What is STAIRs?
The Social Tenant Access to Information Requirement (STAIRs) is a new UK Government standard designed to give people living in social housing greater access to information about how their homes and services are managed.
Key points:
- From October 2026, housing providers must publish key information (see Part 1) about how they manage homes such as repairs, safety checks and performance data
- From April 2027, customers are able to request specific information (see Part 2) about their housing and landlords must respond within 30 days
- This requirement is similar to the Freedom of Information rules that apply to councils and it now extends to housing associations and other registered providers
- The aim is to increase openness, transparency and accountability, helping customers better understand decisions and hold landlords to account.
Part 1: Publishing key information
A large amount of the information required under STAIRs is already available on our website. To make things easier, we’ve organised the content using the STAIRs categories below, with links to the relevant pages on our site.
You can learn more about Hightown in the about us section of our website, including:
- Our Leadership team – meet the people responsible for guiding our organisation.
- Our structure - find out more about our structure and senior leadership team
- Governance – read information about how Hightown is governed and how decisions are made.
- Policies – access our full range of policies.
- Our Performance - find out how we are performing for our residents and the people we support.
- Complaints process – how to make a complaint, our process and how we manage complaints.
Tenant meeting minutes and agendas
Tenant consultations
You can find details about our spending, grants and use of service charges on our website.
Visit:
- Our Reports for in depth details of our spending in the Annual Financial Statements
- Our Customer Annual Report for more information on our spending and investment
- Understanding your service charge for information on how we estimate and charge for your service charges.
- Our procurement approach details how we work with our suppliers to create safe and affordable homes for our residents.
- You can see all of our spening over £500 on building new homes in the development and transparency data section of our website.
- Our Strategic Plan outlines our aims and objectives for 2024-27.
- Read information on the energy efficiency of our homes
- Find out more about our Sustainability strategy
- Read our SHIFT report
- Review the stock condition data on our homes.
- Policies on housing stock management can be found here.
- Find out more about some of our bigger developments
We regularly publish updates on our performance in the ‘Performance’ page on our website.
- Customer satisfaction results including annual updates on our Tenant Satisfaction Measures.
- Read our Annual Complaints Performance and Service Improvement report to see how customer feedback has helped us improve the service we provide.
- Read our latest regulatory judgement.
- We provide a range of Care and Support Housing Services registered with the Care Quality Commission (CQC). View our latest inspection ratings.
- Monthly performance updates - we closely monitor our performance in all service delivery areas. Our monthly performance updates highlight where we're doing well and where we need to improve.
- Read our latest annual report for residents.
- Our performance in delivering maintenance and repairs is higlighted in our annual report.
- Media releases: available for local news and trade publications can be read in the news section of our website.
- Everything you need to know about 'Your Home' - repairing and maintaining your home, paying your rent and service charges and your tenancy agreement or lease can be found on our website.
- The Support and Advice page contains extensive guidance and support for our customers.
- We provide useful information to our new customers.
- We have a range of information available for those that lease their home or have purchased it through shared ownership.
- We are happy to provide information in alternative formats to customers.
- We provide a list of our high-rise buildings on our website.
- You can also find a list of our medium-rise (11 metres and above) buildings on our website.
- Each building has its own Fire Risk Assessment. Contact us if you would like to receive a copy of the risk assessment report for your building
Hightown manages over 9,500 homes across Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire and Buckinghamshire.
Our publications and policies page contains our decision-making policies as well as our policies relating to the management of social housing
Further information
How to contact us
We’re committed to meeting our customers’ needs and our own regulatory obligations.
If you require support in accessing or understanding this publication scheme, please contact us.
If you’re not satisfied with the information provided
If you think we haven’t published information that we hold and that should be included in our STAIRs Publication Scheme, you can ask us to review this by contacting us on the above email address.
We’ll review your complaint within 30 calendar days. In certain circumstances, additional time may be added. If you’re unhappy with our review outcome, you can escalate this directly to the Housing Ombudsman.
Part 2: Information requests
From April 2027, you will have the legal right to request relevant information on how we manage your home and the services we provide. This may include details of policies, plans and activities on topics such as:
- Anti-social behaviour
- Complaints handling
- Procedures, and performance
- Health and safety
- Rent rates
- Property conditions, repairs and improvements to property
- Service charges
- Stock profile
- Energy efficiency information
- Estate management
We have shared links to useful information above.
Can’t find what you’re looking for? You can make a request by contacting us in your usual way.
