Social housing and Right-to-Buy sales Data Request

The request was partially successful.

Dear Harlow District Council,
My name is Leon Beaufils and I am a third year economics student at the University of Warwick.

As part of a year-long university research project in applied economics, I am studying the evolution of Council's social housing stock. The project is supervised by Thiemo Fetzer, Professor of Economics at the University of Warwick.

I came across the available data on aggregate social housing stock and Right-to-Buy sales at local authority level. However, more detailed information would be of great assistance in answering my research question. Therefore, I hereby submit a Freedom of Information request. I would like access to more detailed data, i.e. at a finer geographical level, on social housing stock and Right-to-Buy sales in the Council area for the period 1980-2021.

Ideally, the data would follow the following format:
Variable of interests: Properties sold under Right-to-Buy and Social/Council housing stock
Geographical unit: As granular as possible (eg. full postcode or full address)
Time unit: As granular as possible (eg. Date)
Period covered: As large as possible between 1980 and present time.
Area covered: As large as possible (eg. all properties managed by the Council at any point in time)
Additional information: discount applied, property valuation, actual sale price, number of bedrooms, or other characteristics.
File format: .xlsx (Excel) or .txt

For indicative purposes, the following data format is expected:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/6bmchrwqb5wt9l...

Thank you for your time in considering my request.

Yours faithfully,

Leon Beaufils,
Economics student at the University of Warwick.

Contact Harlow, Harlow District Council

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Contact Harlow, Harlow District Council

Dear Leon

Your Freedom of Information request has been logged under reference RFI479425440.
Please quote the above reference number should you require any further information, we will respond within 20 working days.

How will we use your personal information?
Harlow Council will process the personal information you have provided under Article 6(1)(b) of the General Data Protection Regulation 2016/679 (GDPR) for the purposes of processing this request for information. The information is also used to compile statistics for use by Harlow Council, however, this does not include information that will identify you as an individual.

Although it is not our intention to collect any other personal information and/or sensitive personal information (e.g. in respect of race or ethnic origin; political opinions; religious or similar beliefs; physical or mental health or condition; sexual history or orientation; trade union membership), you may provide information of this type inadvertently in your response(s) to particular areas of this form (for example Part 5 'Do you have any special needs when viewing the information or in what format it is provided?'). Any sensitive personal information collected will be kept confidential and secure and will not be shared with any third parties.

Who will we share your personal information with?
Your information will be shared with the relevant departments of Harlow Council in order to provide the information you have requested. Your information will also be shared where the Council is under a legal obligation to do so, for example between our services and with other official organisations, such as the Police and other government bodies.

How long will we keep your information?
Records relating to this request for information will be retained for three years from the date of the last action.

For more information on how we collect, use and protect personal information generally, as well as your rights as a data subject please view our main privacy notice on our website by visiting http://www.harlow.gov.uk/privacy-notice

If you do not have online access a paper copy of our main privacy notice can be provided by contacting us on the details provided below.

Best wishes,

Contact Harlow

Harlow Council, Civic Centre, The Water Gardens, Harlow, Essex, CM20 1WG
Contact Harlow - 01279 446655

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show quoted sections

Jenny Pearce, Harlow District Council

1 Attachment

Please find attached a letter regarding your recent FOI request.

Jenny Pearce
PA to Director of Housing
Tele: 01279 446278

Alternative contact: Mike Fulcher (01279 446315)

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Harlow Council, Civic Centre, The Water Gardens, Harlow, Essex, CM20 1WG

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show quoted sections

Dear Jenny Pearce,

To clarfiy my request, I require the following data:

Essential data:
- All properties sold under RTB along with the date on which the transaction was completed and the address of the full postcode of the properties, covering the time 1980-2023 time period.

Optional data:
- valuation, discounts, sale price, type of property, and other information you may hold about each RTB sales.

Yours sincerely,

Leon Beaufils

Jenny Pearce, Harlow District Council

2 Attachments

Dear Mr Beaufils

Thank you for the clarification. Please find attached the Council's response to your recent enquiry.

Jenny Pearce
PA to Director of Housing
Tele: 01279 446278

Alternative contact: Mike Fulcher (01279 446315)

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Follow us on Twitter
Like us on Facebook
Watch our videos on YouTube

Harlow Council, Civic Centre, The Water Gardens, Harlow, Essex, CM20 1WG

For the latest information and advice on COVID please visit the government website

show quoted sections

Jenny Pearce, Harlow District Council

2 Attachments

Dear Mr Beaufils

Thank you for the clarification. Please find attached the Council's response to your recent enquiry.

Jenny Pearce
PA to Director of Housing
Tele: 01279 446278

Alternative contact: Mike Fulcher (01279 446315)

Visit our website
Follow us on Twitter
Like us on Facebook
Watch our videos on YouTube

Harlow Council, Civic Centre, The Water Gardens, Harlow, Essex, CM20 1WG

For the latest information and advice on COVID please visit the government website

show quoted sections

Dear Jenny Pearce,

Thank you very much for your kind reply. I do request, however, access to the data with full codes.

We presume that the reason to not disclose postcodes is due to some concerns that the release may not be GDPR compliant. We want to iterate that postcodes do not automatically constitute personally identifyable data.

The risk of identification is a function of the number of properties/households resident in a specific postcode. The risk of disclosure is limited if a postcode has at least 5 properties.

E.g. if there is a single property sold under RTB in a postcode but there are more than 5 other properties, not any individual single individual property gets identified. So, I reiterate my demand for data on # of RTB transactions with full postcodes disclosed in postcodes that have a sufficient number of properties.

To judge what constitutes a sufficient number of properties, guidance can be sought from the UK statistics regulator. But some example of practice: BEIS publishes, as official statistics, natural gas consumption at the full postcode level as long as that postcode includes at least 5 addresses.

We are happy to provide some technical assistance to identify which postcodes have more than 5 properties. For your guidance, I have attached a file below that includes the number of UPRN (Unique property reference numbers) by Postcode for this district. This enables you to verify which postcode runs any disclosure risk.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/42sb825enmdqio...

I am more than happy to provide technical assistance or input.

Yours sincerely,

Leon Beaufils