Housing group Gentoo has recovered from a damning judgement from its industry regulator, two years after it was criticised for failing to oversee multimillion-pound severance payments.
The group, which owns and manages around 29,000 homes in Sunderland and other parts of the North East, has been upgraded from a “non-compliant” rating issued in 2017 by the Regulator of Social Housing.
The rating came after Gentoo’s then board was said to have waved through severance and remuneration packages for the company’s directors without “appropriate skills and diligence”.
The ruling led to widespread changes in Gentoo’s top team, but the group has now been told that it is compliant with the regulator’s standards, though it still needs to improve some aspects of its governance arrangements.
Group chair Keith Loraine said: “We are obviously delighted that the gegulator has confirmed we are now compliant with the governance standards. This reflects the huge amount of work and priority given to rectifying the issues that led to the regulatory downgrade in October 2017.
“I would like to thank fellow board members and Gentoo colleagues for continuing to deliver an excellent service to our tenants throughout this process. We will continue to work with the regulator to ensure that we complete our journey to G1, the highest level of compliance.”
Gentoo operates the former council house stock of Sunderland Council and has other social housing properties in Northumberland, South Tyneside, and Redcar and Cleveland.
It also has divisions which develop new houses for sale, and also provides residental care for elderly and disabled people.
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The Regulator of Social Housing report said that changes made since its previous ruling had improved Gentoo’s governance arrangements, and added that it now has an adequately funded business plan.
But it warns that the group is reliant on income from house sales and needs to manage financial risks related to that.
The group’s chief executive Nigel Wilson said: “This is a great step forward for Gentoo and confirms my belief that this fundamentally is a strong organisation with committed colleagues and a customer-facing culture.
“Our tenants are at the heart of everything we do and we will continue to progress with our business plan aspirations by investing £417m on improving our homes and providing an additional 900 homes for affordable rent in Sunderland by 2024.”