Policy on shared parenting - Housing allocation

Dear Ian

Thank you for your request under Freedom of Information.

I am passing your request onto David Greening, Housing Options and Homeless Manager and in accordance with the act a full response will sent to you within 20 days, 09 April 2008.

Kind regards
Zoe

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Dear Mr Tyes

Many thanks for your email of 11th March. The assessment to which you refer in your email would be made by referring to our Lettings Policy. We assess an applicant on the basis of:

5.6 of our Lettings Policy which refers to Staying contact with children

5.6.1 Where an applicant has staying contact with children for less than 50% of the time the children will not be counted as part of the applicants household when assessing bedroom requirements.

5.6.2 Where two applicants have equal staying contact with children, the children will be counted as part of both applicants household when assessing bedroom requirements.

The Code of Guidance, used by local authorities for the assessment of homeless applications, states that where children are involved, in order for the applicant to have a priority need, those children must be dependent on that applicant.

However, the parent does not need to be wholly or exclusively caring for the dependent child but there must be actual residence (or a reasonable expectation of residence) with a degree of permanence or regularity.

However, it would be unusual (although not impossible) for a local authority to decide that dependency of a child on separated parents was significant enough to confer a priority need on both of them in the event of homelessness.

I hope this covers your enquiry

Best wishes

David

David Greening
Housing Options and Homeless Manager
Cambridge City Council
Hobson House
44 St Andrews St
Cambridge CB2 3AS
01223 457997 (o)
07973 884970 (m)
email: [email address]

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