Housing need is not the same as the housing waiting list

English local authority housing waiting lists have risen by over 75 per cent over the past eight years. Over the three years to 2008 the fastest increases were recorded in Yorkshire & Humberside (27 per cent) and the South West (23 per cent). By April 2008, across England, households registered for a tenancy numbered almost 1.8 million — about eight times the number of lets to new tenants made annually by all social landlords. And these list statistics do not include existing council and housing association tenants registered for a move to a more suitable property — perhaps because they are living in overcrowded conditions.

Waiting list numbers are often held up by campaigning bodies as a critical yardstick of unmet housing need. However, eligibility to join a list is not usually limited to those with an assessed housing problem. It is, therefore, debateable whether it is valid to cite housing waiting list statistics as a proxy for ‘housing need’. Of the 1.8 million households registered on lists in April 2008 local authorities estimated that only 760,000 (42 per cent) were ‘in housing need’ as legally defined. This could possibly be treated as a ‘harder estimate’ of housing need than the gross registrations figure.

Another consideration here is that reported housing waiting list figures tend to include substantial numbers of ‘dead wood’ applications — that is, registrations associated with people who have subsequently found another solution to their housing problem and are, therefore, no longer seeking a social housing tenancy. Official research published in 1994 estimated that such ‘dead wood’ entries accounted for as many as half of total registrations officially recorded at that time. Although list management practices have probably improved over the past few years, the nature of such systems means that dead wood applications will inevitably continue to account for an appreciable proportion of total entries.

The counter-argument — as reasonably propounded by some campaigning groups — is that waiting list figures may understate underlying demand for social housing because of a public appreciation that in areas where it is in short supply there is little point in registering (except for people whose needs are both severe and urgent).

Bearing these debates in mind, overall waiting list figures should be seen as a measure of ‘expressed demand’ for social housing tenancies rather than ‘housing need’ as such. Nevertheless, as an indicator of a housing system under growing pressure, the rising numbers seen over the past few years should not be casually dismissed.

Apart from measuring underlying housing stress, is there any other explanation for the upward trend in waiting list numbers recorded over the past few years? One potentially significant factor is the ongoing spread of choice-based lettings (CBL). CBL enables people seeking a social housing tenancy to view and ‘bid’ for vacant properties. First introduced in England in 2001, the ‘choice model’ had, by 2008, been adopted by some 57 per cent of local authorities retaining a landlord function. Many housing associations have also adopted CBL.

Because it involves open advertising of available-to-let homes, it might be expected that CBL would evoke interest in social housing from a wider cross-section of people than has historically been the case. Research commissioned by the Department for Communities and Local Government (CLG) confirms that choice-based lettings has, indeed, tended to generate additional waiting list registrations. Total waiting list numbers for councils adopting CBL between 2000 and 2004 rose by 79 per cent in the five years to 2005. This compared with an increase of only 40 per cent for other councils.

Taking all of this into account, therefore, the trend in national waiting list numbers seen over recent years should probably be regarded as indicating a substantial rise in expressed demand for social housing, only some of which can be accounted for by new managerial approaches on the part of social landlords. Informed commentators would, however, justifiably argue that other indicators — particularly those drawing on survey data — are more meaningful measures of the changing incidence of underlying housing need.