One in 20 Sheffielders on council house waiting list – but some may no longer need a home
It comes as the City Council looks to shake up how it allocates homes
Almost 5% of Sheffielders are currently registered on the waiting list for council homes, latest figures show.
The city, whose population in the 2021 census was recorded at 556,600, has a council house register of 25,800. A report to next week’s Sheffield City Council finance and performance policy committee (March 17) says that administering the housing register costs £200,000 in staffing time.
The report says that the number continues to grow because anyone eligible can register without having an assessed housing need or a requirement to move home. A system problem also means that applications are not being reviewed annually, so registrations no longer needed are not being removed, says the report.
The housing policy committee is due to consider moving to a needs-based housing register in December. However, this would entail a 12-month review, meaning a new policy would not come into force until January 2026, the report states.
The number of people with a priority assessed housing need is at a record high of 1,300, which the report says has doubled in three years because of changes in the law and a shortage of housing.
The number of households in temporary accommodation is falling because the council has prioritised getting empty council properties ready faster for reletting and making other changes. The target for turning around housing for reletting is 49 days, down from the current 109 days.
Housing requiring little work to relet is dealt with by one repairs team, another focuses on routine jobs that need to be completed ahead of reletting and a third specialises in the more time-consuming work.
As well as freeing up homes more quickly for general reletting, this helps to ensure that homeless families can get out of bed and breakfast accommodation as fast as possible as more of housing stock has been allocated for that use. It also cuts the council’s huge temporary accommodation bill.
Councils are not fully reimbursed for the total cost of temporary accommodation that the government says they must supply, which caused one of the major pressures on the council’s budget in 2024/25. The report says that actions taken mean that the bill has been cut by £500,000 from £7.1m to £6.6m in the space of three months.
The council aims to end its use of B&Bs entirely by March 2027.