Exclusive research reveals proportion of allocations from councils’ most urgent housing bands growing every year

Out of the 163 local authorities which provided data for both years, 129 (79%) saw the same shift. 

The overall shift was also the result of a consistent year-on-year trend, with councils allocating a higher proportion of social homes to their two most urgent bands every year between 2019-20 and 2024-25.

These findings have been revealed as part of an exclusive investigation by sister publication Inside Housing Management.

Freedom of Information requests were sent to local authorities across England, Scotland and Wales, and IHM spoke to councils at the extreme ends of the trend – the local authorities that saw the biggest shift towards ‘most urgent’ bands, and those which bucked the trend and saw the biggest shift towards ‘less urgent’ bands. 

This shift is having major implications for housing management across the UK.

Sarah Davis, policy manager at the Chartered Institute of Housing, said: “Anecdotally, there have been a lot of reports that people in general needs social housing are presenting with increased [support] needs [such as medical needs or income needs].”

Ms Davis said the growing number of different and complex needs is a “challenge” for housing management. She added: “Housing organisations aren’t necessarily equipped to give all the support that some people need, and it is really important in partnership agreements with local authorities that where there’s needs that exceed what a landlord can give, there’s [also] appropriate support coming in.”

A number of councils, as well as third-party expert sources, told Inside Housing Management that the shift is a consequence of the housing crisis, as the housing supply shortage meets a rising number of people who are either homeless or at risk of homelessness.

A spokesperson for the Local Government Association said that with the housing crisis “choking supply”, there is “only so much that allocations can do, especially in boroughs with high numbers of urgent cases”.

In its national homelessness strategy published in December, the government said it would take “immediate action” to ensure that existing and new social housing stock best serves the people who need it most.

It stated that if joint working between councils and social landlords on nominations was not “operating effectively”, the government would consider levers to require social landlords to rehouse statutory homeless households referred by councils. This would be similar to Scottish legislation, where 54% of homes are let to homeless households, compared with 27% in England.