Gas safety compliance falls for England’s social housing landlords

Only four in 10 English social landlords reported full compliance with required gas safety checks in 2025/26, compared with 56.9% a year earlier.

Housemark’s early analysis of Tenant Satisfaction Measure (TSM) results put the latest figure at 41.7%.

That’s despite an increase in the proportion of tenants who said their home was safe.

The social landlord data firm also says that satisfaction with home safety rose from 78.4% to 79.3% during the year.

Encouraging growth in tenant satisfaction

The firm’s chief data officer, Jonathan Cox, said: “These results provide encouraging evidence that investment in homes and core services is starting to translate into improved tenant satisfaction.

“Repairs performance is improving across the sector and we’re beginning to see the link between operational improvements and resident perception.”

He added: “However, the results also show that challenges remain.

Complaints volumes continue to rise and progress on communication and engagement measures is gradual.”

Big rise in happy tenants

The findings are based on data from 223 registered providers managing 2.7 million homes, equivalent to 64% of England’s social housing stock.

The report provides an early indication of 2025/26 TSM performance before the Regulator of Social Housing publishes the national results later this year.

Overall tenant satisfaction increased from 72.6% to 74.2%.

Housemark estimates that between 50,000 and 100,000 tenants moved from being dissatisfied or neutral into one of the satisfied categories during the year.

Repair response rates

Repairs recorded some of the largest increases in satisfaction with repairs rose from 73.6% to 76.2%.

Satisfaction with the time taken to complete work increased from 69.4% to 73.2%.

The proportion of tenants satisfied that their home was well maintained also rose, from 72.3% to 74.5%.

Repairs backlogs fell by 8% compared with the previous year as landlords directed more investment towards existing homes and core services.

Most complaints handled

Complaint numbers increased during the year, with the median rate for Stage 1 complaints rising by 11.6%.

Stage 2 complaint rates increased by 32.9%.

More than 94% of complaints were handled within target timescales.

Satisfaction with complaints handling increased to 37%, although it remained one of the lowest-scoring TSM measures.

Landlords’ handling of anti-social behaviour received a satisfaction score of 60.0%, which is largely unchanged from the previous year.