Changes agreed to how social housing is allocated

Anthony Lewis, local democracy reporter

Changes to how housing is allocated in one Welsh county have been agreed by councillors.

Rhondda Cynon Taf (RCT)’s cabinet gave its backing to changes to the housing allocation scheme policy on Monday, December 15 including applicants with rent arrears or former tenant debt equivalent to over two months having their priority reduced to the next band down until they have adhered to a repayment plan and made regular payments for three months.

If the payment plan has been adhered to their priority band will be reinstated.

Another change is to allocate adapted properties by matching the applicants needs to the most appropriate adapted homes while also considering the priority of need and time waited to date.

The third and final change is to ensure the new policy includes hate crime and equalities definitions and processes to protect those from minority backgrounds

The housing allocation scheme is delivered in partnership with registered social landlords through a common housing register known as Homefinder.

The scheme involves a band system where applicants are placed in bands from A-D according to their housing need with band A being urgent housing need and band D being no housing need.

The current scheme was due for a review and this analysed the scheme looking at rent arrears policy, requirement of band D, adapted properties and hate crime in relation to people with protected characteristics.

The findings of the review recommended that the rent arrears process be changed to a duration based threshold, remove band D, allocate adapted properties by matching the applicant’s needs to the most appropriate adapted homes while also considering the priority of need and time waited to date and ensure the new policy includes hate crime/equality definitions and processes to protect those from minority backgrounds.

Band D

The finding about removing band D is currently being reviewed by Welsh Government and the council will wait for the outcome of this review before making any decisions on this.

In the consultation on the proposed changes, there were 435 responses and the majority agreed with the three recommendations.

Following the consultation, the council instructed a barrister to advise on the three recommendations to ensure compliance with legislation and relevant case law.

The recommendations related to adapted properties and hate crime were judged to be acceptable.

As a result of a change in legislation, an amendment to the rent arrears recommendation was made so an applicant with significant rent arrears would not be deemed as ineligible for applying to Homefinder but would have their priority reduced to the next band down whilst they were in arrears.