Ealing Council’s breach of the Regulator of Social Housing’s Home Standard along with failures in its leadership and management was one of the key issues that came up in its first cabinet meeting held following Ealing Labour winning at the recent council elections.
Both Ealing Liberal Democrats and Ealing Conservatives attended in which they quizzed Ealing Council and Ealing Labour leader Peter Mason and members of the cabinet on how its failure has happened as well as other issues including safety cross Ealing, lighting and cycle hangers.
In a statement, the Regulator of Social Housing said: “Following a self-referral, the regulator has concluded that London Borough of Ealing does not have assurance that it has complied with statutory health and safety requirements across a range of areas namely fire, gas, electrical, asbestos and water safety. Internal audits completed in 2021-22 concluded no assurance for fire safety, and limited assurance across other areas.”
It added: “The regulator has concluded that the Council has breached the Home Standard and that there was a risk of serious detriment to tenants during this period.”
Click here to read the full report from the Regulator of Social Housing
Ealing Council said in a statement: “In January this year, we undertook an internal audit of our building safety work, which highlighted some improvements that needed to be made. We found that we needed to be more robust in a number of areas and could not consistently provide the assurance required on record keeping, compliance checks, and follow up actions.”
The council also instructed consultants, ARK Consultancy to look into the issue and they concluded that there are some very serious issues that have been going on for a long time.
“It is absolutely the case that there has not been a single contributory factor that has resulted in the current challenges but a series that cumulatively has allowed the service to drift and lose focus. We consider these to be weaknesses in Governance, Leadership, management, and capability”.
Click here to read the full report from ARK Consultancy
Since 2021, Ealing Council has been led by Peter Mason who has also held a number of cabinet roles since 2014 which included being Cabinet Member for Housing, Planning & Transformation.
The full meeting can be viewed here
