould: We continue to refine our processes to address these issues effectively.
- Better Resourcing of Our Complaints Service: We are increasing our resources and improving the way we use them, focusing on timely and high
quality responses and resolving problems at the earliest opportunity. - Continual Professional Development of Our Staff: Professional, empathetic, and well-trained staff are at the heart of good service delivery. We continue to ensure that staff have the knowledge and skills they need to work with the residents through an annual training programme for existing staff and a thorough induction process for new starters.
We have also redesigned our Tenancy Services to embed accountability and place residents at the heart of service delivery. Our small patch sizes ensure that
residents know their local housing officer, and we gain a deeper understanding of the residents we serve. By combining learning from complaints with other resident feedback, we regularly renew our Homes and Neighbourhoods Improvement Plan to maintain our focus on delivering excellent landlord services.
While we are encouraged by the progress we have made so far, resulting in significantly improved performance against targets in the first quarter of 2025/26, we recognise that there is still more to be done.
Our annual performance report acknowledges the challenges we faced in meeting the expectations of the Housing Ombudsman’s Code and the steps we are taking to comply with our statutory obligations. Whilst our policy and processes are designed to deliver full compliance, we need to further develop our complaints management system, to record and report on all stages of a complaint and the compliance points required to meet the Code, so that we have assurance as an organisation of we are achieving full compliance.
We have interim arrangements in place to ensure our reporting fully meets the expectation of the Regulator of Social Housing and once system improvements are in place we will work with Housemark, a leading industry benchmarking organisation specialising in Tenant Satisfaction Measures, who will test our finalised processes and provide assurance to the council, our residents, the Housing Ombudsman, and the Regulator of Social Housing that moving forward, our systems and processes are fully compliant.
The progress in delivering for residents will continue to be closely monitored by our Corporate Management Team and relevant Executive Members, ensuring regular oversight at the most senior level within the council. Performance in this area is also scrutinised by both the Homes and Communities Scrutiny Committee and the Corporate Resources and Economy Scrutiny Committee.
We remain dedicated to ensuring that every resident in Islington receives the best possible service, with their concerns addressed swiftly, effectively, and with care. We will continue to learn, adapt, and evolve in response to the changing needs of our residents, always striving to provide services that reflect the highest standards of quality and responsiveness.
Signed by:
Councillor John Woolf - Executive Member for Homes and Neighbourhoods
Councillor Flora Williamson - Executive Member for Finance and Performance