Band B Care Leavers
- LA officers asked for further clarification in the Procedures regarding HRA Band B and ‘not ready for move on cases’. Proposed wording below agreed by the Board. Lena to add this into unpublished guidance page for DHC allocations officers to use in the meantime and update will be incorporated into Policy Review 2026/27 (please see updated guidance in bold below)
26.9 Applications from people living in supported accommodation who are not ready to move on to independent living should not be placed in Band C for lacking a bedroom or any other Housing Need Band unless they have approached a Devon LA as homeless and a duty is owed, then they will be assessed in accordance with other criteria in the Devon Home Choice policy (e.g. no permanent home, deliberately worsening circumstances).
- An Applicant went through the Care Leavers panel, was awarded Band B with backdated BSD, then became homeless and went into temp accommodation due to no fault of their own. In this scenario, the band reason was changed to HRA Band B and because the band remained the same, so did the Backdated BSD. As such, now the homeless care leaver would also benefit from homeless preference labelling. This was an exceptional scenario as applicant left supported acc to move in with grandparent for a couple of months to provide care, but they then passed away and had no succession right, hence needing to go into temp accommodation.
Pregnant applicant sharing a room with a sibling
If the applicant was not pregnant, this would be Band D for shared facilities, the pregnancy makes it band C for lacking one bedroom. If pregnant with twins, it would be Band B for severe overcrowding as would then be 2 children lacking a bedroom. at the Nov 25 Op group meeting, LAs present agreed that this would be the stance that they would take as the sibling is not also being housed and if homeless that the main applicant wouldn't be classed as lacking a bedroom, just the baby.
Handling Third Party evidence for giving and receiving support
- For Handling Third Party evidence for giving and receiving support, Lena has checked with the GDPR lead at ECC and they confirmed that they are happy for either the information to remain in the system unredacted or if possible for the info to be deleted from the system if not required with a note being added stating that the application has been verified and the officer declaring that the applicant has fulfilled the relevant criteria. Also happy that the landlords won’t see the sensitive info (if labelled this), and it is only LA officers who have access to the info. All LA officers are aware of their data protection responsibilities and the partnership is covered by the data sharing agreement.