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2. CONTEXT

Legislation and Guidance

2.1 The legal framework for the allocations policies of social landlords is set out in the Housing (Scotland) Act 1987 as amended by the Housing (Scotland) Act 2001. This places duties on local authorities (and RSLs) which govern both who can apply for housing and priorities in relation to the allocation of housing. Guidance issued by the then Scottish Executive clarifies the requirements ⁵.

2.2 The main features of this legal framework are

(a) The housing list must be open to all those who are aged 16 and over.

(b) Social landlords must give 'reasonable preference' to particular applicants

(a ) to persons who -

(i) are occupying houses which do not meet the tolerable standard; or (ii) are occupying overcrowded houses; or (iii) have large families; or (iv) are living under unsatisfactory housing conditions; and

(b) to homeless persons and persons threatened with homelessness (within the meaning of Part II).

(c) Social landlords must not take into account certain factors in allocating housing. These factors include:

• length of residence in the area
• debts except in defined circumstances
• the income of the applicant and family
• property ownership and residency.

2.3 In determining allocations, the legal framework is more specific in relation to admission to the list and characteristics which may not be taken into account than it is about the relative priority which should be given to different types of housing need.

[Social landlords] have discretion in drawing up their system of priorities for housing allocations and in making decisions within that system. It is for the local authority or the housing association to make a judgement on the relative needs of individuals and their circumstances ⁶.

2.4 The only requirement in relation to priority is contained within the 'reasonable preference' requirements. This concept of 'reasonable preference' is longstanding, having been introduced in the Housing (Scotland) Act 1966, and has not changed apart from the introduction of a new category of homelessness. It has no statutory definition, but any decisions made in relation to it must be able to withstand judicial challenge.

2.5 Discussion of the legal framework must however also take into account legislation on homelessness. The legislative framework relating to homelessness and in particular access to accommodation was substantially amended first by the Housing (Scotland) Act 2001 and then by the Homelessness Etc (Scotland) Act 2003.

2.6 The 2001 Act placed new responsibilities on local authorities to provide temporary accommodation for all those assessed as being homeless and extended the responsibilities of RSLs in providing accommodation. The 2003 Act makes a number of further changes

• Extension of the priority need categories and plans to ultimately abolish the priority need test
• Changes to the operation of the intentionally homeless test and the provision of accommodation for intentionally homeless households
• Details of what constitutes suitable accommodation for homeless persons particularly where children are involved.

2.7 Section 5 of the 2001 Act requires that a RSL must comply with a local authority's request for accommodation to house a household assessed as unintentionally homeless and in priority need unless it has a "good reason" for not doing so. An explanation of what constitutes "good reason" was given in guidance issued by Scottish Ministers.

2.8 In December 2005 The Ministerial Statement on the Abolition of Priority Need by 2012 set out a series of actions that local authorities and the then Scottish Executive will take, paving the way to the abolition of the priority need test by 2012. Local authorities are required to consider how they will reduce the proportion of non-priority assessments by 50% by 2009 through their local housing and homelessness strategies.

2.9 The new duties create an incentive for social landlords to prevent homelessness occurring and to find sustainable solutions if it does. The abolition of priority need, together with prospective changes to the duties for intentionally homeless households, mean that a local authority will have to find accommodation for all these households whatever the difficulties and challenges posed, or however many times they present, or are evicted.

2.10 There are a number of other general duties on social landlords which must be met in the allocations policy and associated processes

• Sex Discrimination Act 1975
• Race Relation Act 1976 (as Amended) 2000 and Statutory Duties Order 2004
• Matrimonial Homes (Family Protection) (Scotland) Act 1981
• Disability Discrimination Act 1995
• Human Rights Act 1998
• Data Protection Act 1998
• Freedom of Information Act 2000
• Asylum and Immigration Act (Treatment of Claimants) Act 2004

Communities Scotland Performance Standards

2.11 In addition to compliance with the legal framework, social landlords' allocations policies are expected to meet Communities Scotland's Performance Standards ⁷. The Standards form the key reference point on which to assess any requirement for statutory intervention, but are also expected to be used for self assessment: they apply equally to the Council and to RSLs

2.12 The Standards are organised into 20 Guiding Standards and 33 Activity Standards. Guiding Standard 3 is of particular relevance to the allocations function and includes:

• Responsiveness to service users
• Information and advice
• Complaints and appeals
• Performance reporting
• Openness and confidentiality.

2.13 The Activity Standards of direct relevance are included under Activity Standards 1: Housing Management and Activity Standards 4: Homelessness.

Regulation and Inspection

2.14 In relation to the inspection function, Communities Scotland defines this role as:

'Inspections of Registered Social Landlords ( RSLs) and the landlord and homelessness services of local authorities are carried out by Communities Scotland under the Housing (Scotland) Act 2001. Our purpose is to provide an independent external assessment of the effectiveness of housing service delivery and make recommendations to help improvement' ⁸.

