What Your TSM Scores Are Really Telling You, And What to Do About It
Key Takeaways
- Seven in ten social housing tenants are satisfied with their landlord overall, but nearly one in five are actively dissatisfied, according to the RSH's 2024/25 analysis published November 2025
- Complaint handling remains the single weakest TSM across the sector, with a satisfaction rate of just 36%, unchanged from the first year of reporting
- Overall satisfaction scores have flatlined for landlords using telephone surveys, meaning process improvements alone are not moving the dial
- The RSH is now following up directly with outlier landlords, making TSM performance a regulatory risk as well as a reputational one
In November 2025, the Regulator of Social Housing published its second annual analysis of Tenant Satisfaction Measure results, drawing on surveys from nearly half a million tenants across large social landlords in England. The headline, seven in ten tenants satisfied overall, sounds broadly positive. But the detail beneath it tells a more complicated story, and one that housing association managers cannot afford to read selectively.
Overall satisfaction rates have not improved for landlords using telephone surveys, which is the dominant collection method across the sector. Nearly one in five tenants (18%) report active dissatisfaction with their landlord. Complaint handling sits at just 36% satisfaction, the lowest measure in the entire framework. And the RSH is now writing directly to outlier landlords to scrutinise results it considers below standard. For housing associations navigating an increasingly demanding regulatory environment, understanding what your TSM scores are actually measuring, and what drives them, is no longer optional.
What the 2024/25 Data Actually Shows
The RSH's 2024/25 TSM analysis, published 4 November 2025, covers 22 measures split between 12 tenant perception questions and 10 management information indicators. The perception measures are where housing associations need to pay the closest attention, because they capture something the management information cannot: how tenants feel about their relationship with their landlord, not just whether boxes have been ticked.
The headline figures from the 2024/25 results paint a familiar picture. Tenants report the highest satisfaction with home safety (78%), repairs services (74%), and being treated with fairness and respect (78%). These are service delivery measures, and they reflect the significant investment most associations have made in safety compliance and responsive maintenance. The vast majority of large landlords achieved near-full compliance across building safety metrics: 99.7% on gas safety, 98.7% on fire safety, 97.9% on asbestos and water checks respectively.
But look at the measures that sit at the intersection of service delivery and tenant relationship, and the picture changes. Satisfaction with landlord complaint handling has remained stubbornly low at 36%, effectively one in three tenants satisfied, two in three not. This is not a new finding; it mirrors the first year's results and suggests that systemic complaint handling weaknesses are not being addressed at scale. The Housing Ombudsman's Complaint Handling Code, now statutory, has raised the bar considerably, and tenants are increasingly aware of their rights to escalate.
"The TSMs give useful insights for tenants and landlords, which should lead to better strategic decisions and stronger engagement with residents. Landlords should reflect on their results to see how they can make services to tenants better."
Fiona MacGregor, Chief Executive, Regulator of Social Housing, November 2025Why Satisfaction Scores Have Flatlined, And What Is Actually Driving Them
One of the most significant findings from the RSH's accompanying National Tenant Survey is that the way landlords deliver services is a more important driver of overall satisfaction than tenant or property characteristics. In practical terms, this means that demographic factors such as age, household composition, and tenure length do not fully explain why some landlords score higher than others. The quality of the relationship between landlord and tenant, and particularly the consistency of communication, matters more than the physical attributes of the home.
This finding has important strategic implications. Many housing associations have invested heavily in repairs responsiveness and building safety compliance, and those investments are reflected in the TSM data. But the measures that have not improved are largely those that require sustained, proactive engagement: listening to tenant views, handling concerns effectively, and maintaining visible accountability when things go wrong. These are harder to systematise, and they do not improve simply by meeting statutory minimums.
The RSH has also flagged that collection method significantly affects scores, and has begun publishing individual landlord results grouped by their primary survey method to allow fairer comparison. Landlords whose overall satisfaction appears high may find that a shift in collection methodology, from postal to telephone for example, changes their apparent performance substantially. The regulator's scrutiny of data quality is intensifying, and associations that have not reviewed their survey methodology should do so ahead of the 2025/26 submission.
