Honeycomb Group’s response to consumer standards consultation

Foreword from Chief Executive Julie Guildford Smith

Firstly, a big thank you to all customers who completed the survey or attended one of our engagement groups. Your time is very much appreciated, and your feedback remains vital to both Honeycomb Group and the wider sector.

As an open and transparent Group, we wanted to share our consumer standards consultation response to give customers and partners greater insight. It has been fantastic to see both staff and customers attend webinars and workshops where honest, genuine and constructive feedback has been shared. It feels only right to continue this by publishing our responses below.

Going forward, we will continue to support this open conversation and welcome further engagement with customers, our local communities and the regulator.

Summary:
• Honeycomb Group consulted with 30 involved customers. The survey was completed online and by the customer. Most were supportive of the standards and believe it to be an opportunity to raise them. Although all agreed with the proposed, there were some concerns around resources and that best practice examples would be useful.

• Honeycomb Group’s revised Customer Engagement Strategy is heavily based around the Consumer Standards and several customers have already been involved in this review. Honeycomb Group has also spoken to a number of customers about Tenant Satisfaction Measures and Consumer Regulations. Across all customer involvement groups, customers have agreed that the focus should be delivering the best services possible, changing what is needed to maintain standards, and providing good quality homes within budget.

• Together with customers, a plan to make sure we remain compliant with all standards alongside transparent monitoring and communication is to be created. This is currently underway and will be completed once the final standards are published.


Our response:
1. Overall, do you agree that the proposed Safety and Quality Standard sets the right expectations of landlords?
Yes we agree. A programme of more frequent assessments than 5 years will be challenging for most landlords but we look forward to learning more about the decent homes standard amendments.

2. Overall, do you agree that the proposed Transparency, Influence and Accountability Standard sets the right expectations of landlords?
Yes, we agree.

3. Do you agree that the proposed Transparency, Influence and Accountability Standard accurately reflects the government’s ‘tenant involvement’ direction to the regulator?
Yes we agree.

4. Overall, do you agree that the proposed Neighbourhood and Community Standard sets the right expectations of landlords?
Yes we agree. Registered providers must work cooperatively with tenants, other landlords and relevant organisations to contribute to the upkeep and safety of shared spaces associated with their homes. This may be challenging in practice but the concept makes sense and we will endeavour to build on the success of our partnership working to date.

5. Overall, do you agree that the proposed Tenancy Standard sets the right expectations of landlords?
Yes we agree.

6. Do you agree that the proposed Tenancy Standard accurately reflects the government’s ‘mutual exchange direction’?
Yes we agree.

7. The proposed Code of Practice is designed to help landlords understand how they can meet the requirements of the standards. Do you agree that the proposed Code of Practice meets this aim?
We agree. More detailed case studies and good practice examples would be helpful. We assume these may emerge once the inspections begin.

8. A draft Regulatory impact assessment has been produced to help in understanding the costs, benefits and risks of introducing a revised set of consumer standards and code of practice. Do you agree with our conclusions in the draft Regulatory impact assessment?
This is not easy to understand. The cost of regulation to landlords will increase significantly too in an extremely challenging time. Our customers have some concerns about this.

9. The draft Equality impact assessment looks at what effects introducing the consumer standards might have on members of groups that are protected by equality laws. Do you agree with our conclusions in the draft Equality impact assessment?
We agree.