Issue details

One of the key aims for our Preventing Homelessness and Rough Sleeping Strategy 2025-2030, approved by Cabinet on 4 March 2025, is to improve the provision of move-on accommodation and reduce the time that households spend in temporary accommodation. One way to achieve this is to ensure we make best use of our Council housing to allocate them to those most in need.

Under our Housing Allocations Policy, applicants are placed in one of 4 priority bands. Our Housing Allocations Policy states, “we may use a quota system, which means that a percentage of our properties may be given preference to band 2, 3 or 4 first”. The reason why we operate a quota system is to ensure we have balanced, sustainable communities and that those in housing need in the lower bands have fair access to social housing.

The quota system is only used to create a shortlist of prospective applicants who have bid for an individual property. The actual allocation of that property is undertaken by a member of staff. The current quota system for the allocation of Council housing is as follows:

Band 1 (Urgent Housing Need) 50%
Band 2 (High Housing Need) 30%
Band 3 (Medium Housing Need) 15%
Band 4 (Low Housing Need) 5%