Hastings Borough Council, like all local authorities, has a public law duty to operate a Housing Allocation Scheme. The council’s Housing Allocation Scheme uses a choice-based lettings approach to allocating social rented housing. The council advertises available properties as part of their Housing Allocation Scheme. The council operates a common IT system with Rother District Council and Wealden District Council, with IT software being provided by a third-party private sector organisation that also hosts a website on which properties available to let are advertised.

The council undertook a voluntary transfer of its social housing properties in 1996. These homes are now owned by Southern Housing. There are 21 registered providers of social housing that collectively hold 6,300 properties, in the Hastings local authority area, of which 90% is managed by two registered providers (67% by Southern Housing and a further 23% by Orbit).

Social rented housing is 14.3% of all housing in Hastings. As of 30 June 2023, there were 1,536 households on the HBC waiting list. The number of new social housing lettings in Hastings reduced by 15% from 451 to 382 during 2019/20 – 2021/22. In 2021/22 nearly two thirds (64%) of households were on the housing waiting list for one year or more. Information on social housing waiting times and the number of lets is on this link: https://www.hastings.gov.uk/housing/social_housing/new/

The council is required to allocate social rented housing in accordance with statute, statutory guidance, and regulations and orders issued by the UK Parliament and the UK Government. The council has powers to determine how social rented housing is allocated in respect of the following matters.

Qualification – persons that should qualify or be disqualified from being allocated social rented housing.

Choice – extent of choice a person might be entitled to express about the social rented housing they wish to be allocated.

Priority – the order in which persons wishing to be allocated social rented housing should be selected for an allocation.

Refusals – the number of offers of accommodation a person can refuse.

This consultation is open to any member of the public to make comments on the questions shown below.

The current scheme states:

Those considered to have sufficient financial resources will be where:

• The household income and/or savings would be sufficient to enable them to afford to purchase accommodation on the open market or secure private rented sector accommodation locally which is affordable and suitable for the household requirements.

• The household owns a residential property (outright or with a mortgage) that would accommodate the household or could be sold to generate income to resolve their housing needs.

In the new scheme an income cap has been proposed to ensure that allocations are made to Applicants who are not able to resolve their own housing situation.

The new scheme states:

An Applicant or a member of their household who has savings of £16,000 or more (Exemptions apply to any Applicant who is a survivor of domestic abuse and Armed Forces personnel and accepted homeless households) will be excluded from joining the housing register.

An Applicant or a member of their household who is earning £60,000 or more in one tax year (Exemptions apply to any Applicant who is a survivor of domestic abuse and Armed Forces personnel and accepted homeless households) will be excluded from joining the housing register.

Discretion will be operated where an applicant exceeds the limits above but have significant costs related to their or their household’s health or care needs.

This change has been proposed to improve the availability of homes to Applicants who do not have the financial means to access other accommodation.

The current scheme states:

A local residency connection will only be established where the applicant has resided in the Hastings Borough for at least 3 out of the last 5 years or for at least 5 out of the last 10 years.

The new scheme states:

An Applicant will be disqualified from joining the Scheme if any of the following criteria is applicable to them.

E - An Applicant or a member of their household who does not have a minimum of three years current continuous connection to the Local Authority area because of residence. Other consideration is given to employment and other special reasons.

This change has been proposed to improve access to housing to applicants currently living in the borough,

The current scheme states that one bedroom can be allocated to two children of the same gender under the age of 16. The proposal in the new Scheme is to change the age to 18, so one bedroom will be allocated to two children of the same gender under the age of 18.

This change has been proposed to improve the availability of family homes to larger families.

The council prioritises Applicants for an allocation of social rented housing according to the following criteria:

Bands, in the order of A to D. Band A has the highest priority and Band D the lowest.

Where two or more Applicants might have the same priority in the same Band, then by the date their application was first received by the Local Authority.

Changes are proposed to the following band categories:

Band A

• A transfer applicant or someone entitled to a statutory succession who would or is currently under-occupying their accommodation by one bedroom or more.

The current Scheme gives a band A to transfer applicants under-occupying their accommodation by two bedrooms or more. The change to under-occupying by one bedroom or more has been made to encourage under-occupying households to move, to improve access to larger family sized accommodation to applicants on the housing register.

