FOI Request - Council Housing Waiting List

Request 101002650751

Please can I request the following under the freedom of information legislation.

a) The number of people currently on the housing waiting list in the council.

b) The average wait time for a person from joining the council waiting list until they are suitably housed – please give for those who were housed in 2019-20 (if those figures are not available please give for 2018-19).

c) The longest case of an individual or family, who is/are currently waiting to be housed, being on the housing waiting list. Can this be provided by giving the date they joined the council housing waiting list.

Response 06-01-2021

a)        At 15 December 2020, there are 3,911 applicants on the housing list which includes homeless, transfer and waiting list applicants.

b)           We operate a point based Allocation Policy.  It is available on our website here. 

The total number of points determines the applicant’s position on the housing list at any given time.  The Allocations Policy does not award any points associated with length of time on the list.  An applicant’s circumstances may worsen or improve during the life of their housing application.  This means their total number of points may be reassessed.  Therefore an applicant’s position on the list may change frequently.

For households housed in 2019/20 the average waiting time was 2.1 years.

c)           Disclosure of this information could lead to the identification of individuals and so is exempt under Section 38 (1) (b) of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 - personal information.