Reforms to allocations policy should ensure breadth of housing need is considered alongside homelessness: Chartered Institute of Housing

CIH said: “The availability of genuinely affordable homes in the right places of the right type remains the fundamental challenge. While this review and accompanying work has the potential to bring clarity to the sector and improve outcomes for many applicants, without wider accompanying reform to meet unmet housing and support needs it is, as Crisis put it in 2025, ‘Moving the deckchairs’.”

The MHCLG launched the call for evidence last month ahead of an official consultation on updated guidance due in early 2027.

The Ministry said its review is focused on four priorities: improving access for vulnerable and homeless households; making the best use of available homes; strengthening cooperation between local authorities and registered providers; and consolidating the guidance into a clearer, more usable document.

The Chartered Institute’s recommendations include that the introduction of new powers for local authorities to refer homeless households to private registered providers of social housing is done in such a way as to learn from the lessons of Section 5 in Scotland and promote better partnership working.

It also said that any reforms should ensure that a balanced approach to allocations is pursued and the breadth of housing need which both local authorities and registered providers address are considered alongside homelessness.

Other recommendations include:

• that processes are put in place to update and review nominations agreements regularly and that national guidance is published to accompany this change;
• that all local authorities and registered providers are required to report their practice against that agreement;
• that the ways in which local authorities and social landlords identify the types of homes needed to prevent or relieve homelessness, especially larger homes and adapted accommodation, is improved, drawing on best practice;
• that support is given to local authorities to establish governance, protocols or forums to increase effective partnership working between councils and housing association partners, such as establishing shared housing registers;
• that work to close the discrepancies between local authority allocation policies and registered provider allocations policies is undertaken; and
• that the guidance encourages the de-coupling of applicant debt from ‘behaviour’ that can otherwise block or deprioritise households from the housing register.

CIH also recommended that government “examines how wider policy issues, including welfare, rent affordability, and adequate funding for floating support and supported housing influence access to social homes”.

Harry Rodd