25-03-2025
Birmingham City Council failed to hit critical safety targets for tenants' homes
Birmingham City Council has insisted progress is being made to ensure tenants' homes are safe after it failed to hit key safety targets last year.
A council performance report, covering the third quarter of 2024-25, recently revealed a number of findings on compliance which were described by one opposition councillor as 'really serious".
One example was the percentage of fire risk assessments undertaken in low-rise blocks was slightly lower than the target of 98 per cent.
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It was therefore given a traffic light rating of red which means performance was worse than the quarterly target and also fell outside of the 'acceptable tolerance'.
The percentage of gas safety checks undertaken on all relevant properties also fell slightly short of the 98 per cent target - and again, was rated red.
Some of the findings at the Labour-run council which were given the red rating, the lowest possible, can be found below:
Performance indicator // quarterly target // result
Percentage of fire risk assessments undertaken in low-rise blocks // 98 per cent // 94.76 per cent
Percentage of gas safety checks undertaken on all relevant properties // 98 per cent // 94.34 per cent
Percentage of asbestos surveys undertaken in all relevant communal properties (block only) // 98 per cent // 92.19 per cent
Percentage of Electrical Installation Condition Report tests undertaken in all relevant properties // 98 per cent // 79.62 per cent
Conservative councillor Ewan Mackey was deeply concerned by the report, telling a recent cabinet meeting: 'This is the safety of people's lives we're talking about here.
'It wouldn't be acceptable if it was a private landlord.
'This is really serious and we really don't want to have this in a report.'
But Paul Langford, executive director of city housing, said many of these compliance indicators were much lower when the council received a breach notice from the Regulator of Social Housing back in 2023.
'We are now in a situation where the regulator is recognising that by April of this year, other than electricals, we will be green [which means performance is equal or better than the target] across the board,' he continued however.
'That will make us the envy of many local authorities.'
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The council performance report added that the authority has been focused on addressing key areas of non-compliance and that there has been 'positive feedback' from the Regulator for Social Housing.
'Most non-compliance areas relate to landlord health and safety which means that the expected percentage levels for each workstream are set at 95 per cent or above,' it said.
'Given the Grenfell disaster, it is right that there is a low level of tolerance to non-compliance in these workstream areas but this doesn't always demonstrate the progress made.'
It continued: 'In May 2023, all the landlord health and safety workstreams (except high-rise fire assessments) were at an unacceptable standard.
'Over the past 18 months, workstreams such as asbestos and low-rise fire risk assessments have accelerated from circa 30 per cent compliant to just over 90 per cent.
'Whilst there are still changes with outstanding remedial works and the electrical testing program, the council is in a much better place in terms of assuring itself that tenant's homes are safe.'
