Agenda and minutes

All Members and co-opted members of the Improving Places Select Commission, present at this meeting, declared their personal interests in item 11 below (Revision of RMBC’s Council Housing Allocations Policy) because they are either (i) Council housing tenants themselves; or (ii) a relative of a Council housing tenant; or (iii) may have a close association with someone who is a Council housing tenant, or an applicant for a tenancy.

There were no questions from members of the public or the press.

There were no items to report.

Resolved:- That the minutes of the previous meeting of the Improving Places Select Commission, held on 19th June, 2013, be approved as a correct record for signature by the Chairman.

Further to minutes of previous meetings of the Improving Places Select Commission (Minute No. 33(3) of the meeting held on 17^th October, 2012 and Minute No. 52 of the meeting held on 27^th March, 2013), consideration was given to a report presented by the Sandra Tolley (Housing Options Manager) and Sandra Wardle (Housing Advice Manager) concerning this Council’s Housing Allocations Policy, which was last substantially amended in January 2010. The report stated that this Policy needs to be revised again to take into account the new flexibilities and opportunities offered to social housing landlords by the Localism Act 2011, and to make the system as fair as possible. There is also the need to review the Housing Allocations Policy because of the size of the Housing Register, the likelihood that the Register will increase if no action is taken and to take account of the circumstances of local people and firmly base the Housing Allocations Policy on addressing housing need.    

Feedback from Elected Members, about the proposed revisions to the Housing Allocations Policy, will be incorporated into the final version of the Policy, which will be submitted to the Cabinet and to the Council meeting for formal adoption during November, 2013.

The Select Commission noted that the Localism Act 2011 seeks to devolve responsibility back to local authorities, allowing more decisions about housing to be taken locally.  In the case of allocating housing, this means local authority landlords are able to apply locally determined criteria to their housing registers and no longer have to operate open registers, with the expectation from central Government that social housing should be offered to those people in housing need.

This Council’s Housing Register currently contains more than 25,000 applicants, the vast majority of whom are adequately housed, placed in the General group and do not currently need a Council house, although they may aspire to live in a Council home in the future.  The submitted report listed the main problems caused by the current policy.

The report, the presentation and the Select Commission’s subsequent debate included the following salient issues:-

: consultation timetable, which began during the Autumn 2012 and leads to the eventual implementation of the revised Housing Allocations Policy, after approval by the Council, during December 2013;

: the impact of the increasing demand for housing, as well as housing provision for people who are in greater need;

: costs of administration of a register containing 25,000 households;

: relevant legislation – Housing Act 1996 (Part VI); Homelessness Act 2002; Localism Act 2011;

: the Council’s ‘Fair and Flexible Policy’ for the allocation of Council housing, to the people most in need;

: statistical details of the Council Housing Register of applicants for tenancies;

: the definition of people who are adequately housed;

: housing allocations policies (and numbers of people on the housing register) of neighbouring and nearby local authorities (a summary of benchmarked data was appended to the report);

: allocation of housing to people who have served  ...  view the full minutes text for item 11.

In view of the time spent upon consideration of item 11 above, the following agenda items were deferred until the next meeting of the Improving Places Select Commission, to be held on Wednesday, 4^th September, 2013:-

: Planning Obligations – updated Section 106 Accounts information

: Developer contributions for open spaces

: Community Infrastructure Levy viability and infrastructure study

: school place planning