ISHA retains V2 rating and governance rating downgraded to G2
The Regulator for Social Housing has announced today that it has downgraded our governance rating from G1 to G2. In October 2023, we were shocked and saddened when we identified a fraud by one of our contractors and three members of staff who colluded to enable false bulk refuse costs to be charged to ISHA. We immediately stopped using the contractor and reported them, and the three staff members, to the police. The staff no longer work for us. We also self-reported to the Regulator of Social Housing and put an action plan into place to resolve the control weaknesses that made the fraud possible. As a result of the fraud and the specific weakness it identified, the regulator has announced today that it has downgraded our Governance rating from G1 to G2. This is because of the historic, localised weakness that allowed this to happen, although the regulator has acknowledged they were impressed with the actions we have taken in response to the fraud case and the progress we have made to improve our internal controls. Despite the work we have done to strengthen our governance over the past five years, and since the discovery of the fraud, we are hugely disappointed that we did not identify the small weakness that allowed the fraud to occur: an omission in our repairs policy that meant we did not require photo evidence of bulk refuse removals, and collusion by staff members to exploit that omission. To our residents We are sorry that this has happened. The money ISHA has been defrauded of is money that could have been invested in homes and services. We have also discovered a small proportion of the so-called costs were also passed on to a limited number of our residents via their service charges. We have reviewed all invoices for bulk refuse, and after using legitimate contractors for almost a year, have established what a normal level of bulk refuse expenditure should be. We are refunding, in full, all expenditure above this level incurred through contractors. We will be in touch with residents who have been affected and you don’t need to do anything further. We are hugely disappointed that the improvements we have made to our governance and business over the past five years were not in time to identify the weakness that allowed the fraud to occur and prevent any costs from being passed to our residents. But given the acknowledged improvement by the regulator, we are hopeful that with a little more work, we will regain our G1 at our next regulatory inspection in 2025. More information You can view the regulator's decision on downgrading our governance rating from G1 to G2 on their website. If you have questions about the downgrading of our governance rating or want more information, email news@isha.co.uk or call 0300 131 7300. Wednesday, 25 September 2024 Read more news stories Return to Graphics Version