STAIRs - your rights

The Social Tenants Access to Information Requirements (STAIRs) scheme comes into force this Autumn

Social Tenants Access to Information Requirements (STAIRs)

Find out how Populo Homes is meeting the new standard that means you can now access important information about your landlord and the services we provide.

What is STAIRs?

From the 1st October a new government regulatory standard called the Social Tenants Access to Information Requirements (STAIRs) will come into force. At Populo, this only applies to Populo Homes tenants, rather than Populo Living tenants, in line with the legislation.
STAIRs helps residents access key information about your home, your landlord, and the services you receive, by requiring us as your landlord to share more information with you.
It provides more transparency for residents of privately registered providers (PRPs), such as Populo Homes, helping you understand how we operate and hold us to account should we fall short.

Find out more about STAIRs

Watch a video from the Housing Ombudsman

A new publication scheme

Under STAIRs all housing providers must hold a publication scheme for residents as the first part of the standard. We already publish this in places on our website, and this page will link you to the relevant information. See below for the categories of information available. This information will be updated as and when new policies and reports are approved.

Information requests – available from April 2027

Part two of STAIRs comes into effect from April next year when residents will have a legal right to request information from us about how we manage your home and our services. This will ensure our services are transparent and accessible to you, and we'll share more information about how you can do this closer to the commencement of Part Two of STAIRs.

Governance and decision making

This section explains who we are, what’s important to us and how we run our business (ie governance).

About us
Populo Homes is a charitable registered society for the benefit of the community (Registration Number 8219) and a provider of social housing registered with and regulated by the Regulator of Social Housing (RP No. 5114). We are part of the Populo Living Group – find out more about our group, our values and our business plan.

Senior staff
You can find out more about our executive team here.

Governance and boards
We have a group board for Populo Living and dedicated Populo Homes board for our Registered Provider subsidiary which manages our social housing. Our sole shareholder is Newham Council, and we have a Newham Council representative on each board too. The boards set the overall strategy for us and ensure our Executive Team is working effectively. Find out more about our boards.

Governance is the system of rules, processes, and people used to direct, control, and manage our business, and we have policies and procedures to ensure that we do this well and that we act fairly and transparently.

Risk Management
All businesses operate with risks, and we have processes in place to identify, understand and manage these, to ensure they don’t impact our objectives. This is compiled in a risk registers, which is used to identify, assess, and track potential threats and opportunities that could affect a project or organisation. This is not publishable as it contains commercially sensitive information.

Prioritisation of complaints
Our complaints policy explains how we ensure we’re compliant with the Housing Ombudsman's Complaint Handling Code. You can find out more about this and other resident policies on the About Your Home page, including:

Resident engagement
We’ve worked with our residents on our Resident Engagement Strategy for Populo Homes tenants. We’re also working on Resident Building Safety Champions and our Resident Steering Group – which further involve residents in the management of their communities. If this sounds like something you'd be keen to be involved, with please email hello@populoliving.co.uk.

Resident Newsletters
We send resident newsletters with updates twice a year - read the latest newsletter here.

Finance and spending

This section explains our approach to finance, both spending and income.

Financial reporting
Populo Homes prepares its own finances separate from the entire Populo Living Group finances. This details how we generate income from rent, where this goes and what we spend to manage and improve our homes and services, in relation to the affordable tenancies and properties we manage. When published later this year, our Populo Homes Annual Report will contain a financial overview of the last year.

Procurement
Procurement is the complete process of finding, choosing, and buying the goods and services Populo Homes needs to run. It is more than just shopping as it includes planning what to buy, comparing prices, talking to sellers to get good deals, and signing contracts. We have a clear policy that sets out how we do this process to ensure it is fair, transparent and gets best value, and meets the requirements of the Procurement Act 2023 which came into effect on February 2025. All contracts exceeding the threshold set out by Procurement Act 2023 will be advertised on the government’s Find a Tender Service (FTS).

Resident financial support
We realise that residents can have times when they struggle with finances or their personal situation and we will always work with you to find the best outcome. If you have concerns about your rent, please reach out to us on hello@populoliving.co.uk.

Rent and service charge
Information on rent, service charge and increases are contained in our Rent Policy.

Major expenditures
We will continue to work with residents as we develop our programme to improve and replace any plant and other major expenditure areas that fall short of expectations, which will be picked up in our stock condition surveys.

Housing stock management

This section explains how we maintain, repair and invest in our homes (our housing stock).

Our strategic plan
To date, Populo Living delivers developments on behalf of the London Borough of Newham using its land. We do not take a profit, and rents go towards paying off the cost of these developments, with any additional income being returned to Newham Council to be reinvested into more affordable homes. You can find out more about how the group works by reading our Business Plan.

Populo Homes Stock
A list of our stock, including private rent, social and shared ownership homes, is on the website. You will also find information here about our responsibilities as a landlord, and yours as a tenant. This sets out the process for Emergency, Urgent, Routine Repairs & Resident Responsibilities for both Populo Living and Populo Homes tenancies.

Stock Improvement
We are currently working on a strategic plan for stock improvement, and will share this once approved by the Board. We would also point out that the majority of our buildings and developments have only been built, renovated or converted in the last ten years.

Decent Homes Standard
The majority of our housing stock has been built or converted in the last decade, to building regulation compliance and in accordance with the London Plan which sets standards around housing and energy performance. Most of our properties have B EPC rating (see Energy Efficiency, below, to find yours). Some homes will be exceptions, such as the Old Fire Station as the building is Grade II listed, meaning that compliance standards vary slightly in comparison to the rest of our stock. Such buildings may not achieve the same EPC rating as the majority of our homes.

