'Meetings continuing to reduce' with housing regulator as improvements are made to Northampton's social housing provision, council says
West Northamptonshire Council (WNC) says meetings with the housing regulator are “continuing to reduce", as improvements are made to its social housing provision.
In November 2024, the Regulator of Social Housing (RSH) graded Northampton Partnership Homes (NPH) – the council’s arms length housing provider – as C3, which is the second worst rating available. The regulator found “serious failings” and told NPH that “significant improvement” was needed.
Months on, WNC, which has released plans to bring the management of housing services in-house by April 2027, says it is seeing “increasing confidence” by the RSH.
According to the council, there has been “measurable improvement” following the C3 grading, including in key areas, such as repairs satisfaction, complaints handling and engagement. The council added that “meetings continuing to reduce as actions and improvements are progressed”.
A council spokesman said: “Compliance performance has also seen major improvement, with gas, fire, water and asbestos programmes all now at 100 percent. Electrical compliance continues to improve, and overdue fire risk assessment remedial actions have reduced dramatically from 4,500 to just 14 case.”
The latest update on the social housing provision is due to be presented to the council's cabinet on Tuesday March 10.
Councillor Charlie Hastie, Cabinet Member for Housing and Communities, said: “We were clear that where failings were identified, we would act decisively, and that is exactly what we are doing. We are seeing real, measurable improvement across compliance, repairs, complaints and customer satisfaction, while continuing to address more complex challenges such as data quality and the Decent Homes backlog.
“The transition of NPH back into the council is progressing as planned, with Phase 1 preparations underway and stronger governance arrangements now firmly in place. There is still work to do and we are not complacent, but the direction of travel is clearly positive. Our focus remains on delivering safe, decent homes and building a modern, accountable housing service that tenants can have confidence in.”
The council also said that “challenges remain”, as work continues to tackle the Decent Homes backlog. Activity is also ongoing to “strengthen satisfaction around anti-social behaviour handling” and “ensure tenants feel listened to”. Changes to the housing register are also being introduced to reduce backlogs and ensure a “fairer" allocations process, following consultation earlier this year.