Electrical safety TSM: a records checklist for social landlords

The Regulator of Social Housing added a sixth building safety measure to the Tenant Satisfaction Measures on 11 June 2026: BS06, electrical safety checks. It sits alongside gas, fire, asbestos, water and lift safety, and it works the same way. A home counts only if every required check, inside the home and on any communal part that serves it, was carried out and recorded at year end.

This guide sets out how BS06 is calculated, what the underlying regulations require, the records to hold for each home, and the checks worth running on your data before the figure is published. It is based on the regulator's TSM Direction, the regulations on legislation.gov.uk and the government's guidance.

What is BS06?

The measure is published as: "Proportion of homes for which all required electrical safety checks have been carried out."

The regulator says it "does not change landlords' duties" on electrical safety. What it changes is that compliance becomes a published percentage, calculated to a fixed definition, that tenants and the regulator can compare across landlords.

Since 1 October 2026 the TSM requirements sit in the regulator's TSM Direction, which replaced the earlier "Technical requirements" document. The BS06 definition is the same in both.

How is it calculated?

Part	What it is
A (numerator)	Homes for which all required electrical safety checks were carried out and recorded as at year end
B (denominator)	Homes for which electrical safety checks were required as at year end
Result	A ÷ B × 100
Stock	Low cost rental and low cost home ownership, combined
Unit	Each self-contained home, and each bedspace in shared housing, counts as one

The detail is in the further requirements, and most of it is about what stops a home being counted in A:

• All checks, or none. If a home needs a check on its installation and on landlord-provided equipment, both must be done. A home is never counted twice.
• Communal parts count. A check on an installation serving several homes must be in date for every one of those homes to count.
• No access is no exception. A home without a completed check is left out of A "even if the reason for this concerned an inability to gain access".
• Third parties count too. If another landlord owns the building and is responsible for the communal installation, you need evidence that their check was done. Without it, your homes in that building are not counted in A.
• Voids are included where a communal check serves them.
• Remedial work is not measured. The TSM counts checks, "but not the completion of remedial actions". It adds that providers "must of course ensure that these are carried out as required".
• Year-end position. The figure reflects the position on the last day of the reporting year, and can rely on checks done in earlier years, as long as they are still in date.

When is it first reported?

Landlord	First BS06 figure	Submitted to the regulator
1,000 or more homes	2026/27, as at 31 March 2027	TSM return, due 30 June each year
Fewer than 1,000 homes	Reporting years ending 31 March 2027 onwards	Published, not submitted

All registered providers that own relevant stock must calculate and publish the TSMs each year. Only landlords with 1,000 or more homes submit a data return to the regulator. Boards of housing associations and the governing bodies of council landlords are responsible for the figures being accurate.

What do the regulations require?

The checks BS06 counts are those required by the Electrical Safety Standards in the Private Rented Sector (England) Regulations 2020, as extended to social housing by SI 2025/1043. The regulator refers to them, as amended, as the Electrical Safety Standards in the Private Rented Sector and Social Rented Sector (England) Regulations 2020.

Duty	Requirement	Where
Inspect and test the installation	By a qualified person, at intervals of no more than 5 years, or sooner if the last report says so	Reg 3(1)–(2)
Before a new tenancy	Installation inspected and tested before the tenancy starts	Reg 3(1)(c)
Report to the tenant	Copy to each existing tenant within 28 days of the inspection; to a new tenant before they move in	Reg 3(3)
Report to the council	Within 7 days of a written request	Reg 3(3)
Remedial or further investigation	Within 28 days of the inspection, or the shorter period the report specifies	Reg 3(4)
Confirmation	Written confirmation from a qualified person, sent with the report to the tenant and the council within 28 days of completing the work	Reg 3(5)
Landlord-provided equipment	Checked before the tenancy and at intervals of no more than 5 years; unsafe items: tell the tenant immediately, repair or replace within 28 days	Regs 3B, 3C
Keep the report	Until the next inspection is due or done, whichever is later	Reg 3(3)

Commencement. For tenancies granted from 1 December 2025, the duties apply from the start. For tenancies a registered provider granted before 1 December 2025, they applied from 1 May 2026, and the first inspection and test, and the first equipment check, had to happen before 1 November 2026.

Reasonable steps. A landlord is not in breach if it can show it took all reasonable steps to comply. Not taking legal action to get in is not, on its own, a failure to take reasonable steps.

