North Yorkshire Home Choice Evaluation

This research evaluates the first year of a choice-based home lettings scheme called North Yorkshire Home Choice.

Under the scheme – which aims to improve the amount of options existing and potential tenants have – people bid for available council and housing association homes using a points system.

This evaluation looks at many aspects of North Yorkshire Home Choice, including levels of customer satisfaction, its impact on vulnerable people, how it actually affects people’s choices and how it influences housing management.

It identifies several trends that might be the consequence of introducing choice-based lettings, including:

• A fall in the proportion of lettings going to single parent families and a rise in the proportion going to two-parent families, which may be linked to a rise in lettings to people in full-time employment.
• A fall in the proportion of lettings to young people (under 25) who are not classed as homeless – but a rise in the proportion of young homeless people being housed.
• Most unequivocally, an increase in movement within the scheme area.

Our evaluation provides feedback to inform policy development by the North Yorkshire Home Choice partnership, which consists of seven of the county’s housing authorities and the main housing associations.

Also please read Appendix B: Equality Impact Assessment version 7 – November 2012. This is a draft version of a rolling assessment.