Housing Allocations - Allocation Points
How does the letting scheme work?
Housing points and priority bands
Everyone applying to the Council for housing will initially have their housing needs priority assessed within a very simple points scheme:
The points scheme
There are 4 points levels:
- 250 points for emergencies
- 100 points for ‘decant’ tenants, tenants we want to move into smaller homes, other ‘council interest’ moves and ‘A’ Medical cases
- 40 points for ‘A’ Social, ‘A’ Special Needs, severe overcrowding (two or more bedrooms short), ‘move on’ offers, agreed mobility cases and accepted statutorily homeless households
- 10 points for all ‘B’ priorities, less severe overcrowding (one bedroom short), lacking a basic facility and children on high floors (above 5th in a lifted block and 3rd in a walk up block), and single non priority homeless people.
Having calculated your points, your application will then be put in one of the bands, in a date order, with the oldest case first.
Your priority date will be either:
- the date you applied for housing or
- the date we awarded your present priority e.g. a medical grade was awarded
- or the date you told us about a change in your circumstances that changed your band e.g. the birth of a child. Whichever is the latest.
Who is in the letting bands?
Every applicant will be placed in one of the following bands based upon the points their case attracts:
Band Points Range
Emergencies 250+
Urgent 100 – 240
Priority Homeless 40 – 90
Priority Non-Homeless 40 – 90
General 10 – 30
Reserve 0
The Urgent Band will include Council tenants whom the Council wants to move (we refer to these as ‘Council interest lettings’), and people with ‘A’ Medical Priority.
The Priority Non Homeless Band will include people who are overcrowded because they have at least two bedrooms less than we think they need. It will also include people with any ‘A’ Priority except ‘A’ Medical Priority. The General Band will include people who are overcrowded by one bedroom or who have been awarded a ‘B’ for Medical, Insecurity, Social, Special Needs or Carers.
Which band you will join will usually be determined by one main factor, rather than by a number of different factors, some perhaps relatively minor. Cases will be considered for an offer in date order within each band except for ‘Council Interest’ lettings where offers may be required to meet specific deadlines.
The general principle of giving priority according to the time spent in housing need within broad bands of similar need is central to the system. The lettings plan example on page 25 shows how we expect to divide up the estimated supply of homes during 2002/03 amongst the housing bands.
Some examples
A tenant who applies for a transfer and is already overcrowded by one bedroom when they apply will join General Band from the date of their application on the transfer scheme. If they become overcrowded by a second bedroom subsequently, they will join the Priority Band from the date they advised us of the additional overcrowding. If a housing applicant who joins the list in the Reserve Band from the date they applied is awarded ‘A’ Medical priority because of a very severe health problem, they will join the Urgent Band from the date the ‘A Medical was awarded.
Page updated: 24 Jan 2008