2.15 Both local authorities and RSLs are subject to the same regulatory framework, with the aim of ensuring consistency in standards to ensure tenants receive a high standard of service, in line with their rights. Five key principles underpin the inspection process:

• Accountability for the conduct of inspections
• Transparency in the inspection process and outcomes
• Targeting inspections to focus on performance and service delivery
• Consistency of the inspection process while taking account of local circumstances and diversity
• Proportionate inspections that take account of the diversity of landlords within this social rented sector ⁹.

Allocations Systems

2.16 An allocation system can be defined as 'the way in which individual households applying for housing are formed into a queue or set of queues which reflect the organisations' objectives, principles and stated priorities' ¹⁰.

2.17 In determining which allocation system best suits the requirements of their organisations' objectives, principles and priorities, social landlords have developed a number of different approaches to prioritising applicants for their housing.

• Points only systems, in which applicants' circumstances are awarded points, usually in relation to housing need, and are placed in a single queue in points order.
• Group plus points, in which applicants are awarded points and are placed in different queues (groups). These systems usually also use quotas of lets so that different groups will receive a set proportion of the vacancies which arise.
• Date order only, in which applicants are placed in a single queue in order of the date of application (or sometimes for transfer applicants the date at which their tenancy commenced)
• Group plus date order, where applicants are placed in groups in order of the date of their application.
• Choice based lettings, in which landlords advertise vacancies and applicants may 'bid'. Applicants are grouped in different levels of priority, usually quite broad, and where there is more than one bid made, the applicant with higher priority is offered the property. These have only recently been used in Scotland, but appear to be gaining in popularity.
• 2.18 Traditionally, when there was a greater supply of social housing, social landlords tended to prioritise access to housing on the basis of date order of the application and household requirements (matching household size with available property size). Housing staff also had a high level of discretion in the decision making process. Indeed, it has been argued that discretion on the part of housing staff in the past played a negative role in allocations as many lettings decisions were based on the personally held prejudices of housing staff; essentially, more 'deserving' households tended to get access to the more desirable areas/property types ¹¹..

2.19 Debates during the 1970s and 1980s challenged local authorities (as the main providers of social housing) about their failure to give priority, or indeed in some instances access, to those in the greatest housing need. Pressure from groups such as Shelter resulted in the introduction of the first homelessness legislation in 1977. Shortly thereafter the then Scottish Office issued a report strongly supporting the development of allocations policies which gave priority to housing need ¹². The move to needs based systems picked up pace.

2.20 In 1966 when 'reasonable preference' was introduced as a requirement on local authorities, nearly half (47.3%) of housing in Scotland was public sector, under a third (29.1%) was owner occupied and around a quarter was private rented (23.6%). Since then however there has been a significant change in the role of social housing in Scotland. Recent analysis concluded that this switch away from social renting has mainly been driven by growth in disposable incomes, with Right to Buy supporting rather than driving this change. The impact of these changes has however differed significantly across Scotland ¹³.

2.21 There has also been a significant change in the tenant base - those applying to, and being housed within, the social rented sector. Overall there has been a substantial increase in single adult households, with in addition a generally recognised growth in the proportion of applicants who have health, care or support needs in addition to housing needs. This not only raises the importance of tenancy sustainability and of associated services to achieve this, but it also highlights issues around access to social housing for those applicants with fewer needs, such as newly forming households and existing tenants seeking a transfer.

2.22 The impact of this context in prioritising individual housing need is considered in greater detail in Chapter 4: what is important to note here is that the context within which social landlords are now operating is very different from the 1970s.

2.23 The remainder of this section looks at the key findings from the questionnaire issued to all social landlords in Scotland. It provides a snapshot of the different allocations systems used by social landlords in Scotland, including types of allocations policy, approaches to delivery of the service and performance monitoring.

Allocations Policies

2.24 The chart below shows the types of allocations policy used by respondents to the survey.

Figure 2.1: Type of allocations policy - all respondents

Source: Craigforth Survey

2.25 It is clear that the majority of organisations use either points only or groups plus points policies. Taken together these account for more than four out of five respondents (84%), with marginally more landlords (10%) using points only as opposed to groups plus points.

2.26 The least commonly recorded policy is date order which accounts for only 1% of respondents. Indeed only two organisations stated that they use date order policies and this reflects the wider change away from date order to applying priority to individuals/groups on the basis of assessed need.

2.27 The survey results also show that the type of allocations policy used varies dependent on the characteristics of the organisations involved.

Table 2.1: Allocation systems by type of organisation

Source: Craigforth Survey

2.28 Overall, groups plus points, and points only systems are most common, but there are interesting differences in the profile of social landlords using these.

2.29 Local authorities are significantly more likely to use a groups plus points policy at 67%, followed by points only systems at 15%. RSLs and Local Housing Organisations ( LHOs) are much more likely to use a points only policy (57% and 56% respectively), followed by groups plus points systems (31% for RSLs and 33% for LHOs). RSLs and local authorities were equally likely to operate choice based lettings.