Enforcement. Councils enforce the regulations, with remedial notices and financial penalties of up to £40,000.

What the codes mean. The government's guidance says C1 ("danger present") and C2 ("potentially dangerous") need remedial work, and FI ("further investigation required without delay") needs investigation. C3 ("improvement recommended") is not remedial work: the report can still be satisfactory.

What is excluded. Long leases (including shared ownership leases that would be long leases at a 100% share), hostels and refuges meeting the regulations' conditions, care homes, student halls and some other accommodation are excluded tenancies. Check which of your homes fall outside the regulations before you build the denominator, and take advice where it is unclear.

Why are communal areas the hard part?

Because the regulations and the TSM say different things about them.

The government's guidance is plain: "The regulations do not apply to communal areas of a building." The TSM goes further. For BS06, communal installations and equipment "must meet the same requirements for inspection and testing as those within dwellings", including the same maximum interval, "irrespective of whether the requirements of these regulations strictly apply".

The regulator's FAQs say this normally includes corridors and other access points, shared amenities such as laundries, and outside lighting and intercoms associated with the homes. In practice, a block's landlord supply with no in-date inspection takes every home it serves out of your compliant count, however good the records inside each flat.

Communal electrics are also often held in a different system, by a different team or contractor, from domestic EICRs. That is where most data gaps start.

What records should you hold for each home?

For each home:

• The address and unique reference, matching the asset register exactly
• Whether checks are required, and if not, why (excluded tenancy, for example)
• Last installation inspection date, next due date, and the report linked to the home
• Outcome: satisfactory or unsatisfactory, and the codes recorded
• Each C1, C2 and FI item, the 28-day (or shorter) deadline, the completion date, who did it and the written confirmation
• Date the report reached the tenant, and how
• Landlord-provided equipment: what is provided, last check date and the record of it
• Communal parts that serve the home, linked by reference, not by memory
• Access attempts where a check is overdue: dates, method and outcome

For each communal installation:

• What it serves, as a list of home references
• Last inspection date, next due date and the report
• Who is responsible, and if it is a third party, the evidence you hold that their check was done

You may hold smoke and carbon monoxide alarm records in the same file. Those come from separate regulations (which have applied to social landlords since 1 October 2022) and are not part of BS06.

What should you check before you report?

Run these on the data before the year-end figure is fixed:

1. Reconcile the denominator. Does the list of homes match the asset register, the rent system and the stock return? Look for new acquisitions, new-build handovers and homes transferred in or out during the year.
2. Map every home to its communal parts. A block with no communal electrical record is a gap, not a pass.
3. Test the dates. No next-due date more than five years after the last inspection, and no due date ignored where the report set an earlier one.
4. Check "recorded" means recorded. Every compliant home should have the report itself, linked to the right address, not just a date in a spreadsheet.
5. Separate no-access from done. Homes with refused access belong in B but not in A.
6. Chase third-party evidence for blocks you don't own.
7. Count each home once, however many checks it needs.
8. Report remedials separately. BS06 does not cover them, but the regulations and the Safety and Quality Standard do, and a clean BS06 with an open remedial backlog is still a compliance problem.

Where does the Safety and Quality Standard come in?

The consumer standards expect more than the TSM measures. The Safety and Quality Standard requires landlords to "identify and meet all legal requirements that relate to the health and safety of tenants in their homes and communal areas" (2.2.1), to carry out "all required actions arising from legally required health and safety assessments" within appropriate timescales (2.2.2), and to hold "an accurate record at an individual property level of the condition of their homes" (2.1.1).

The regulator also notes that BS06 does not remove the requirement to self-report material issues. A low BS06 figure, or one that rests on records you can't produce, is the kind of thing a landlord may need to discuss with the regulator. Take advice on your own position.

What should you do now?

1. Confirm the 1 November 2026 first-check deadline was met for every pre-December 2025 tenancy, and list the exceptions with reasons.
2. Build one list of homes that matches the asset register, and mark which need checks.
3. Link every home to the communal installations that serve it, and inspect any communal installation without an in-date report.
4. Put every report in one place, attached to the right home, with its next-due date.
5. Track C1, C2 and FI items to closure, with the 28-day deadline and written confirmation.
6. Run the data checks above quarterly, not just in March, so the year-end figure has no surprises.