Severn Vale Housing Society and Arches Housing were both downgraded from a top ‘G1’ rating to a ‘G2’, which is still compliant with regulatory standards.
Severn Vale, a 3,900-home stock transfer organisation based in Tewkesbury, received the downgrade following an in-depth assessment by regulator the Homes and Communities Agency (HCA).
The judgement said the association “needs to improve the effectiveness of some aspects of its arrangements to support continued compliance, particularly given inherent risks stemming from [its] current financial position and low forecast headroom on future covenant compliance” “the pace of change in moving to a skills-based board has been slower than expected”.
Arches Housing, a 1,100-home organisation based in Sheffield, was downgraded for health and safety failures, following a self-referral. The chief executive , said: “These weaknesses related to outstanding testing and risk assessment regimes for electrical safety, water hygiene and asbestos management.“The biggest issue we identified was that we had 130 homes where we had not carried out a fixed period electrical inspection in the past 10 years; that number is now less than 20 and we are working to have this piece of work completed shortly.“We have taken immediate action to rectify all the weaknesses identified following our review; no customers have come to any harm as a consequence of the weaknesses.” The regulator said the organisation is “working to address the shortcomings… via a detailed action plan”.