The Three Areas Where Action Will Move the Dial
Given the data, there are three areas where housing associations can make meaningful, measurable improvements to their TSM scores, and where the regulatory pressure to act is highest.
The first is complaint handling. A 36% satisfaction rate is not just a reputational problem; it is a regulatory red flag. The RSH uses TSM results as one of several intelligence sources in its assessment of whether landlords are meeting consumer standards. Housing associations scoring well below the sector median on complaint handling should expect increased scrutiny. The practical fixes are well-documented: acknowledging complaints within two working days, providing a named contact, setting and meeting resolution timescales, and closing the loop with tenants on what changed as a result. What is less well understood is that tenants do not necessarily expect every complaint to be resolved in their favour. They expect to be heard, kept informed and treated as if their concern matters.
The second is tenant listening and influence. TSM TP09, whether tenants feel their landlord listens to and acts on their views, is one of the measures most closely correlated with overall satisfaction, according to the RSH's National Tenant Survey analysis. Formal resident panels and annual surveys are necessary but insufficient. The associations making progress are those embedding genuine feedback mechanisms at every service touchpoint across repairs, estate management and rent communications, and demonstrating to tenants that what they say changes what the association does.
The Financial Wellbeing Connection
Tenants under financial pressure are less likely to report satisfaction and more likely to disengage from landlord communications altogether. With social housing tenants spending an average of 28% of household income on rent, and considerably more in lower-income groups, supporting financial resilience is increasingly recognised as part of the tenant relationship. Cashback and rewards platforms that help tenants stretch their income further are emerging as a low-cost, high-impact engagement tool that also supports TSM scores on landlord listening and overall satisfaction.
The third is proactive communication during service disruption. Planned maintenance, retrofit works, and estate improvements consistently generate TSM score dips if tenants feel uninformed or unheard during the process. Associations that communicate early, often, and through channels tenants actually use, not just letters, see considerably less satisfaction deterioration during disruptive work programmes.
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The TSM framework is now entering its third year of data collection. The sector is moving from initial familiarisation to a period where year-on-year trajectories will matter as much as absolute scores. Landlords whose scores improve, even modestly, signal to the RSH that they are responding to the data. Those whose scores stagnate or decline, particularly on complaint handling and tenant listening measures, will face increasingly active regulatory engagement.
The RSH's November 2025 publication explicitly noted that it is following up with landlords identified as outliers, including on health and safety indicators, and engaging directly where it has concerns about data quality. For housing association boards and executive teams, TSM performance is no longer a matter for the resident services team alone. It is a governance and regulatory risk, and it belongs on the board risk register.
The good news is that the data is clear on what drives improvement: the quality of the tenant relationship, the effectiveness of complaint handling, and the consistency of two-way communication. These are not capital-intensive fixes. They require investment in culture, processes and, increasingly, the digital and engagement tools that make sustained, proactive tenant contact possible at scale.
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- Regulator of Social Housing — Analysis of Tenant Satisfaction in the Social Housing Sector 2024/25RSH. Published 4 November 2025. Primary source for all TSM sector benchmarks: 70% overall satisfaction, 36% complaint handling satisfaction, 18% active dissatisfaction, 78% safety and fairness scores, building safety compliance rates.
- Regulator of Social Housing — Tenant Satisfaction Measures Data CollectionRSH. 2025. Source for TSM framework structure (22 measures, 12 perception + 10 management information), submission requirements and regulatory standards context.
- National Housing Federation — Tenant Satisfaction Measures 2024/25: Key InsightsNHF. November 2025. Source for housing association sector analysis and benchmarking context for 2024/25 TSM results.
- Regulator of Social Housing — National Tenant Survey 2024RSH. 2024. Source for finding that landlord service delivery quality is a more important driver of satisfaction than tenant or property characteristics.
