A system which has given thousands of families throughout Norwich both social housing and council houses is now set to be scrapped because of issues surrounding cost and the lack of transparency of the scheme.
The Home Options scheme was set up four years ago and the then Labour Government gave local councils a £100,000 grant to help to set up the system which saw residents apply via the internet for the kind of housing they want to live in. Once the housing registration is complete, they are put into different bands that range from emergency to low priority. They can then ‘bid’ for any property that becomes available in their band and landlords, either one of a number of housing associations or the city council who between them have thousands of properties protected with landlord insurance, will offer the home to the applicant who is at the top of the list.
However, South Norfolk Council have looked at the way the system operates, and concluded it is wasteful, not good value for money and that some people have so little chance of getting a new home there is no point in them being on the housing list. Members of the council will shortly be asked to agree to withdraw from the scheme that despite being well run and delivering a good service also had a great deal of duplication that was not needed. The most likely outcome is that each council will set up its own system to allocate housing.
A District Council spokeswoman said: “This council will ensure that our residents will not be disadvantaged in any way by the service improvements we propose. The purpose of the new service is to understand people’s housing problems and help them resolve them. There were certain elements of the Home Options scheme which were good and proper, but it has cost a lot of money and not delivered the savings we had hoped for.”