Common Allocations Policy April 2025

In order to provide a fair system, the CAP prioritises applicants on the waiting list according to their housing need. To do this we operate a group plus points system. This means applicants are placed into a group with points awarded based on their housing need. Refer to Appendix 1 for further details on the groups and points.

The groups are:

• Strategic Need
• Homelessness
• Transfer Applicants (you are a tenant of one of the partners):

1. medical
2. overcrowding
3. under-occupying
4. providing and/or receiving support
5. no housing need (no points awarded)

• Housing Waiting List Applicants:

1. medical
2. overcrowding
3. below tolerable standard
4. insecure housing
5. providing and/or receiving support
6. no housing need (no points awarded)

Strategic Need

The Strategic Need Group has been designed to meet urgent or exceptional housing need as quickly and successfully as possible. If you are placed in the Strategic Need Group you may be given priority over other types of housing applicant because of the urgent circumstances that you are facing. Refer to Appendix 1 for further details. This group includes applicants who are:

• care-experienced young people with an accommodation issue
• foster/kinship carers whose current property is unsuitable for reasons relating to their caring responsibilities
• people at risk of/experiencing serious harassment including harassment of a racial, religious or sexual nature or which is based on someone's gender, sexuality, disability or other protected characteristics
• people making a planned move-on from supported accommodation
• armed forces personnel leaving full-time regular service
• people who require to leave home as a result of regeneration activity
• witness protection cases
• people who are ready to leave hospital but cannot as they don't have suitable accommodation (delayed discharge)
• where a Closing Order has been served
• people staying in adapted housing but no longer require the adaptations
• people unable to take up a key worker job offer due to affordable housing not being available
• exceptional circumstances

All applications for Strategic Need will be considered by the Strategic Need panel. The panel includes representation from the CAP Partners, Health and Social Care Partnership and Locality Housing teams. Other organisations would be represented as required. This group will make a decision on when it is appropriate to award Strategic Need priority.

If your application is placed in the Strategic Need Group, it will be held in date order, based on the date the decision was made to place your application in this Group. Around 10% of all our housing allocations are made to this Group. The 10% proportion reflects the legal responsibilities that we have as well as our policy objective 'to respond quickly to people in acute and urgent housing need'.

If your application qualifies to be placed in the Strategic Need Group we will make you one reasonable offer of accommodation. If you refuse the offer we make, this will normally result in the priority being withdrawn and your application will be removed from the Strategic Need Group.

You will be placed in one of the other housing groups, for example Housing Waiting List or Transfer Applicant.

Applicants who qualify for priority rehousing within the Strategic Needs Group and are not rehoused within 3 months of being placed in the Strategic Need Group will have their application reviewed.

Note about key workers
For the purpose of this Policy, a key worker is defined as 'a worker who fulfils a role regarded as vital for the community, especially in the health, education, security, and infrastructure sectors'. 

Homelessness 

Our policy objective to 'minimise the impact of homelessness' means that we will target our resources to try and prevent homeless situations before they arise. We want to provide you with good quality information and advice on the range of housing and support options available to help you make informed choices and good decisions about how to meet your housing needs. Refer to Appendix 1 for further details.

If you believe that you may be at risk of losing your home, you should contact the Housing Options Team, Locality Area Office or one of the partners as soon as possible to discuss your housing options. This means that we can give you advice on the range of housing options in your area, as well as giving you guidance on support available to help you continue to live in your current home. The contact details you need are listed in Appendix 2.

If the Council finds that you are 'unintentionally homeless', it means that you are homeless through no fault of your own and because of your circumstances, you will be offered accommodation by one of the partners.

We operate a rapid rehousing response to homelessness called Home First. This is designed to minimise the impact of homelessness by providing direct access to settled accommodation where possible, avoiding the need for temporary accommodation.

If you are assessed as unintentionally homeless, your application will be placed into the Homeless Needs Group. If you are in this group, we will prioritise your application based on the date which you applied for a homelessness assessment. At least 50% of all our housing allocations are made to this group. The 50% proportion reflects our legal responsibilities around homelessness, as well as our policy objective 'to respond to people in acute and urgent housing need'.

We will offer accommodation that meets the needs of the applicant as soon as a suitable property becomes available. If more than one homeless applicant has an equal need for a property, we will offer the property in date order, based on the date of the homeless application. We will take positive action to make sure that homeless applicants are treated fairly when we make an offer of rehousing. We will do this by:

• matching our offer, as far as we possibly can, to the applicant's needs and preferences
• making further offers, if the Council upholds an appeal about the suitability of the original offer
• monitoring the housing outcomes for homeless applicants to ensure that they are receiving equal access to all of our house types and locations

If your application qualifies to be registered in the Homelessness Group we will make you one reasonable offer of accommodation. If you refuse the offer we make, this will normally result in your priority being withdrawn and your application will be removed from the Homelessness Group.

