As the city's PRS selective licensing scheme is due to start the Regulator of Social Housing said the council's own breach of the home standard risked "serious detriment" to the council's tenants.

The council has almost 60,000 social rented sector homes itself whilst there are around 50,000 homes in the private rented sector across the 25 wards in the city about to be subject, from 5th June, to selective licensing requirements.

The Regulator of Social Housing (RSH) commenced its investigation into problems with the city's council homes, based on breaches of consumer standards, following a special report by the Housing Ombudsman's office on failures with the council's complaints handling process. It found that the council had not carried out fire safety, electrical safety and asbestos checks and inspections for every property that needed them. The RSH also found that the council hadn't handled complaints effectively and hadn't treated its tenants with "fairness and respect" under the Tenant Involvement and Empowerment Standard.

1000 fire risk assessments were overdue as were 500 communal and 15,000 domestic electrical safety inspections and over 1000 domestic electrical "remedial actions." Over 17,000 asbestos surveys were also overdue.

Of the 39% of its homes that failed the Decent Homes Standard (DHS), Birmingham City Council was found to not have "recent or complete data for its properties so is unable to clearly identify the risks in its non-decent homes." There were also "fundamental flaws" in the council's complaints handling service with "around 60%" of open complaints being overdue.

The RSH said it "has concluded that Birmingham CC did not have an effective system in place to allow it to meet its responsibilities both in relation to the quality of its homes, and in relation to statutory health and safety compliance across a range of areas .... taking into account the seriousness of the issues, the duration for which tenants were exposed to risks, and the number of tenants potentially affected, the regulator has concluded that Birmingham CC has breached the Home Standard and the Tenant Involvement and Empowerment Standard and that there is a risk of serious detriment to tenants during this period."

The RSH accepted that the council was putting in place plans to rectify the issues and it (the RSH) would continue to engage with the council throughout.

Quoted in the Local Government Lawyer, Birmingham CC's Chief Executive, Deborah Cadman, and Strategic Director for City Housing, Paul Langford, said in a joint statement that "As a council, we take the safety of our tenants very seriously and understand that they way in which these areas have been managed do not meet the standards expected by our tenants .... We are determined to address these issues quickly and have already developed a robust action plan .... All citizens deserve to live in homes that are safe ...." They also apologised for the failures and pointed out that a new senior management team had been put in place at the City Housing Directorate to see the improvement plan through.

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