Non-decent council housing
Case reference FOI2022/00093
Published 11 February 2022
Request
I am writing to make a request for data under the Freedom of Information Act concerning non-decent housing. Each year local authorities in England submit data to the MHCLG (now DLUHC) concerning local authority housing stock. This includes data on the condition of the dwelling stock, dwellings that do not meet the decent homes standard, and associated costs of making them decent.
This FOI request is seeking more specific data in relation to this MHCLG collection and therefore definitions should be read within the context of the guidance given to councils when completing this return.
A home is non decent if it meets one or more of the following criteria: a) does not meet the current statutory minimum standard for housing due to having one or more serious 'category 1 hazards' under the Housing Health and Safety Rating System (HHSRS), b) is not in a reasonable state of repair, c) does not have reasonably modern facilities and services, and/or d) does not provide a reasonable degree of thermal comfort.
One example category 1 hazard is excess cold, where sub-optimal indoor temperatures are deemed a threat to occupant's health. The request For the following questions, please provide data that was correct as of 31 March 2021. If this is not possible however please provide the most recent available data and specify the date of extraction (ie what date the data is correct as of).
I would like to know:
Q1. How many council-owned dwellings failed the decent home criteria by virtue of suffering from a category 1 hazard of 'excess cold'?
Please only include Class 1 hazard dwellings, and not those that fail because they do not have a reasonable degree of thermal comfort.
Q2. Of the council-owned dwellings with a class 1 excess cold hazard, how many are occupied?
Q3. Of the council-owned homes with a class 1 excess cold hazard which are occupied, how many have not had work to address the cold hazard because the tenant refused to allow the work to be carried out?
Q4. For the next question, I would like your most up to date snapshot.
Please tell me:
How many council-owned dwellings fail the decent homes standard by virtue of
a) category 1 excess cold and
b) not having a reasonable degree of thermal comfort.
Please provide figures for a) and b) separately and specify how many any dwellings fall into both catgeories.
Please tell me what date the data provided was extracted. Finally, please provide answers to the next questions for the last five full financial years (2016/17, 2017/18, 2018/19, 2019/20, 2020/21), broken down by year:
Q5. In the last five financial years, how much has the council spent to remove class 1 excess cold hazards from council owned dwellings?
Q6. In the last five financial years, how much has the council spent to make council-owned dwellings 'without a reasonable degree of thermal comfort' decent?
Please only include the money spent on improving the thermal comfort - for instance if a home was non-decent because it both had an unreasonable degree of thermal comfort and was not in a reasonable state of repair, please count only the money spent improving the thermal comfort.
Q7. In the last five financial years, how much has the council spent to prevent dwellings becoming non decent due to non-reasonable thermal comfort or due to having an excess cold category 1 hazard?
Q8. In the last five financial years how much has the council paid out in grants to
a) private renters and
b) owner-occupiers to make improvements to a dwelling's thermal comfort?
Please break this data down by year, and provide separate data for renters and owner occupiers.
If the council has undergone a merger/structural change in the last five years, please provide the data for the predecessor councils where possible.
Response
Q1. None.
Q2. N/A.
Q3. N/A.
Q4. None.
Q5. No money has been spent in the time period specified.
Q6. No money has been spent in the time period specified.
Q7. No money has been spent in the time period specified.
Q8. No money has been paid out in the time period specified.
Documents
This is Herefordshire Council's response to a freedom of information (FOI) or environmental information regulations (EIR) request.
You can browse our other responses or make a new FOI request.