Agenda item

The Housing Allocations Scheme consultation was presented by Ian Swift.

By law local authorities must have a scheme. NBC’s scheme came into force in 2008 when it adopted a choice-based lettings scheme. It can be difficult for people to use. Acts of Parliament dictate what the council can do. The law is changing. It means the housing service has to make some changes.

There are about 9,000 households on the housing register, which is about 27,000 people out of a town population of around 210,000.

In response to customer feedback, the council has produced a myth-busting leaflet e.g. to challenge ‘you have to be black, eastern European, or gay to be housed’. A leaflet or DVD is given to all new customers and the information is available on the council website.

The council monitors the diversity of people on its register and looks at what it can do to take appropriate action to help them. It is getting more and more difficult to help people, for example as homelessness is increasing. Northampton has a relatively high amount of homelessness compared to other parts of the country – mostly due to people being evicted by family, friends or to losing private rented accommodation. It is very difficult for people to raise enough money to afford to get mortgages. This is adding to demand for council and other rented accommodation.

The council has to prioritise how it gives housing to people. Currently there are “reasonable preference groups”. This is people who have to be given priority. These are known as people matched to “emergency” need and “Band A”. Then “Band B” level of need includes people with for example some disability. There are other Bands too such as Bands C and D. Many of these people never get housed because there is too much demand from people in more need than them.  Overall about 50% of people currently on the register have no realistic chance of being housed. Rather than fill in a form and leave people simply allocated to a Band with no real chance of getting housed, the new proposals will look to remove people in Bands C and D from the register AND more will be done to provide some kind of advice to these people to help them to find housing that’s not within the scope of the housing register.

The council will still have to house some people e.g. victims of hate crime. But the new laws allow councils to choose to give preference to who they house from some other groups e.g. people in work, people seeking work or volunteering. Northampton Borough Council would like to do this, to help rebalance council estates. Many years ago most people living on council estates worked. Since then lots of people on council estates may just be on benefits.

The new law also says the council should give priority to people in the armed forces or who have had a relationship with someone in the armed forces.

The council has also got power to exclude people from the register e.g. because of their immigration status, people who have caused hate crime or domestic abuse or damage to property, or people who have refused lots of suitable properties offered to them.

The council has also drawn up a local connection requirement in line with government guidance. This is to help people who already have links to Northampton – either over a year or a period of at least a few years, to stay in Northampton.

There are new people coming to Northampton, for example London councils are already sending people from their area to be housed in private rented accommodation in Northampton because, due to the welfare reforms, they can’t afford to house them in their own authority area.

There is some conflicting guidance and law about how housing can be provided to people who foster children e.g. about whether children can have their own bedroom or not.

Jenny questioned why the council is spending money on consultations and whether the housing officers believe it’s worthwhile. Ian explained the costs are not great and are proportionate to the value of the consultations - it’s the officers core time, very little printing, using the Guildhall is not an external rent cost, etc all of which helps keep cost of consultation in proportion.

David wanted to know what people can actually influence in terms of the outcomes of this consultation. Ian explained that he can offer Cabinet what people have said about the proposals, as well as what the council is obliged to do by law. At this point 63% of responses disagree with the proposal of removing people from the register. Ian will need to make a professional recommendation to Cabinet taking account of all evidence he has available e.g. national best practice about what really helps people, as well as what people say they feel about things in the consultation. Councillors in the end will make the decision.

More information about the scheme can be found at www.northampton.gov.uk/consultations.

People can take part in the consultation at http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/nbcallocations