A previous article Council Housing in Derby: How long is the “Waiting List”? questioned the validity of the idea that there is a Council House “Waiting List”.

This article will examine this issue in more detail and explain why the Council House allocation and bidding system is no longer fit for purpose.

Corporate Needs Band (CNB) s vs Priority Needs Band (PNB)

98% of the people on the Housing Register are in the top 2 priority categories. Of those, 20% are in the highest, Corporate Needs Band, and 80% in the Priority Needs Band.

When houses are advertised on Homefinder they are generally restricted to applicants within a specific “band”. This means that people in the other “bands” cannot see the advert and therefore cannot “bid” ( i.e. express an interest)

However, 80% of the adverts are allocated to Corporate Needs Band despite only 20% of applicants being categorised as such.

The consequence of this is that the 80% of the applicants who are in PNB rarely see properties to bid on.

Applicants aged over 55 in the CNB

Around 15-20% of those adverts categorised as CNB ( 1- 2 bedroomed) are restricted to people over the age of 55.

Only 20-30% of the people in CNB are over the age of 55.

This means that these specific properties are visible only to ~5% of the applicants looking for a 1/2 bedroomed property.

In some cases less than 10 people bid.

Many people in the Corporate Needs Band don’t bid

In principle, those in CNB should be those most in need of a property, however on average only 10% of those people applying for a 1 or 2 bedroomed property, categorised as CNB, actually place a bid.

Under Occupying / Over crowding

Approximately 75% of the active population on the Housing register have been awarded a “need” on the basis that they are either under occupying ( too many rooms and potentially incurring “bedroom tax”) or over crowding ( too few rooms).

It would be reasonable to assume that some of the people with too many rooms could swap with those with too few. This exchange/swap option is done externally on http://www.houseexchange.org.uk.

Comment

In two Council Cabinet reports dated 12th April 2023 it is stated:

“As at the end of December 2022, there were over 6,000 applicants actively looking for an affordable home through Derby Homefinder”.

This is inconsistent with the Derby Homes definition of “active” which only includes people who have bid at least once in the last 12 months – their figure is closer to 5,000. Bidding just once in 12 months is not particularly active given that houses come onto the register almost every day.

A significant number of people do not bid as they simply do not have visibility of available properties through the Derby Homes website (Homefinder)

The whole process is not transparent and leaves many people in very stressful circumstances; this prompts many questions:

• As there are always a signficant number of bids per advert, who makes the decision ( and how is it made) as to which applicant is successful. This process is not documented and therefore not transparent. It should be objectively fair. It is open to criticism and “personal discretion”
• Priority allocation is important to ensure that those most in need have more opportunity, however:
  • How often are the personal bandings reviewed to ensure that they are still appropriate and that circumstances haven’t changed.
  • Given that most people on CNB don’t bid, and yet have the greatest visibility of properties, should there be a system of “demotion” if people don’t place bids within a given timeframe/ number of adverts
• Who decides which properties are allocated to which band? Who decides the disproportionate imbalance between bandings? Why create age bandings when this further throttles back visibility.
• 75% of the people on Homefinder live in a Derby Homes property albeit the wrong size. Perhaps Derby Homes could be more proactive in the exchange process? Perhaps a more lucrative financial incentive could be offered to people to move? Anecdotally, there are people who are underoccupying, who have not advised the Council – what work is being done to encourage downsizing to those who have not registered?
• My previous article “Derby Homes: incompetent management of new house building programme” showed that the New Build programme is painfully slow. Year on year the programme slips back. There are 147 properties that are empty for a variety of reasons including 61 due to major works. Focussing on bringing these properties back into use would release some of the pressure.

It is clear that the Council House bidding, allocation policy and decision process is not fit for purpose. It leaves far too many people in limbo for far too long.

The Derby Homes senior management are not accountable, publicly, for their performance.

The whole process needs to be transformed to make it more visible, transparent, and accountable…and fairer for all.