This report sought approval to adopt changes to the Council’s Housing Allocations Policy, which sets out the eligibility criteria for joining the Housing Register and how social housing in the Borough would be allocated through this method.

The Council’s Allocations Policy is a document that is reviewed on a regular basis to ensure that good practice and learning can be incorporated into the document and provide clarity on how the policy is implemented. The current policy had been updated to reflect this and had been consulted on with key stakeholders.

In addition, a new policy had been created to support the Council’s discharge of homelessness duty into the private sector. This clarified the approach and sets out how the Council would respond to these cases.

The intention is for the updated Allocation Policy and the Discharge of Homelessness Duty into the Private Sector Policy to be reviewed following agreement of the Allocation Policy.

This paper presented the outcomes of the Allocations Policy review and proposed a number of changes and clarifications. The main include the following:

• Disqualifying applicants who do not meet the new residency criteria set out in the Policy.

• Using different financial amount to disqualify applicants from the Housing Register who have sufficient financial resources.

• Disqualifying applicants with a history of unacceptable behaviour or serious rent arrears, and clarifying the detail of this.

• Changes to the points system to reflect the priorities within the Borough.

In order to implement the new Allocations system there would be a re-assessment of the residency criteria and the financial resources of applicants. It is currently estimated that of the c1,000 households registered on the housing register and transfer list that around 250 applicants will be removed.

A presentation providing detail of the policy was provided to the committee by Jon Maxwell.

A motion was MOVED by Cllr Mrs Pearson and SECONDED by Cllr Hossack

to agree the recommendations in the report.

Following a discussion a vote was taken and it was RESOLVED that:

Members are asked to:

R1. To approve the Allocations Policy.

R2. To give delegated authority to the Director of Housing and

Community Safety in consultation with the Chair of Enforcement,

Environment and Housing Committee to make any final minor or legislative amendments of the final version following consultation.

Reasons for Recommendation

To ensure that the Housing Department has an updated Allocations Policy to support the delivery of homes for residents in the most efficient and effective way, reflecting good practice and the learning from the application of the existing policy.

Following the consultation for the final version to be signed off by the Chair of

the Environment, Enforcement and Housing (EEH) Committee and the Director of Housing and Community Safety under delegated powers from the EEH Committee.