Consultation

We want to hear what you think!

• Are you on the Housing List?
• Are you a tenant of one of the Fife Housing Register Partners?
• Are you part of a tenant organisation in Fife?
• Are you interested in housing in Fife?
• If yes, the Housing (Scotland) Act 2014 gives you a chance to let us know what you think

1. INTRODUCTION

This consultation will be used to inform any proposed changes to the Fife Housing Register common assessment of need.

Fife Housing Register partner landlords will continue to use their own allocation policy, so if one or more of the partners is proposing to change any part of their own allocation policy, not included in the agreed Fife Housing Register common assessment of need, they will need to carry out their own consultation.

If you want to find out more about each partner and their allocation policy, you can contact them directly.

2. BACKGROUND

Social landlords need to consult on and set out how they will prioritise the allocation of houses, transfers and exchanges. They also need to clearly explain these rules in an allocation policy that is available for everyone to see.

Section 4 of The 2014 Act has extended this need and social landlords must now consult the following groups before making any changes to their policies:

• Applicants on the housing list;
• Their own tenants;
• Registered tenant organisations;
• Such other people the landlords choose.

The 2014 Act also needs landlords to prepare and publish consultation reports (and in our case this may involve the Fife Housing Register partner landlords publishing joint reports as and when needed).

Fife Housing Register has been created to allow people who are applying for social housing to fill in one application for all the Fife Housing Register partner landlords who provide social housing in Fife.

All applications are assessed using a common assessment of need that has been agreed by the Fife Housing Register partners. This assessment is used to award points that reflect the applicant's current living circumstances. Applicants can choose the Fife Housing Register partners that they would like to be housed by.

When prioritising applicants on the housing list landlords have to decide on the priority of the application. Section 20 of the Housing (Scotland) Act 1987 details who a landlord must give reasonable preference to, and any other factors that are not be taken into account.

In selecting tenants social landlords must give reasonable preference to:

• Homeless people and people threatened with homelessness and who have unmet housing needs;
• People who are living under unsatisfactory housing conditions and who have unmet housing needs.

There is no legal definition of ‘unsatisfactory housing conditions’. The term covers a wide range of circumstances such as the physical condition of the house, its unsuitability as a result of medical conditions or disability of the occupants or other aspects of an applicant’s circumstances, such as unsatisfactory living arrangements, problems with neighbours, harassment or domestic abuse.

The Fife Housing Register partners have set out what we consider as living under unsatisfactory housing conditions. Factors that we take into account include:

• Overcrowding;
• Living in a house that is below a tolerable standard;
• Health and disability;
• Harassment and abuse;
• Social or family support.

3. CONSULTATION

Information about the three areas that we would like to consult on is available here:

• Overcrowding
• Under-occupancy
• Suspensions

This online survey was closed on 14th December 2018.

SEE SURVEY RESULTS

Thank you.