2.30 There is also a link between size of organisation and type of policy

• Larger organisations tend to use a groups plus points policy. Seventy five per cent (75%) of those with between 2,500 to 6,000 units of stock and 56% of those with more than 6000 units use this type of system
• Landlords with stock ranging from 251-2,500 units are more likely to use points only systems (63% for 251-500 units, 52% for 501-1,000 and 56% for 1,001-2,500 units)

Table 2.2: Allocations policies by size of organisation

Source: Craigforth Survey

2.31 The importance of the size of the organisation is particularly clear when looking at RSLs. As can be seen from the table below, RSLs with housing stock of less than 2,500 units most commonly use a points only system (55%), while those with housing stock of more than 2,500 favour a groups plus points system (50%).

Table 2.3: Allocations Systems of RSLs by Stock Size

Source: Craigforth Survey

2.32 This suggests that the decision about the type of allocations system is influenced by the scale of operation rather than the landlord type. The case studies confirmed this: landlords with larger and more diverse housing stock reported that they found that a points only system (the main alternative) did not provide the balance of access opportunities which their organisations sought to achieve.

2.33 Respondents were asked in the survey if their organisation used just one or more than one allocations policy for all the stock they held. The table below shows the responses overall and by type of organisation.

Table 2.4: Is this policy used for all your stock?
By type of organisation

Source: Craigforth Survey

2.34 The majority of organisations (70%) use only one allocations policy, with little difference in the proportion of local authorities and RSLs reporting use of one policy only. The significantly higher proportion of LHOs who reported using one policy only reflects the arrangements in Glasgow where the allocations policy is determined by GHA.

2.35 The most common reason overall for utilising multiple allocations policies was ownership of specialist housing stock (58%): there were however differences in the responses between the different types of landlord. A higher proportion of RSLs (65% compared to 58% overall) gave ownership of specialist housing as their reason for having more than one policy, probably reflecting their traditional role as providers of specialist housing. Probably related to this, more detailed analysis of the responses shows that national RSLs (organisations operating across multiple local authority areas) are more likely to use more than one allocations policy (56% compared with 34% of all RSLs).

Table 2.5: Reasons for multiple allocations policies by type of organisation

Source: Craigforth Survey

2.36 Overall, more than half of all organisations implement all functions centrally (57%) with one in four administering all functions through local offices (25%). It is interesting to note, however, the clear variation between local authorities and RSLs. RSLs are almost three times as likely to use centralised administration compared with local authorities (70% and 22% respectively).

Table 2.6: Administration of allocations by social landlords

Source: Craigforth Survey

2.37 Again there was evidence that the size of organisation affects how allocations policies are administered.

Figure 2.2: Administration Systems by Size of Organisation

Source: Craigforth Survey

2.38 Larger organisations (those with more than 2,500 units of stock) are more likely to use either local offices or a mixture of central and local administration. Conversely smaller organisations (those with less than 1,000 units) are more likely to administer all functions centrally.

Performance Monitoring

2.39 Organisations were asked about the information which they collect, analyse and report in order to monitor their performance. This section of the report looks at their responses. It should be noted that for some types of information asked about, only a small number of organisations responded. Evidence from the case studies suggests that this is where these organisations do not collect the information.

2.40 There were two categories where fewer than 100 responded: these were in relation to sexuality (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transsexual ( LGBT) with 17 organisations collecting this data) and households assessed to have reasonable preference for housing (62 organisations collected this data). The evidence gathered from the case study analysis suggests that for LGBT groups, this was because they did not feel asking for such information was relevant in assessing need/priority for housing and to do so was considered intrusive ¹⁴. With regard to the low proportion gathering information on reasonable preference, landlords reported that this was due to confusion in defining and applying its meaning when allocating housing.

2.41 The chart below shows the numbers of organisations which collect, analyse and report data where more than 100 organisations responded. As can be seen, landlords most commonly collect information regarding Black and Minority Ethnic ( BME) groups, Section 5 referrals and disability.

Figure 2.3: Collection, analysis and reporting
More than 100 responses

Source: Craigforth Survey

2.42 Looking at the results in more detail there are some clear differences between the data collected, analysed and reported by the different types of organisation. The following is based on the percentage of all survey respondents and not just those who responded to the question. On this basis non response is considered to mean that the data was not collected, analysed or reported.

• Local authorities are far more likely to collect information on 'nominations' and 'households assessed to have 'reasonable preference' for housing', whereas RSLs are more likely to collect data on 'disability' and 'outcomes in relation to policy objectives'.
• In general, levels of analysis were lower than levels of collection. This was particularly the case with local authorities. For example 85% of landlords collect data on gender but only 37% analyse it, and 74% collect data on suspensions but only 48% analyse it.

2.43 It is interesting that where information is collected, it is more likely to be reported than analysed for all the categories asked about. The evidence from the case study landlords is that the information they collect is governed by reporting requirements, particularly to Communities Scotland, and that they often do not engage with what is therefore available for their own use as management information.

2.44 Indeed, most landlords who took part in the case studies acknowledged that they could (and would like to) make more use of the information they hold in understanding the profile and needs of all applicants on their lists, but that practical management constraints and the focus on delivering a housing service can prohibit this. Effectively, many landlords utilise the data and information they hold only where there is a requirement to do so.

'Far more good practice needs to be issued in relation to performance reporting, particularly in analysing whether policy objectives are being met.' ( RSL)

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