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The second year of TSM results – what do they tell us?
Tenant satisfaction measures provide a rich source of intelligence on how landlords are meeting the outcomes of the consumer standards, writes Will Perry, director of strategy at the Regulator of Social Housing
The second year of TSM results – what do they tell us? #UKhousingTSMs provide a rich source of intelligence on how landlords are meeting the consumer standards, writes Will Perry at the Regulator of Social Housing #UKhousingSocial landlords have now completed collecting and publishing data from their tenant satisfaction measures (TSMs) for the second year, and today the Regulator of Social Housing (RSH) published its analysis.
While it is too early to start identifying trends or make many meaningful year-on-year comparisons, the value of having a consistent set of metrics that all landlords must publish is becoming apparent.
TSMs are one element of making our sector more transparent and holding landlords to account. They are one of the ways that tenants can scrutinise their landlord’s performance and, in turn, influence how services are delivered.
So what do this year’s results tell us?
On the satisfaction side, nearly half a million tenants – over 10% of the total number of social housing households in England – were surveyed by landlords using a broadly consistent approach. This makes the TSMs a robust source of information about individual landlords and the sector as a whole.
Most tenants remain satisfied with landlord services, with more than seven in 10 tenants (71%) in low-cost rental accommodation (LCRA) surveyed satisfied with the overall service from their landlord, while 18% reported being dissatisfied.
Overall satisfaction is supported by satisfaction with the overall repairs service (median 74%), that homes are safe (median 78%) and tenants are treated with fairness and respect (median 78%).
This does still mean that a substantial proportion of tenants are not satisfied with their landlords. This is particularly acute in landlord complaint-handling, where average satisfaction remains low at 36%. This reflects issues we have found during our inspections over the past year and suggests that this is an area where landlords should seek to understand better how improvements could be made.
Again, as we saw last year, satisfaction among low-cost homeownership (LCHO) residents remains relatively low (48%). This cannot simply be dismissed as a feature of the tenure – there is a wide variation in satisfaction between different landlords.
In the management information TSMs, it is positive to see improvement in fundamental safety checks, with most landlords reporting full compliance on each building safety measure and only a minority of landlords with gaps.
There was also slight improvement in repairs performance, with 79% of the 11 million non-emergency responsive repairs and 91% of the 3.8 million emergency repairs completed during 2024-25 within target timescales.
While the overall picture is encouraging, there is considerable variation between landlords in both satisfaction and management information performance. For example, while the top quarter of landlords completed 89% of their non-emergency repairs within timescale, the lowest quarter managed less than 75%. And while the top quarter of landlords had overall satisfaction of 79% or more, the bottom quarter reported 65% or less.
It is important to proceed with caution when making comparisons. Landlord context plays a role, with average overall satisfaction varying across factors such as region, landlord size and the amount of supported housing (which is likely related to tenant age), and so we have published contextual information for each landlord alongside their data.
But context is not an excuse – the quality of landlord services remains the primary factor in explaining variation in performance.
“On their own, TSMs cannot cover every aspect of landlord services. But they are, nevertheless, a good starting point for scrutiny”
Having the TSM data and contextual information available encourages the kind of robust challenge that we’re looking for during inspections. TSMs provide insights to landlords on where they might look to improve their services and they enable tenants to scrutinise their landlord’s performance. We encourage boards and councillors to interrogate their results, drilling down into the detail on where they’ve done well and where they’ve done poorly, and thinking about how they can use this to improve.
On their own, TSMs cannot cover every aspect of landlord services. But they are, nevertheless, a good starting point for scrutiny.
Although we never look at TSMs in isolation, they provide a rich source of intelligence to us at RSH on how landlords are meeting the outcomes of the consumer standards.
Of course, if a landlord’s TSM return indicates a potential issue, such as material gaps in building safety checks, we’ll be having conversations with the organisation to see what has gone wrong and how it is planning to put things right for tenants.
TSMs, alongside other comprehensive data sources such as stock condition surveys and information about tenant characteristics, are ultimately about understanding tenants, landlords and homes better. Having these data available and making use of them enables landlords to make better strategic decisions and work proactively to improve their services. Tenants can hold their landlords to account from a more informed position.
Two years in, the TSMs are proving their worth in contributing to improving services and accountability. We’re making progress, but there is still more to be done.
Will Perry, director of strategy, Regulator of Social Housing
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