Sustainability
All of Populo Living's homes have to meet a range of sustainability ratings, set out in the Building Regulations, the London Plan and Newham Council's Local Plan. (The Planning Portal has a useful guide to Building Regulations). Populo also has a Carbon plan that is currently being updated that sets out its approach to sustainability in its developments.

Energy efficiency
You can find the energy certificate for your scheme by using the Government's Find an Energy Certificate service.

New homes
We're committed to building new homes and, with a focus on sustainability, we're continuing work on our new developments, as well as regeneration projects. All of our developments prioritise affordable housing, ensuring we deliver the maximum number per scheme for Newham’s residents, in line with our role as Newham Council’s housing company.

Asset Management Strategy
We are currently working to have this approved by the board, and will share it once ready. This sets out how we manage our developments and lists any potential major works, such as repairs, that are planned.

Estates services
We employ caretakers who work across several buildings, ensuring maintenance is kept up to date.

Social impact statement
Populo Living is committed to Community Wealth Building across its work, and uses the Social Value Portal's TOMs system to ensure all major contracts include additional activities to support local people. Find out more about our approach to social value and communities.

Performance

This section outlines our performance in delivering services to residents

Inspection outcomes
The Regulator of Social Housing does not issue routine inspection grades to social landlords with under 1,000 homes.

Performance reviews
We do not publish our annual financial statements as these incorporate the whole group's performance, which is corporately sensitive. We also conduct a series of internal and external audits which provide feedback - internal audits improve our internal operations, risk management, and controls, while external audits provide an independent opinion on the accuracy of financial statements. Again, these are not published as they are corporately sensitive.

TSMs
Tenant Satisfaction Measures (TSM) are a mandatory set of performance metrics introduced by the Regulator of Social Housing (RSH) in April 2023 to assess and compare the performance of social housing landlords in England. The 22 measures include tenant perception and management information measures, dealing with repairs, building safety, complaint handling, tenant engagement, and neighbourhood management.

Our most recent TSMs for Populo Homes are available in the Your Home section of the website.

Complaints
We have policies and procedures for complaints and carry out self-assessments against the Housing Ombudsman Complaint Handling Code. The Annual Complaints Performance for 2023, 2024, 2025 and 2026, as well as the board's response to each report, are in the Your Home section of the website. Our Complaints Policy is also available online.

Information request data
This data is not currently available. It will be published once residents are able to submit information requests from April 2027.

Housing services

This section provides information about the services we deliver to tenants and the advice and guidance we make available.

Our services
Information about your home is on our website. In line with our Resident Engagement Strategy we also carry out a programme of touch points with residents where you can find out more about our offering or let us know what's bothering you.

As well as our regular cleaning and maintenance schedules, we also conduct home visits and welfare checks to pick up small issues and repairs, before they become more serious. We also are planning more resident surgery days, and our new Building Champions and Resident Steering group will further empower residents to have a say in how their homes are managed.

Find out more in the Populo Homes Resident Engagement Strategy.

Resident newsletters
The most recent resident newsletters are available on our website in the Your Home section.

Building guides
Each of our buildings has a digital (PDF) Home User Guide which you should have received when you moved in. Please email hello@populoliving.co.uk for a copy of yours if you are unable to find it.

Your rights
As a social tenant, you have a range of rights and responsibilities. Rather than set these out ourselves we are sharing third-party guides that set out what these are more thoroughly:

Housing Ombudsman guidance - Know Your Rights

Gov.uk - Implementing the Renters' Rights for Social Housing guidance

Citizens Advice - general housing advice

Accessibility
We’re happy to provide information about our services in other formats, and our website uses the AccessiBe Widget (the icon of a person in a circle) which supports a range of accessibility features to support you. Please email hello@populoliving.co.uk if you need help in any way.

Lists and registers

This section provides information on the registers we’re required to keep for the management of our housing services.

Registers required by law
As a landlord, we are legally responsible for certain important safety checks to ensure your home or building remains safe. We have a schedule of checks, inspections and services that vary depending on the building, as not all homes have the same features.

Depending on your home these may include a check, test, inspection or servicing of the following areas - co-ordinated by our Building Safety Officer:

Lifts
Electrics per unit
Gas (to building)
AOV (Automatic Opening Vent) & ventilation testing
Fire alarm test
Fire extinguisher
Fire door communal & riser over 11m communal
Fire door inspections
Sprinkler
Emergency lighting
Emergency lighting 3 hours
Dry risers
Wet risers
Generator test
Lightning protection
PV
PAT testing (appliances owned by Populo Homes)
Legionella testing
Water tanks and pumps
Asbestos (disturbance)
Fire Risk Assessment (dependent on building risk)

Each building has its own Fire Risk Assessment. All current FRAs are available for residents to view - contact hello@populoliving.co.uk if you didn't receive this with your move-in details.

Asbestos – our buildings are all relatively new so there is minimal risk of asbestos in your home.

Social housing management

This section contains a list of our policies relevant to Populo Homes tenants.

Policies
Some of our policies are group policies relevant for both Populo Living and Populo Homes tenants, and the policies set out any differences between these two landlord roles where relevant in the policy. Policies are referenced in several places on our website, but to make things easier the following is a list of published policies:

Populo Living Group Complaints Policy - June 2024

Populo Living Group Domestic Abuse Group Policy – January 2026

Populo Living Group Anti-social & Hate Crime Policy – January 2026

Populo Living - HHSRS, Damp, Mould & Condensation Policy Revision 1.0 – October 2025

Populo Living Group Good Neighbourhood Management Policy - February 2026

Populo Living Group Tenancy Policy - April 2025

Populo Living Emergency, Urgent, Routine Repairs and Resident Responsibilities - November 2025