What Recent Consumer Judgements Reveal About C1 and C2 in Social Housing

By David Guy · 19 August 2026

The Regulator of Social Housing’s latest consumer judgements offer an important insight into what increasingly separates a C1 landlord from a C2 landlord. Whilst the organisations assessed operate in different circumstances, and should not be viewed as a direct comparison, the judgements reveal a consistent theme: the regulator is assessing organisational assurance and control, not isolated performance indicators.

What does C1 look like?

The landlord achieving a C1 judgement demonstrated more than good operational performance. It was able to demonstrate that its systems, processes, and governance arrangements were delivering effective outcomes for residents.

Key strengths included:

• An efficient and responsive repairs service.
• Reliable property-level information about the condition of homes.
• Informed investment decisions made with asset data.
• Robust arrangements for identifying and managing health and safety risks.
• Independent assurance over critical safety information.
• Improved customer contact performance.
• Continued reductions in complaint volumes.
• Clear evidence that learning from complaints was driving service improvement.
• Services tailored around resident needs and circumstances.
• Meaningful resident influence extending into strategic and Board-level decision-making.

The significance of the judgement lies not in any single achievement. Instead, it reflects an organisation that can demonstrate how information, oversight, resident feedback, and operational delivery combine to produce better outcomes.

What can lead to C2?

The latest C2 judgement is just as important. This is because it highlights that compliance with key operational requirements does not automatically translate into the highest level of assurance. The landlord was meeting many expectations. Repairs were generally completed on time. The landlord was meeting health and safety obligations, and residents were treated respectfully. However, the regulator identified weaknesses that limited confidence in the overall assurance framework, including:

• A backlog of overdue repairs.
• Gaps in stock-condition information.
• An incomplete understanding of resident needs and characteristics.
• Limited evidence that resident data was influencing service design.
• Resident engagement arrangements that were still developing.
• Complaint responses that were not consistently timely.

The judgement illustrates an important distinction. A landlord may be doing many of the right things operationally whilst still lacking the evidence, control and assurance. These attributes are required to demonstrate that performance is sustainable and risks are fully understood.

What’s the difference between C1 and C2?

In practice, the difference between C1 and C2 is often less about service failure and more about organisational maturity.

It can be the difference between having an improvement plan and demonstrating that improvements have become embedded; between collecting data and showing how that data influences decisions; between consulting residents and enabling genuine scrutiny and influence; and between reporting a backlog and demonstrating control over the risks it presents.

Similarly, it is the difference between responding to complaints and proving that learning has changed services, between holding stock-condition data and being able to rely on it at individual-property level, and between publishing performance figures and showing the story behind them.

This is why headline repairs performance can provide only limited assurance. A high completion rate does not reveal what sits within overdue repairs, how long residents have been waiting, if repeat visits are masking unresolved issues, if vulnerabilities have influenced decision-making, or if repairs intelligence is shaping future investment.

The regulator is increasingly focused on understanding if landlords know what is happening beneath the headline figures and if they can demonstrate effective control of risks and outcomes.

Resident influence is now a key assurance indicator

The latest judgements also reinforce the growing importance of the Transparency, Influence and Accountability Standard.

The regulator assesses how well a landlord understands resident experience through resident engagement and translates that understanding into service improvement. The critical question has shifted from “were residents consulted?” to “has resident involvement influenced decisions?”

For repairs and asset services, this means moving beyond traditional consultation exercises. Landlords need to be able to demonstrate how resident insight has contributed to service standards, influenced investment priorities, challenged performance information and helped shape improvements. Landlords should not just collect resident feedback. They should actively use it to inform decision-making.

Where landlords can demonstrate a clear link between resident feedback, governance decisions and service improvements, they are more likely to demonstrate the culture of accountability that the regulator expects.

Awaab’s Law raises expectations further

The need for robust assurance and effective organisational oversight will become even more important with the introduction of Phase 2 of Awaab’s Law from 30 November 2026.

Significant-hazard requirements will extend beyond damp and mould to include excess cold and heat, falls, structural collapse, fire and explosion risks, electrical hazards and domestic hygiene concerns.

As a result, what may initially appear to be a routine repair could quickly become a safety-critical issue requiring coordinated action across multiple services. Customer services, housing management, repairs teams, contractors, asset management, compliance and building safety functions all have a role to play in identifying, escalating and managing risk.

Success will depend less on introducing additional procedures. It will focus on ensuring that teams share information effectively, understand their responsibilities and can act quickly when risks emerge. Ultimately, the regulator’s assessment focuses on the effectiveness of the landlord as a whole, not individual service areas in isolation.

Questions leadership teams should be asking

The latest judgements suggest that Boards, councillors and executive teams should look beyond performance dashboards and ask deeper assurance questions:

• Do we understand the age, risk profile and resident impact of overdue repairs?
• Can we rely on our stock-condition information at property level?
• Can we demonstrate how residents have influenced decisions and service improvements?
• Does repairs intelligence inform investment planning and risk management?
• What independent assurance do we have that reported performance reflects reality?

Collectively, these questions move organisations beyond measuring activity and towards understanding outcomes, assurance and organisational control.

The wider lesson from C1 and C2

The latest consumer judgements suggest that the gap between C1 and C2 is increasingly defined by assurance, evidence and organisational control rather than by individual performance measures alone.

Strong landlords are not those that never experience problems. They are the organisations that understand their homes, know their residents, identify risks early, learn from complaints, act on resident feedback and can demonstrate that these actions lead to better outcomes.

Ultimately, C1 reflects confidence that the landlord knows what is happening across the organisation, understands the risks it faces and has effective arrangements in place to deliver safe, accountable, and continuously improving services.