Northumberland County Council proposes tightening criteria to slash social housing waiting list by 40%

Northumberland County Council is proposing to remove thousands of applicants from its social housing waiting list by tigtening eligibility criteria.

The council is proposing to narrow eligibility for social housing by removing band three, which allows people who are adequately housed to apply and makes up 40% of all applicants.

The local authority currently has 14,247 registered applicants, with 8,461 of those being assessed as having no housing need.

The deletion of band three would mean people who do not have a housing need will not be registered, which would reduce the housing register to 5,786 “genuine” applicants and “allows more time for staff to deal with vulnerable and complex applicants”, says council documents.

Meanwhile, homeless clients would be given a direct offer of suitable accommodation, rather than being eligible to bid on properties, which is “encouraging applicants to be selective, raises unrealistic expectations in high demand areas and introduce inefficiencies in low demand areas,” according to the council.

If applicants are encouraged to wait longer for an ideal property as opposed to expressing interest on a home they have a high likelihood of being awarded, it results in lengthy stays in temporary accommodation (TA).

Last year, the council spent £255,000 on TA between April 1 and December 3.

The council has also suggested the introduction of local connection criteria, which would further decrease the number of “genuine applicants” to 5,526.

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The proposed changes would mean that applicants who have not been resident in Northumberland for six of the last 12 months will not be eligible for registration, with exceptions such as in the case of domestic abuse. In rural areas, there would be additional preference for families with a strong local connection due to a “lack of affordable homes”.

Currently, applicants that have more than £100,000 in equity or savings are not eligible to join the register, but a new proposal could mean that households that are deemed able to resolve their own housing need will also be unable to join the waiting list.

Councils have had more scope to restrict social housing eligibility since the Localism Act 2011, with many London boroughs, such as Westminster and Ealing announcing changes in priority criteria in recent months.