Common Allocations Policy April 2025

Common Allocations Policy: Other allocations issues and information

Community Safety - Multi-Agency Public Protection Arrangements (MAPPA)

Social landlords have a legal duty to consider the housing requirements of all applicants including persons currently on the sex offenders register and other high-risk offenders who are subject to the Multi-Agency Public Protection Arrangements (MAPPA).

These arrangements require that agencies like the Police, Local Authorities, Registered Social Landlords, Health Boards and the Scottish Prison Service work together to assess and manage the risks posed by such offenders.

The aim of MAPPA is to promote public safety and reduce the risk of harm.

Using our discretion

We understand that our CAP cannot cover all of the circumstances that may lead to you needing to move home. In these situations, the Service Manager, Perth and Kinross Council, or the Housing Manager of Hillcrest and Caledonia Housing Association has a special power to use 'discretion' where you need to move or be housed urgently.

Discretion will only be used where:

housing is needed quickly
our Common Allocations Policy won't allow us to offer housing quickly
there are good reasons or special circumstances to offer housing quickly in urgent cases

'Good reasons' and 'special circumstances' include:

significant compassionate grounds: such as the death of a family member in or around the house; in these circumstances, it may be very difficult for the remaining family to distance themselves from the event and professional advice suggests a change of home is fundamental to the future wellbeing of a family member
management reasons: such as where we need to carry out substantial works to your home and we need to move you out temporarily or you have succeeded to the property but it was specially adapted for the original tenant and you don't need those adaptations but someone else does
community safety issues: such as witness protection measures or there is a high risk to you remaining in the property and this has been confirmed by Police Scotland and other professionals
domestic abuse cases where moving the perpetrator enables the victim to remain in the family home

If you refuse an offer after we've made you discretion, you will lose your priority status and your application will return to the group where it was before discretion was used.

Bypassing applications

Where we don't make an offer of housing to the first or next person on the shortlist for a property that's available to let, we call this 'bypassing'.

When a property becomes available for offer, we have to decide who would benefit most from the property. For example, if a property adapted for the needs of a wheelchair user is available to let but the next person on the list doesn't use a wheelchair, we would bypass that person. We would continue to bypass applications until we found someone with a need for the property which ensures that we 'make best use of housing that becomes available for rent' in order to meet our policy objective.

For overcrowded households with the same number of points, applications will be ranked based on the date of application. However, we may bypass an application to give preference to another applicant who has more people in their household.

Whenever we bypass an application, we must record why the application was bypassed. This helps to ensure our policy is transparent, we have acted fairly and are responsible for the decisions we make. Any decision to bypass must be based on need and our policy intention of ensuring the best use is made of the housing stock.

The CHR monitoring group reviews bypass reasons each year to ensure that bypasses are made fairly.

Local Lettings Initiatives

In Perth and Kinross we have different amounts of housing in each area and different levels of demand. House types and sizes, the availability of local services and the location of our homes can affect the demand for housing.

Although our Common Allocations Policy aims to create a simple, straightforward system for allocating our homes; sometimes we will need to make an extra effort to encourage applicants to move to a local area. To achieve this, sometimes we may use the way we allocate our homes to support local investment, community sustainability and regeneration plans or to make sure we have a good mix of different household types and ages.

To achieve this partners may introduce a Local Lettings Initiative to address a specific issue within one of our communities, for example:

in areas of low demand, we may wish to relax the bedroom criteria in order to allow applicants to occupy larger properties
in flatted accommodation, we may wish to reduce the number of household with children occupying properties in order to create a balanced mix of households
for new-build accommodation in rural locations, we may wish to give priority to local applicants who live in and contribute to the local community
in areas where there are significant issues and concerns with antisocial behaviour

To introduce a Local Lettings Initiative, all partners will jointly consider the evidence that has informed the proposal, the views of the local community/wider partners and the proposed aims and objectives. We will make a joint decision about whether to introduce a Local Lettings Initiative in order to make sure the overall aims and objectives of the Common Allocations Policy are not negatively affected by it.

All partners will manage and monitor Local Lettings Initiatives collaboratively to ensure positive outcomes are achieved. Where we intend to use a Local Lettings Initiative, the details will be published on the relevant Partner's website.

Nomination agreements

We have nomination agreements with other social housing landlords who have housing in Perth and Kinross. They may ask us to tell them about anyone on our waiting list who is looking for housing in the areas where they have homes for rent. We call these arrangements 'nomination agreements'.

We will nominate you if you have agreed to this on your application form and if you qualify under the other landlord's allocations policy.

Social landlords try to offer at least fifty percent of any new homes or properties that become available to people on the CHR.

Mutual exchanges

If you currently live in Perth and Kinross and you rent your home from one of the partner landlords, you can apply to swap your home through the Mutual Exchange Scheme.

Your landlord must agree to the exchange, and they can only refuse permission if it is reasonable to do so. Each partner has a separate policy that sets out the rules that apply if you want to take part in a mutual exchange.

You can get more information about mutual exchanges from the partner landlords' offices or websites.

Applications from staff, Council Elected Members or Management Committee Members

Members of staff of the partner landlords, including people who live with them and close relatives, must declare their interest on the CHR application form.

We will only accept a housing application or make an offer of housing to someone who is a member of staff, including people who live with them, if the application and offer is authorised by either:

Perth and Kinross Council, Service Manager, Perth City and Specialist Services or Team Leader, Specialist Services
Caledonia Housing Association's, Management Committee
Hillcrest Housing Association's Area Manager or Operations Manager

Personal information and information sharing

Any personal information you give us when you apply for housing under this policy will be handled according to the legal responsibilities placed on us by the General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) and Data Protection Act 2018.

This means that your personal information will always be held on a secure IT system and accessed only by authorised individuals. The information you give us will only ever be used for the following four purposes:

assessing your housing application in accordance with the policy
statistical monitoring of housing supply and demand
future consultation and customer surveys
the prevention and detection of fraud through the National Fraud Initiative which is a UK Government data-matching exercise

The information provided by you will be used by Perth and Kinross Council on behalf of the Partners to assess your application for housing, establish the extent of your housing need and consider your suitability for offers of accommodation.

The information may be shared with relevant partner agencies to ensure that your application is assessed accurately and that offers of accommodation are reasonable. These agencies include relevant local authority departments, the Department for Work and Pensions, the Medical Advisory Service (NHS) and Police Scotland.

If you would like a full list of the agencies that may be consulted regarding your application, please contact the Housing Options Team, Housing and Communities, Perth and Kinross Council, Pullar House, 35 Kinnoull Street, Perth, PH1 5GD.

Perth and Kinross Council, on behalf of the Partners, may check information provided by you, or information about you provided by a third party, with other information held by us. We may also get information from certain third parties or share your information with them in order to check its accuracy, prevent or detect crime, protect public funds or where required by law.

For further information: