Members of the public may ask questions or make statements at this meeting if they have given notice to Melanie Carr of Democratic and Scrutiny Services and supplied the text (contact details below) by midday on 18 January 2024, three working days before the day of the meeting. Each speaker should limit themselves to 3 minutes on any item. Members of the public who have given notice will be invited to speak:
· at this point in the meeting if their questions/statements relate to matters which are not otherwise on the Agenda (subject to an overall time limit of 30 minutes);
· when the relevant Agenda item is being considered if they wish to speak on a matter which is on the Agenda for this meeting.
If you are exercising your right to speak at this meeting, but do not wish to be recorded, please inform the Leader who will instruct anyone who may be taking a recording to cease while you speak.
Minutes:
A public question was received from Mrs Anne Seex in relation to Agenda item 13 – Allocations Scheme for Social Housing as follows:
“The Council and 3 Registered Social Landlords operate the Choice Based Lettings Partnership, and a number of other Registered Social Landlords are ‘encouraged’ to make lettings through the scheme.
Section 166 A (1) of the Housing Act 1996 requires that “Every local housing authority in England must have a scheme (their “allocation scheme”) for determining priorities, and as to the procedure to be followed, in allocating housing accommodation. For this purpose ‘procedure’ includes all aspects of the allocation process, including the persons or descriptions of persons by whom decisions are taken.”
There are at least 21 points in the Allocations Policy before the Executive today at which it fails to comply with that requirement. I list them below. They include very important decisions such as eligibility to go onto the Housing Register (2.2); whether a homeowner will be allowed onto the housing register (2.4), what ‘banding’ will be applied to an application (4.3); whether an applicant will be removed from the Register for not bidding; how applicants are ranked in priority order and whether a tie break will apply (5.4).
There appears to be only 4 points at which descriptions of decision makers are given and these are extremely vague e.g. ‘senior housing officer’, ’allocations staff’. It is not even clear which organisation those staff are in.
Will the Executive ensure that the information required by law is incorporated into the Allocations Policy? Paragraphs 2.2, 2.4, 2.6, 2.7, 2.8, 3.3, 3.6, 3.8.1, 3.9,3.10, 3.13, 3.14, 3.15, 3.18, 5.1, 5.4, 6.3, and Appendices 2 and 4.”
Councillor Simon Myers thanked Mrs Seex for her contribution and confirmed her comments had been taken on board and that the Scheme had been amended accordingly. He noted that her particular concern regarding the persons making decisions when applying the policy, had been addressed in line with how other Council’s had dealt with it i.e. through the insertion of the following paragraphs:
‘The terms “Senior Manager” and “Senior Housing Manager” and any other job titles are used in this policy for ease of reference only. The exact titles of the officers within the Council and our partner landlords will vary and may be subject to change from time to time. The Council and our partners will have designated officers responsible for the operation of the North Yorkshire Home Choice Scheme and Allocation Policy and details of these officers are available on request.
Furthermore, and unless it is specifically expressed, any decisions taken in the application of this policy will be made by such members of staff from the Council and our partners and will be subject to review by the applicant.’
Councillor Myers also acknowledged the detailed and helpful comments provided by Mrs Seex through the consultation exercise and confirmed a number of the suggestions for rewording had since been added to a revised version of the policy thereby providing greater clarity on some specific points of the policy for any applicant. He agreed to provide Mrs Seex with a copy of the updated Policy.
As a final comment, Mrs Seex suggested that for applicants the decisions being taken were life changing and therefore they had a right to know who the decision maker was. Councillor Carl Les thanked Mrs Seex for her contribution to the meeting.