Agenda item

The Director of Housing submits a report providing an update to Members of the ‘headline’ Housing Register and Lettings data, relating to Leicester City Council’s Housing Register.

The Director of Housing submitted a report providing an update to Members of the ‘headline’ Housing Register and Lettings data, relating to Leicester City Council’s Housing Register.

·         During the Covid-19 pandemic fewer properties came on to let and lets were done by direct match.

·         As of 1 October, there were 6342 households on the register – an increase of 3% on last year.

·         The highest demand (33%) was for two-bed accommodation.

·         Overcrowding was the biggest reason for joining the register, homelessness the second biggest.

·         There had been a decrease of 24% in Critical Overcrowding on the register since the previous year. 

·         There had been 439 lets in the last six months, a drop from 675.  The drop had been explained by the effects of the pandemic on stock and fewer people moving around.

·         Bands 1 and 2 accounted for 97% (418) of all lettings Band 3 accounted for 3% (21) of all lettings, mostly 1-bedroom accommodation

·         55% of lets were made to homeless households. 

·         50% of lettings were 1-bed dwellings.

·         From March-July housing registers across the country were closed.  The government had advised councils to use direct match and let process so those in critical need had some access.  In August and September, the register began to return to normal, but 40% of all lettings were done through direct lettings from April-September 2020.

·         Waiting times had increased and lockdown was partly the cause of this, however there was still an increase in waiting times once they had been adjusted to account for lockdown.  It was thought that this was due to the policy of more of those housed being Band 1 and as such the lower bands were impacted and there was an overall reduction in total lettings.  Since 50% of lets were 1-bed it had meant that families had needed to wait.  80% of 3-bed lets were in Band 1.  Waiting times would grow due to an increase in demand and a reduction in supply.

·         Work was going on to analyse the demand for adapted and accessible housing so that supply could be more equitably increased on these properties.

·         Applications within bands:

o   Applications in Band 1 were steady.  These were mainly from those with serious medical need, those experiencing critical overcrowding and homeless people.

o   Applications in Band 2 had decreased.  These were mainly from those with moderate medical needs, those experiencing severe overcrowding and homeless people

o   Applications in Band 3 had increased.   These were mainly from those experiencing non-severe overcrowding.

·         Lettings were going to those with the highest priorities.  Customer information had been produced to manage expectations and was broken down by size of property.

·         Leicester City Council was planning to create 1500 new affordable homes over the next four years and the need to make them equitable in terms of need was recognised.

·         The management of demand needed to be constantly challenged and reviewed.  Three areas were being focussed on:

o   How quotas could be used to increase fairness.

o   Access and health criteria.

o   Communication and availability of data and information.

Councillor Westley suggested that the Right to Buy was causing stocks to go down and causing demand to outstrip supply.

Councillor Pickering raised the issue of under-occupancy and relayed that there would be a presentation on it soon.

Councillor Willmott recognised that people still wished to live in social housing as the Council were good landlords.  He further recalled that he had advocated for 1000 council homes to be created per year and recognised that even this would not meet the predicted demand and yet the Council had significantly less social housing than this.  He called upon Councillor Cutkelvin to put pressure on the Executive to do more to increase the supply of social housing.  He asked if it was possible to review and increase the target.

He further asked if there had been any feedback on the customer information dashboard as to how well people had understood it.

Councillor Cutkelvin responded that they were constantly looking at ways to enable councillors to get to grips with the information to better support residents.  She was working with the Director of Housing on how to better create dialogue with councillors and residents and suggested discussing the issue at a future meeting of the Housing Scrutiny Commission.

She further responded that she would be happy to apply pressure to increase social housing and reported that she had been trying to build pace on the issue.  She recognised that the Local Plan would add another element to the dynamics and also highlighted the importance of the private rented sector in finding solutions.   She expressed the aim of the Council to be the best landlords in the City but conceded that they could not keep pace with the loss of stock through the Right to Buy.  She added that Right to Buy purchases had slowed during Covid-19 but the Council still could not keep pace as many new houses would be subject to the Right to Buy.

She further elaborated that the Council owned a small percentage of housing in the city compared to 10 years ago and as such could not wield as much influence.  Therefore, she suggested that the Council needed to look to better deals with the private rented sector so that they could better enable those in Band 3 who may not realistically get a Council home and get them into private accommodation.  She recognised that private accommodation could sometimes be unsatisfactory, but she relayed that the Council were looking to develop relationships with landlords to get them to give better support to tenants.

Service Manager, Housing Solutions and Partnerships, Justin Haywood, responded that there had never been a formal survey on how well people understood the information given, but they were looking to improve the information and help Councillors convey it to constituents.

Councillor Nangreave raised the issue of overcrowding and noted that with cases of Covid-19 rising, overcrowding was a bigger problem.  She stressed the need for political and financial solutions and suggested that the central government should be petitioned about the level of overcrowding and the Covid-19 infection rate and getting the government to particularly help Leicester as it was a special case in this situation.  Suggested solutions included stopping the Right to Buy and increasing money available for council housing.  She asked as to why there was not a fund for councils as there was for social housing associations.

She further suggested using reserves and borrowing capacity to put money into property given the low interest rates.  She added that some councils had borrowed hundreds of millions of pounds to build and buy houses.

Councillor Westley urged caution as he suggested there may be further austerity in future and the consequences of Covid-19 would need to be paid for so it was possible that interest rates would increase.

Director of Housing, Chris Burgin, referred to the £70m that had been committed by the City Mayor and Councillor Cutkelvin to invest in delivering new Council housing which would be borrowed by the HRA at a low interest rate.  This would only go so far to fulfilling manifesto commitments, but additional funding would be asked for at the City Mayor Briefing.  Money was available for local authorities, however, if they wished to make use of Right to Buy receipts then they could not use Homes England funding and if money from Homes England funding was utilised then money from Right to Buy receipts could not be and this increased the risk of this funding having to go back to central government.

Councillor Nangreave enquired about the possibility of the Council making use of the HomeCome housing association to build houses and sought further clarification on whether Right to Buy receipts would be used to buy or build houses or both.

Chris Burgin clarified that HomeCome was a private company that was partly owned by the Council and to source funding it would need to go through private means.  He further clarified that Right to Buy receipts could be used for both building and buying and could be used with the aforementioned £70million but not with Homes England funding.

Councillor Cutkelvin added that money from Right to Buy Receipts needed to be spent within three years or it would go back to the government.  However, the council was on target to spend it.

Chris Burgin further explained that the Council could retain 25% of a Right to Buy sale and utilise 30% per property.  For acquisitions and new builds, the rest would have to come from another source.

Councillor Westley reiterated the need for social housing to be built and the need to aim for the target of 1000 council homes per year.

AGREED:

1)    That the report be noted.

2)    That a vote of thanks be made towards Justin Haywood and his team.

3)    That Councillor Cutkelvin explore ways of further increasing the council housing supply above the current targets.