Consumer Standards

The Regulator of Social Housing introduced new Consumer Standards for social housing providers like Ongo.

The Consumer Standards aim to ensure that you have a safe, secure and well-maintained home with clear communication and support from your landlord.

 

There are four key standards, plus the Tenant Satisfaction Measures:

  • Safety and Quality Standard

  • Transparency, Influence and Accountability Standard

  • Neighbourhood and Community Standard

  • Tenancy Standard

We welcome the new standards as they provide greater rights and protections to tenants and help to improve the quality of social housing and the service tenants receive.

How we’re supporting the new Consumer Standards 

  1. We held workshops to consult with staff and Community Voice (our main tenant body) to identify any areas of non-compliance against the standards and also areas for improvement.
  2. We then created an action plan to capture any improvements needed so that progress can be tracked. No areas of non-compliance were identified.
  3. The self-assessments and the action plan were then shared with our Board for discussion and challenge.
  4. We’ll aim to deliver all the actions within our plan within 12 months, some within two or six months, depending on their urgency.

Our Consumer Standards action plan

OngoPhotograph by Richard Walker/ImageNorth

Safety and Quality Standard

This standard is about making sure Ongo is providing safe, well maintained, safe and good quality homes and landlord services to our tenants.

As part of this standard, we will look to:

  • Review and improve the way you report damp and mould to us.
  • Share information about planned works more proactively.
  • Add more information about adaptations to our website.
  • Build a new system to manage and track compliance against legally required health and safety assessments in one place.
  • Continue to carry out stock condition surveys on all properties to inform future investment planning.
OngoPhotograph by Richard Walker/ImageNorth

Transparency, Influence & Accountability Standard

This standard is about making sure Ongo is open with tenants, treating them with fairness and respect, so that they can access services, raise complaints when necessary, influence decision making and hold us to account.

As part of this standard, we will look to:

  • Review our Profiling and Consent procedure.
  • Ask tenants to update their information when changes occur more regularly.
  • Review the customer data we hold, ensuring it’s accurate.
  • Promote the range of communication formats available more regularly, including translation services.
  • Continue to ensure all our tenant communications are written in plain language.
  • Continue to consider a range of different communications formats to meet the diverse needs of our tenants.
  • Utilise our Publications Panel to review high-importance tenant communications.
  • Promote a new Reasonable Adjustments policy.
  • Create an area on our My Home app for our Homeless service users to access information digitally.
  • Create an online community for tenants to feed into consultations and reviews more easily.
  • Consult with all tenants to understand ways of improving and tailoring tenancy services, including customer engagement.
  • Review our Customer Charters to align to the new Consumer Standards, making clear the level of service that tenants can expect.
  • Continue to review our webpages, ensuring information is relevant and accurate.
  • Add new information to our website around tenants’ rights, disability and reasonable adjustments, and a leadership chart.
  • Populate Landlord Services information on our website, signposting to relevant services and support.
  • Publicise our performance information against the Tenant Satisfaction Measures, and consult with Community Voice as to the performance information they would like to see.
  • Communications the actions we are taking to improve performance.
  • Sharing more information around the improvements we’ve made following the information you’ve given us (You said, We did).
  • Publicise complaints information in every edition of Key News, and share the types of complaints received in our quarterly complaints performance.
  • Publish our self-assessment against the Consumer Standards.
  • Publish all our performance information, including Tenant Satisfaction Measures.
  • Add more information to our complaints performance, including types of complaints received.
  • Ensure surveys are accessible to all tenants, including those not online.
OngoPhotograph by Richard Walker/ImageNorth

Neighbourhood and Community Standard

This standard is about making sure that Ongo engages with other relevant parties, such as the Local Authority or police, so that tenants can live in safe and well-maintained neighbourhoods and feel safe in their homes.

As part of this standard, we will look to:

  • Provide more information on our website and relevant policies about our strategic partnerships.
  • Publicise that we are a hate crime reporting centre on our website and what this means.
OngoPhotograph by Richard Walker/ImageNorth

Tenancy Standard

This standard sets out how we should rent homes to tenants, making sure that we do so fairly, and how we look after and end tenancies; supporting tenants to live in their homes for as long as possible.

As part of this standard, we will look to:

  • Promote mutual exchanges more proactively as an option of support for those wishing to move.
  • Upgrade current system to support the mutual exchange process and offer a more efficient service to users.
  • Take more action to highlight potential tenancy fraud, including refreshing the skills of our colleagues to identify it.
  • Continue to explore and pilot services to help tenants to sustain their tenancies.

Take a look at our self-assessments against the Consumer Standards

Our progress so far – January 2025

  • We’ve reviewed and updated our Profiling and Consent procedure, which includes Reasonable Adjustments.
  • We have a new Reasonable Adjustments policy.
  • We’re communicating with tenants more, asking them to update their information regularly.
  • We’re reviewing the data we hold for tenants, ensuring it’s accurate.
  • We continue to review our communications to ensure accessibility for all.
  • We have consulted with involved and wider tenants to see how we can improve and tailor our approach to delivering landlord services, and this feedback will be used to shape our services.
  • We have consulted with tenants and colleagues on new Customer Charters (Service Standards).
  • We have added a section on Tenants’ Rights to our ‘Your tenancy’ page on the Ongo website.
  • We’ve also outlined our responsibilities as a landlord on the ‘Your tenancy’ page on the Ongo website.
  • Self-assessments against the Consumer Standards have been uploaded to our website.
  • We have information about our Leadership team available on our website.
  • We are working together to ensure our webpages are accurate and up-to-date.
  • We now have a dedicated area on our website for our performance information, including updates to the way we share our progress against Tenant Satisfaction Measures (TSMs) and complaints.
  • We are continuing to share actions that are being taken to improve our performance.
  • We will encourage everyone to complete our Tenant Satisfaction Measure surveys, providing a letter to those not digitally enabled, and telephone surveys to those who we know cannot read or write.
  • We continue to update our ‘You said, we are listening’ information on the Ongo website.
  • We have upgraded the system we use to facilitate mutual exchanges, improving the process for our tenants.
  • We have added new information to our website around mutual exchange and the system that tenants can use to apply.
  • A review of training requirements is in progress to ensure colleagues are knowledgeable about identifying tenancy fraud.
  • A new solution is in place to support tenants to sustain their tenancies.
  • Our Corporate Plan details our commitment to working in partnership with other agencies, and quarterly performance reports will be published on our website to track our progress towards achieving our Corporate Plan and the strategies that underpin them.
  • Partnership information is also highlighted in news and events shared, and within our self-assessments against the Consumer Standards.
  • We have published that we are a hate crime reporting centre on our website.
  • Our Damp and Mould policy and procedure has been reviewed and revised, with influence from colleagues as well as our Resident Scrutiny Panel members.
  • A Guidance for Aids and Adaptations document can be found on our website.
  • We continue to carry out stock condition surveys on all properties to inform future investment planning.
Read more about the Tenant Satisfaction Measures.

Tenant Satisfaction Measures

Read more about the Tenant Satisfaction Measures.
Read the government's full report here.

Consumer Standards

Read the government’s full report here.
Read our response to the Consumer Standards.

Our latest news article

Read our response to the Consumer Standards.