Issue - meetings
Housing Allocation Scheme Review
Meeting: 12/11/2019 - Communities, Housing and Environment Committee (Item 43)
43 Housing Allocation Scheme Review PDF 120 KB
Additional documents:
- Enc. 1 for Housing Allocation Scheme Review, item 43 PDF 90 KB View as HTML (43/2) 97 KB
- Enc. 2 for Housing Allocation Scheme Review, item 43 PDF 260 KB View as HTML (43/3) 291 KB
- Enc. 3 for Housing Allocation Scheme Review, item 43 PDF 44 KB View as HTML (43/4) 10 KB
Minutes:
The Committee considered the report of the Homechoice and Strategy Team Leader which detailed proposed changes to the Council’s Housing Allocation Scheme.
It was proposed to rename the Housing Register bands to greater reflect the qualifying criteria as the current banding criteria had been wrongly interpreted as denoting priority. Therefore the new banding would be as follows:-
Band C – Community Contribution and Homeless Prevention
Band H - Homeless
Band M – Medical and Health Assistance
Band R – Reasonable Preference
It was noted that the amendments to the proposed scheme were being proposed to support homelessness prevention by encouraging applicants to remain in their current accommodation and avoid the use of temporary accommodation. By applying a new band criteria households there would be less ‘Direct Lettings’ and those put into the Band C – Community Contribution and Homeless Prevention would have opportunity to secure affordable housing.
In response to questions from Members, Officers advised that:-
·
The amendments to the scheme were seen as the
fairest and simplest way of allocation.
·
Officers tried to match the applicant’s
requirements with the type of properties available. However if the applicant did not want to progress
with the property after viewing it, Officers would email the
applicant to find out the reasons why they refused it
and reset the priority date if the
motive specified was assessed as unreasonable. This process could take up to 56 days but was
normally dealt with in a short period of time.
·
There are very few refusals and Officers would not
amend the priority date if a valid reason for refusal was
given. However, there was an appeal
process.
·
Mutual exchanges operate outside of the
Council’s allocation scheme are dependent on the type of
tenancy held. In the main, local
housing associations do permit their tenants to explore mutual
exchanges as a means of enabling transfers between consenting
parties.
·
On certain schemes priority was given to those with
a local connection to a parish area for new builds in rural
areas.
·
That if a homeless person has a pet, that would be taken into consideration when
trying to match them up.
RESOLVED: That the Committee agrees the proposed changes to the Council’s Allocations Scheme.