A unitary council on the south coast of England has referred itself to the Regulator of Social Housing over shortcomings in its electrical and fire safety work to tenants’ homes, leading to a probable breach of the Home Standard.

Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole Council manages 9,560 homes which are split into two neighbourhood teams. The Bournemouth stock of 5,058 homes is directly managed by the council, while the Poole stock of 4,502 homes is managed by an ALMO.

The council referred itself “in the spirit of openness and transparency” after it found shortcomings in the council’s electrical safety programme, which it said was “particularly affected by the COVID-19 pandemic as the work requires access to the whole of a property for a considerable period of time”.

An action plan was put in place after it identified several issues in late October, which included targeting resources, contracting additional subcontractors and refocusing its in-house team. It has been carrying out weekly checks in communal areas and a programme of checks to reassure and prioritise the most vulnerable tenants and properties “as quickly as possible”.

Late last year the council found 780 outstanding electrical safety inspections, with some properties having never been inspected. It also found 19 outstanding “high-priority” fire safety inspections and a number of issues found with recording cases. 18 domestic properties and 64 communal areas had never been inspected.

A review in the third quarter of 2021/22 revealed that 19 high-priority actions identified by fire risk assessments between 2016 and 2020 were still outstanding in Bournemouth. There were also 189 medium-priority actions outstanding.

The council expected all outstanding fire safety work to have been completed by the end of January and for the backlog of electrical inspections to be cleared by spring 2022 at the latest. It expects the implementation of a new IT system will help to better manage fire safety work in the future.

By Patrick Mooney, Editor