The HCA has downgraded St Vincent’s Housing Association’s (SVHA) following failures to do with its fire risk assessments.

St Vincent’s Housing Association’s (SVHA) governance rating to has been downgraded to G2 meaning it is compliant with regulatory standards but needs to make improvements.

This follows a regulatory notice last month following a “failure to implement a large number of outstanding high-risk actions from fire risk assessments”.

The HCA said: “SVHA needs to strengthen its operational control arrangements to ensure adherence to all relevant health and safety legislation and regulatory requirements.”

Following an internal audit, St Vincent’s referred itself to the regulator to inform it of the problems with reporting recommendations from fire risk assessments conducted from September 2015 to July 2016. The internal auditors reported that the problems were not only a result of staff performance and that the system of control was in need of improvement.