Decision details

To amend the Local Authority Housing Fund (LAHF) Local Lettings Plan (LLP) to cover the additional two properties secured through the LAHF Round 1 funding stream.

On Thursday 29th February 2024 CBC were informed by the Department for Levelling Up,
Housing and Communities (hereafter DLUHC) that we have received (subject to the Council’s
formal acceptance and entering into a Memorandum of Understanding) £214,600 in grant
funding from the Government’s Round 1 Local Authority Housing Fund (LAHF) following on from
our successful expression of interest to DLUHC dated 19th January 2024. The Council subsequently accepted the grant funding offer and entered into a MoU with DLUHC on 5th March 2024.
The LAHF Round 1 funding stream focuses primarily on Ukrainian households, but also offered a small funding component to support the acquisition of one larger property to accommodate
families fleeing from Afghanistan. Following the initial grant award of £2.36m from DLUHC covering the 2022/23 and 2023/24 financial years, the Council was successful in securing a further £214,600 grant funding from DLUHC- to be spent in accordance with the Round 1
Funding Prospectus and agreed Memorandum of Understanding.
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Moving forwards, to ensure that these homes are allocated to Ukrainian households in accordance with the MoU agreed with DLUHC, officers are seeking to amend the LAHF Local
Lettings Plan (LLP) to cover the additional two properties secured through the LAHF Round 1 funding stream. This proposal aligns with the Council’s key corporate objectives, as found within the Council’s 2023-2027 Corporate Plan and 2023-2028 Housing, Homelessness and Rough
Sleeping Strategy of preventing rough sleeping and tackling homelessness and its associated causes. Additionally, revising the LAHF LLP to include the additional two properties secured
through LAHF Round 1 will assist the Council in making best use of our existing stock- thereby meeting a key objective of the Council’s Housing, Homelessness and Rough Sleeping Strategy.

To do nothing.
It is proposed that this option is rejected, as any departure from the agreed MoU and grant funding criteria could result in DLUHC withdrawing or reclaiming grant funding, which, in turn would undermine the Council’s efforts in alleviating local housing pressures arising from the
Ukrainian crisis. Additionally, if these two additional properties were to be allocated without restriction, this would lead to the Council suffering reputational damage, as well as potentially damaging working relationships between the Council, the Ukrainian community and DLUHC.

Key officers from CBC and CBH have been consulted to inform this Officer Decision Noticehowever, no feedback was received. Alterations have been made to this Officer Decision following discussions with the Housing Strategy and Partnerships Manager to reflect that the
£214,600 was included within LAHF Round 1 funding, rather than being part of the subsequent
LAHF Round 2 Funding Stream.