Council’s bungled shake-up leaves 18,000 homes without legally-required safety checks

Thousands of families in social housing have been left living in homes without legally-required electrical safety certificates after a shambolic Town Hall restructure made a dangerous backlog even worse, it emerged this week (Tuesday 26 May).

Hackney Council was forced into a humiliating admission that its own bungled shake-up of the housing department has sent the number of overdue electrical inspections soaring from 15,000 to a staggering 18,000 — leaving tenants potentially at risk in their own homes.

The borough was put on notice by the Regulator of Social Housing nearly two years ago over a litany of failings, including gas, fire, asbestos, water and lift safety checks. A jaw-dropping 7,000 properties had never been inspected at all.

But instead of fixing the crisis, the then Labour-run council’s response — a sweeping restructure of its housing department — has actually made things worse, officials were forced to concede at a council meeting on Tuesday.

In a damning report, officers admitted the backlog had “risen significantly” and blamed the increase “largely” on the restructure itself “and the impact this has had on delivery”. Astonishingly, the reorganisation has still not been finalised.

The Town Hall’s failings are to cost an eye-watering £2.2 million on “specialist” private contractors to carry out 5,000 inspections over two years — with a further 6,000 checks to be outsourced on top.

The council’s own in-house teams have managed a paltry 1,300 checks a year since 2024 — barely enough to keep up with the new five-year inspection cycle, let alone tackle the mountain of overdue work.

Officials have rolled out a list of excuses, blaming the 2020 cyber attack on the council — which wiped vast amounts of housing data — as well as the Covid pandemic.

A Hackney Council spokesperson insisted the authority had now reached 100 per cent compliance on fire safety and more than 99 per cent on gas safety.

“We have agreed a timeline with the Regulator of Social Housing to achieve electrical compliance by the end of March 2027,” the spokesman said.

“This supports the wider reorganisation of our housing service to ensure it is fit for purpose and delivers a culture that is performance and resident-led.”

The spokesperson added that, “like many social landlords”, the council was struggling to gain access to some properties to carry out the safety works — but vowed officials were “actively looking at new ways to tackle this” and would “accelerate this safety programme”.