To approve nomination arrangements for the allocation of social and affordable rented housing ensuring that the council's statutory duties are met by the housing providers.

Approval is sought for the Nomination Agreement to serve as the standard agreement detailing how the housing associations (referred to in the Nomination Agreement as registered providers) work with the council to house nominees from the council's housing register.  The standard document will be individualised for each provider to reflect the percentage of properties negotiated and minor variations in process. Providers agree to let a proportion of their vacant properties to people nominated from the housing register. The agreed percentage will not fall below the range of between 60% and 75%, with rates of 50% for small numbers of homes which are shown to be difficult to let.

Government guidance indicates that council's should have nomination agreements with each housing association working in their area, covering a range of topics including the percentage of vacant properties available to the council, the grounds for rejecting council nominees and how disputes will be resolved.

The Nominations Agreement has been drafted with regard to the guidance and input from the housing associations through the Housing Allocations Redesign project. It reflects what will happen in practice when the new arrangements are implemented. 

The council will need to sign separate individualised agreements with each of the housing associations who have properties within the county. The associations have agreed the percentages of vacancies to be made available and the process to be used in respect of their association, including review arrangements.

That:

The proposed draft Nomination Agreement at appendix 1 be approved as the standard agreement regulating the relationship between the council and the housing associations in the allocation of social housing.

To manage nominations the council has relied on the Choice Based Lettings (CBL) system and the Housing Allocation policy to provide assurance that applicants from the council’s housing register would be able to access housing association properties. This partnership is coming to an end, to be replaced new arrangements for allocating properties.  The formalised arrangements detailed in the nomination agreement will provide assurance that there is a coherent and workable process to enable applicants on the council’s housing register to access social housing and alleviate the potential risk that a confused system could have  a significant impact on homeless households and those in housing need