Applicants who are a new (priority need) family unit living within an existing family, who have insecure living arrangements that are not sustainable in the longer term. E.g., where someone is living in the family home who has had a child themselves and this has resulted in overcrowding and tensions in the family home. This is for verified cases following a home visit, consideration of all housing options, and allocated at the discretion of the Council. Applicants will also need confirmation from their family that they can reside in the family home for a minimum of one year from the date of application.

This change has been proposed to recognise the need to move for newly formed priority need households, whilst promoting the prevention of homelessness and removing the need for temporary accommodation.

• Applicants to whom the council owe a statutory duty to house. This category is in the existing Scheme as a Band A but it was qualified with ‘but where the council has been unable to provide private sector accommodation and the household is resident in bed and breakfast accommodation.’

The requirement for an Applicant to be resident in bed and breakfast accommodation has been removed to encourage applicants to consider alternative temporary accommodation arrangements if it is appropriate and safe to do so.

Band B

• Applicants who have unusually high ongoing accommodation needs, which cannot be met in the private rented sector. This category will only be used at the discretion of the council in consultation with support agencies. Discretion for a direct let when clients have been there for a set amount of time and assessed as ready to move on.

This category was previously in Band A, but with no provision for a direct let.

The change has been proposed to encourage Applicants who have been assessed as ready to move on from support accommodation to look for alternative accommodation options including private rented accommodation. Where it has not been possible for an Applicant to secure alternative accommodation, the Applicant will be made a one-off offer of suitable social housing on a direct let basis. Best endeavours will be made to meet the needs of the Applicant where housing availability allows.

This change has been proposed to improve the throughput in supported accommodation and widen access to placements for clients in need of accommodation with support.

Band D

• Applicants from Band A, B or C, who have exhausted their right to refuse an allocation of social rented housing.

We have made a decision to deprioritise rather than exclude applicants from the register.

The current scheme states ‘If you refuse three offers of suitable accommodation within a 12-month period you will be removed from the register. You will then be suspended from reapplying to the housing register for a further 12 months from the date of the/your third refusal.’

It is proposed to change this in the new scheme as follows;

Band A – Applicants are entitled to one refusal of a reasonable offer of accommodation.

Band B – Applicants are entitled to two refusals of a reasonable offer of accommodation.

Band C – Applicants are entitled to three refusals of a reasonable offer of accommodation.

Band D – Applicants are entitled to one refusals of a reasonable offer of accommodation.

Applicants from Band A, B or C, who have exhausted their right to refuse an allocation of social rented housing will be placed into Band D. Please see above for details of changes to prioritisation in the new scheme.

An Applicant who is homeless or owed a homelessness duty will have no entitlement to a refusal of a reasonable offer of accommodation, except for applicants who are homeless and have chosen not to be provided with accommodation directly by the council

This change has been proposed to make best use of available accommodation to all banding groups, and to provide choice and opportunity to homeless households making their own short term accommodation arrangements.

Representative groups responding to this consultation are asked to give a summary of the people and organisations they represent, and where relevant who else they have consulted in reaching their conclusions when they respond.

Information provided in response to this consultation, including any personal data, may be published, or disclosed in accordance with the access to information regimes (these are primarily the Freedom of Information Act 2000, the Data Protection Act 2018, the EU General Data Protection Regulation, and the Environmental Information Regulations 2004).

If you want the information that you provide to be treated as confidential, please be aware that, as a public authority, Hastings Borough Council is bound by the freedom of information law and may therefore be obliged to disclose all or some of the information you provide. In view of this it would be helpful if you could explain to us why you regard the information you have provided as confidential. If we receive a request for the disclosed information we will take full account of your explanation, but we cannot give an assurance that confidentiality can be maintained in all circumstances. An automatic confidentiality disclaimer directly generated by your IT system will not, of itself, be regarded as binding on the council.

The council will process your personal data in accordance with the law and in most circumstances, this will mean that your personal data will not be disclosed to third parties. A full privacy notice is available here: https://www.hastings.gov.uk/privacy/

Individual responses will not be acknowledged unless specifically requested.

Whilst the changes proposed in this property do not by themselves create more supply of affordable homes, they are our attempt to prioritise the homes we have to people who have the greatest need for them but at the same time trying to make the most of the affordable homes we have.

We are keen to hear if you think we have done that and if not what more could we do? Your opinions are valuable to us. Thank you for taking the time to read and respond to this document.