You may be considered under the other housing groups, for example Housing Waiting or Transfer List, but it could be some time before another offer of housing is made.

Transfer and Housing Waiting List applicants 

Housing Waiting List applicants are applicants who do not qualify in any of the other housing groups (for example Strategic Needs or Homelessness), and who want to move into the social housing sector. This group also includes applicants who are tenants of one of the partners but do not currently live in Perth and Kinross.

Transfer applicants are current tenants of the partners who live in Perth and Kinross and want to move to a new home. 

The housing needs of applicants in the Transfer and Housing Waiting List groups will be fully assessed and we will award points depending on your personal circumstances and current housing situation. 

Applicants in the Transfer and Housing Waiting List groups will have a comparable number of points and applications will be prioritised based on the date of their application. This means that if two applicants have the same number of points, the applicant who registered first will be considered first, if a suitable property becomes available. However, around 24% of all our housing allocations will be made to applicants on the Transfer list and around 16% to Housing Waiting List applicants. These proportions reflect our legal responsibilities and allow us to respond to housing need effectively whilst making best use of our housing stock. 

Housing Waiting List and Transfer Applicant points categories 

When you apply for housing, you receive a certain number of points based on your current housing circumstances. We award points for six main reasons including:

1. medical
2. overcrowding
3. under-occupation
4. below tolerable standard
5. insecure accommodation
6. providing or receiving help to live independently

Within the points system, you can usually receive points in every category that applies to you. For example, if you are in an overcrowded property and living in accommodation which is below tolerable standard you would receive points for all of these circumstances. We will assess whether you qualify for these points using the detailed guidelines set out below.

Transfer applicants will not receive points for below tolerable standard or insecure housing. Housing Waiting List applicants will not receive points for under-occupying.

Refer to Appendix 1 for further details.

Medical priority 

If your health or the health of someone in your household is affected by your current housing circumstances, you will be asked to complete a 'Medical housing self-assessment form'. The Council's Housing Options Team will assess your housing needs to determine if you have a high, medium or low medical need for rehousing. In some complex cases or where you are unhappy with our decision, we may refer to the NHS Medical Advisory Service for advice.

Based on this assessment, we will add points to your application if this assessment confirms that your current home is unsuitable, the extent to which your home is unsuitable and whether the property could reasonably be adapted to meet your needs.

The focus of the medical housing self-assessment is not on the health condition itself, but on the way if affects how you manage in your home, for example, you may have been diagnosed with a serious illness or condition, but you can live independently in your current home.

You can apply for medical points at any time throughout the duration of your application. Once assessed, a decision will be made whether to award points and if appropriate, a recommendation for specific housing types or adaptions will also be made.

In some circumstances it may be more appropriate to carry out adaptations to your existing home rather than offer you an alternative property. We will advise you where we feel this is the case. There are different options available if you rent from one of the partners.

If you are a tenant of a private sector landlord, you can ask your landlord for permission for adaptations to be carried out. Funding may be available for this through the Council's Care and Repair service. Owner occupiers who need adaptations may also be eligible for this funding.

You should contact your landlord or any of the partners, to ask for advice and assistance on installing equipment and adaptations in your home.

Adapted Housing
Adapted housing includes houses purposely built for disabled people as well as homes that have been significantly adapted.

If you require a specifically adapted property because you have a particular health need or a disability, a full needs assessment will be carried out by an Occupational Therapist and/or Social Work and points then will be awarded within your group to reflect the degree of your housing need.

When allocating adapted housing, your suitability for the property will be the determining factor so it is important that we fully understand the type of property you need.

Refer to Appendix 1 for further details.

Overcrowding

You will receive points for overcrowding if you do not have enough bedrooms in your current home to meet the size of your household. You will be awarded points for each bedroom that you are lacking. We will not provide points if you have rooms that could be used as a bedroom but you are currently not using them in this way, for example if you are using a bedroom as a home office. In calculating overcrowding, we will consider it reasonable for the following household members to share a double bedroom:

• couples
• same-sex household members
• two mixed-sex household members, provided that they are both under 10 years of age

However, in some circumstances, we will take into account the relationship between those sharing a bedroom when calculating overcrowding particularly if there is a significant age gap between the two household members of the same sex.

