Regulatory grading

In June 2025, the Regulator of Social Housing (RSH) provided its regulatory judgement of Anchor.

The Regulator determined that Anchor had not met all the required governance outcomes and specific expectations in the Governance and Financial Viability Standard.

There was insufficient evidence that Anchor had an appropriate, robust and prudent risk and control framework, and that it had adequately managed and addressed key risks relating to landlord health and safety.

The Regulator gave Anchor a G3 grade, which means we are non-compliant.

The judgement reconfirmed a financial viability grading of V1, compliant and the highest grading possible, and a non-compliant consumer grading of C3, following the regulator’s responsive engagement outcome judgement in February 2025, focused on the Safety and Quality Standard and the Transparency, Influence and Accountability Standard.

In October 2025, Anchor’s Board and the RSH agreed our plan to address the issues highlighted in our regulatory judgement. The plan covers priority areas, setting out key actions to be taken, and outcomes to be achieved in order to recover our compliance with the standards. Our progress is monitored by our Board, a dedicated Non-Executive led oversight committee and our Residents’ Council.

We meet monthly with the RSH to review progress and maintain an open, constructive co-regulatory relationship.

Since agreeing the improvement plan, we have remained on track with our delivery. We have strengthened oversight, improved the quality of information used to manage risk and compliance, and invested in capability and capacity across the business and our supply chains.

We still have further work to do on improving our systems, data and processes. We remain committed to achieving the best outcomes for our residents.

Progress update at April 2026

Electrical Installation Condition Report (EICR). As of 31 March, 99.33% of our homes have up to date certification. We have addressed the backlog of certification and remedial repairs, on which we self-referred, with a small number of homes outstanding.
Landlord health and safety framework: Compliance policies and procedures across key areas have been reviewed and updated and we have worked with our engaged residents to produce resident-facing information sheets.
Technical support: Third-party reviews and technical partners are in place across all compliance areas to strengthen assurance and test effectiveness of our compliance regime.
Damp, mould and condensation (DMC): We successfully implemented our policies, procedures and systems to support the legal changes that came into effect in October 2025 for Awaab’s Law.
Repairs performance: Our involved residents highlighted quicker repairs, high quality work and clearer communication as their top priorities. We have been working hard to improve our repairs service, with those priorities in mind. We have significantly reduced the number of outstanding repairs over the last eight months. We launched a new repairs hub in March 2026 in order to make reporting of repairs easier for our residents and colleagues.
Stock condition programme: Since October 2025, we have undertaken a refreshed and accelerated stock condition survey programme which will result in 100% of our homes being physically surveyed by the end of this financial year. This ensures we have up to date information on the quality of our homes, informing future investment and compliance with the Decent Homes Standard.
Governance arrangements and reporting have been refreshed to strengthen oversight of compliance and asset safety, with robust oversight of health and safety risks received at each Board.
Independent assurance work has been commissioned to test the effectiveness of governance and risk management. We have improved risk reporting and are delivering a plan that further improves our risk management and assurance framework.
Resident involvement and insight: Our Resident Voice Strategy has been launched. By December 2025, we had collected data from more than 96% of housing residents to support the planning and delivery of more tailored services. Resident engagement activity continues through established involvement groups, supporting transparency and service improvement.
Data and systems: We are investing in our data governance frameworks and core systems to ensure that data is accessible and of the quality and consistency required to support our services to residents.

We remain committed to providing safe homes and reliable services for residents. We will continue to work closely with the Regulator of Social Housing and our residents as we deliver on our plan, and to use independent assurance and resident involvement to evidence progress and support sustained improvement.

In December 2024, we referred ourselves voluntarily to the Regulator of Social Housing (RSH). The RSH sets standards and regulates social housing providers in England and you can find out more about the regulator on their website. 

We made the referral after we found one of our contractors was failing to complete electrical remediation work to specification and on time and as a result we sought additional contractors. We also identified that damp, mould and condensation was not always being addressed properly.

Organisations are rated for their viability (V), governance (G) and consumer standards (C) – where 1 is the best and 4 the worst. Grades of 1 or 2 mean that an organisation is compliant with the regulator’s requirements while grades of 3 or 4 signal non-compliance. You can find out more about the grades on the regulator’s website. 

Before this inspection and judgement, we were graded G1 for governance and V1 for viability. The consumer grading was introduced in April 2024. Our current grading is V1, G3 and C3. 

V1 means that we are meeting the regulator’s viability requirements. We have the financial capacity to deal with a wide range of adverse scenarios. 

G3 means there are issues of serious regulatory concern, while C3 means there are serious failings in us delivering the outcomes of their consumer standards. We are working to address both, in agreement with the RSH.

Our responsibility for ensuring residents can live safely in their homes is something we take extremely seriously. Residents' and colleagues’ safety is our number one priority and, as a provider of older people's housing and care, we have a high in-person presence at many of our locations.

We’ve already taken several additional steps to ensure we’re keeping our residents safe. This includes completing 99.33% of the outstanding EICR inspections and subsequent repair work (as at 31 March).

We also have a clear plan to make sure all future inspections are completed on time, so we remain compliant with the five year testing requirement and continue to meet the standards residents expect.

We’ve strengthened how we manage DMC to make sure our approach is clear, consistent and meets the latest legal requirements.

We’ve updated our DMC policies and procedures to reflect recent changes in the law, and colleagues have received additional training so they understand what’s changed and the strict timescales we must follow.

Since October, our new case management app has helped us track every active DMC case. It ensures we take the right actions within the required timeframes and can quickly see where support is needed.

Every active case now has its own action plan. We’re keeping affected residents regularly updated so they know what we’re doing, when we’re doing it and what happens next.

For our residential care homes, each of our care homes has a Registered Manager, and is subject to a comprehensive programme of Enhanced Inspections completed by internal teams and by independent third-party inspectors.    

As at 31 March 2026, 86.36% of our care homes were rated good or outstanding by CQC and we had no inadequate rated homes.

We are working swiftly to implement our improvement plan and are committed to keeping residents updated on our progress. We will do this via this page on our website, regular newsletters and Life magazine. We are also working closely with our Residents’ Council. Our goal is to demonstrate sustained progress and a strengthened governance framework over the coming months.

If you have any concerns, please talk to your local manager or call us on 0800 731 2020, Monday-Friday 8am-6pm and Saturday 8am-4pm.