Regulator’s assessment
In March Raven was inspected by the Regulator of Social Housing, these inspections are carried out every three to four years to ensure housing associations, like Raven, are meeting the standards set, to ensure we are delivering for you, our customer.
Following our inspection, I am really pleased that the Regulator has awarded Raven the highest grading for their new consumer standard, C1. They have also confirmed that we have retained our previous gradings for their governance standard, G1, and viability standard,V2.
Is C1, G1, V2 a good result?
Yes, these are truly excellent results. C1 and G1 are the highest gradings that can be given, and show that the Regulator has the highest confidence in how we deliver for customers (C1) and how we operate as a business, ensuring excellent governance (G1). V2 refers to our financial viability and shows that we are meeting all the Regulator’s requirements and we have sound financial plans.
Why does the Regulator of Social Housing carry out inspections?
The Regulator of Social Housing carries out inspections every three to four years to make sure that housing associations, like Raven, are doing our job properly and looking after our customers.
The inspection has three distinct standards: Consumer, Governance and Viability. Consumer is a new customer standard, which the Regulator has only recently introduced.
Assessing us across these three standards helps to check whether as a housing provider we are:
- Managing our money responsibly
- Keeping homes safe and well maintained
- Listening to customers and treating them fairly
- Making good decisions as an organisation
The assessment is not about inspecting individual customer homes, but making sure that Raven, as a landlord is meeting the standards they expect. These assessments help protect you and ensures you get good, consistent services you can rely on and trust.
What do the three standards mean?
Consumer standard
The consumer standard assesses how we deliver our services to you and how we keep you safe. We’re judged on four different standards for this; Neighbourhood and Community Standard, Safety and Quality Standard, Tenancy Standard, and the Transparency, Influence and Accountability Standard.
Governance standard
This is about how well we are governed and how we deliver our strategic organisation objectives.
Viability standard
This standard looks at our financial viability, our financial health and how we could financially respond to any stresses or problems that came our way.
What happened during the assessment?
The Regulator attended meetings and interviewed our leadership team, board members and customer voice panel. And, in addition to this, we submitted lots of documents to the Regulator to show how well we look after you as customers, how we maintain your homes and keep you safe, how we help you to sustain your tenancies, offer additional support where needed, and how we keep you informed and get your input on our services.
What they found
The Regulator found that we meet their requirements in all the standards, awarding us the highest ratings for Consumer and Governance.
In particular, they found that:
- We keep you safe in your homes
- We make sure your homes are well maintained
- Our repairs service is effective and repairs are carried out in good time
- We are always looking to make improvements, looking for ways to improve our services to you
- By understanding more about you, and your individual needs, we are able to adapt our services for you
- We give you lots of opportunities to get involved and scrutinise what we do, and take on board your feedback
- When we do get things wrong, and you have reason to complain, we respond quickly and learn from what happened to make improvements
What does this mean?
It means that the work we are doing meets all the standards expected by the Regulator.
It confirms we are on track with the work and commitments set out in our current business plan, Delivering What Matters, and that we are working at the right pace to deliver the services you need, in the way that you need them.
While this is an excellent result, it does not mean we have achieved everything we want to achieve, but it does mean we are in an excellent position to use what we are doing as a spring board, an opportunity for us to build on what is working well, and do even better.
We are really proud to have achieved C1, G1, V2, and hope this gives you confidence in Raven as your landlord, knowing you can trust us to deliver safe and secure homes.