If you have a box room in your current accommodation, we will count this as a bedroom if the room has a window and there is space to fit and use a single bed, a small wardrobe and a small chest of drawers.

If you wish to be considered for the same size of accommodation that you are currently residing in, we will not award overcrowding points to your application.

Equally, we will not award overcrowding points to your application if you overcrowd your current property by moving people into your home who will not be part of your household when you move.

If you are a single person and you live in a bedsit or studio flat, you will not be awarded overcrowding points.

Refer to Appendix 1 for further details.

Under-occupation

Under-occupation is when you have more bedrooms in your accommodation than you require or use. We will award points to your application for under-occupation if you meet the following criteria:

• you are a tenant of one of the partner providers residing within Perth and Kinross
• your accommodation has more bedrooms than you need and you want to downsize

Refer to Appendix 1 for further details.

Perth and Kinross Council tenants will be eligible to apply to the Tenant Downsizing Scheme if they are moving from a property with three or more bedrooms to a smaller home. Refer to the Downsizing Scheme for further details.

Note about medical points and overcrowding
If a medical assessment results in a recommendation for an additional bedroom only, and overcrowding points have already been awarded in recognition of this need, medical points will not be awarded.

Below tolerable standard 

We will award points to your housing application if your accommodation is below the tolerable standard. This means the condition of your home falls below the minimum standard set out in the Housing (Scotland) Act 1987 as amended by the 2001 and 2006 Housing (Scotland) Acts.

It means that your accommodation is not in a good enough condition for you to live in (for example, if your property has no hot or cold running water, mains electricity or it is structurally unstable). The tolerable standard consists of a set of criteria covering the parts of a property which are essential to its functioning as a healthy, comfortable and safe home. The tolerable standard focuses on the building itself, and does not extend to internal decoration, heating systems or other amenities in the house. The tolerable standard applies to houses of all tenures, which means that it applies in private sector housing as well as social housing.

If your current accommodation is in very poor condition you must tell us when you make an application for housing. We will then contact you and arrange for a property inspection to be carried out so that we can assess whether or not the property fails the standard. If it does, we will add points to your housing application and we will liaise with Environmental Health Officers and they may contact your landlord for repairs or work to be carried out on your property.

Refer to Appendix 1 for further details.

Insecure accommodation

This category covers situations where we will add points to your housing application where you don't have your own accommodation or if you are at risk of losing your current accommodation through no fault of your own. We will not award points if you are at risk of losing your home as a result your behaviour (for example, breaching the terms of your tenancy agreement, failing to pay your rent or mortgage, antisocial behaviour). There are two main situations where insecure housing points may be added as follows:

• Notice to Quit or Notice to Leave: you will be awarded points if you have been served with a valid Notice to Quit from your landlord to end a Short Assured Tenancy, through no fault of your own (for example, your landlord wants to sell the property). These points will also be awarded if you have a Private Residential Tenancy and you have been issued with a Notice to Leave.
• Tied tenancy: you will be awarded points if you currently live in accommodation provided by your employers and you require to leave it as a result of retirement or redundancy.

Refer to Appendix 1 for further details.

Providing or receiving help to live independently

We will award points to your housing application if you need to move to provide help to a person to enable them to live independently.

We will also award points to your application if you need to move so that you can receive help from a person to enable you to live independently in your new home.

When we are considering whether to award points to your application, we may ask you to provide a letter from the person receiving or providing help, explaining your reason for moving and the reason why you need to live near to them.

Refer to Appendix 1 for further details.

Transfer applicants - pre-transfer visits

Transfer applicants are tenants of one of the Common Housing Register partners who already live in the Perth and Kinross area.

If you are a transfer applicant and are being considered for an offer of housing, your landlord may arrange to visit your home to check its condition before making you an offer of housing. If your current property is found to be in poor condition, you may be asked to carry out some work to bring it up to the required standard before we are able to offer you alternative housing. This may mean that you are not offered the property that you were being considered for.

This policy will usually be waived if you have an urgent need for rehousing, for example if your current property is unsuitable on medical grounds or if you would be at risk if you remained in the property.

No housing need

You will not be awarded any points if you are considered to have no housing need. This means that your current accommodation meets your needs and is not at risk. Around 50% of the applicants on the Common Housing Register are assessed as having no housing need.

If you are assessed as having no housing need, you are unlikely to be made an offer of housing by one of the partners. However, we can support you through our housing options approach to consider the other housing options that may be available to you such as private sector housing or home ownership.

Refer to Appendix 1 for further details.