Dear Alessandra Berti,

FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT 2000/ ENVIRONMENTAL INFORMATION REGULATIONS
2004

Thank you for your request for information about:

Housing

Your request was received on 25/07/2022 and is being handled in accordance
with the above legislation.
Your query has been given the reference 00001769 and we would appreciate
it if this can be quoted on all correspondence to us.

Under the terms of the legislation, we have an obligation to respond to
your request within 20 working days from the day after your request was
received. We will therefore aim to respond to your request by 22/08/2022. 

Please be aware that, in some circumstances, a fee may be payable for the
retrieval, collation and provision of the information you have requested.
If this is the case, a fees notice will be issued, which would need to be
paid in order to progress your request.

If your request for information is considered and deemed as a 'business as
usual' request, it will be responded to by the appropriate service within
the Council.

If you have any queries in the meantime, please contact
[Carlisle City Council request email] quoting the reference number above.

Further information about your rights is also available from the
Information Commissioner at:
The Information Commissioner's Office,
Wycliffe House,
Water Lane,
Wilmslow,
Cheshire
SK9 5AF.
Telephone: 0303 123 1113

Website: [1]www.ico.org.uk

Kind regards,

Information Team

Carlisle City Council

Civic Centre

Carlisle

CA3 8QG

[email address]

[2]https://www.carlisle.gov.uk/Privacy-Stat...

This e-mail and its attachments may include confidential information or
protectively marked material up to OFFICIAL SENSITIVE and should be
handled accordingly and, is solely for use by the intended recipient(s).
If you have received this e-mail and its attachments in error, please
notify the sender immediately, delete them and do not disclose, copy,
distribute, disclose or retain any part of them. The views and opinions
expressed by the author are not necessarily those of Carlisle City
Council. Carlisle City Council has scanned this e-mail and its attachments
to ensure that they are virus free. The Council can take no responsibility
if a virus is actually present and you are advised to make the appropriate
checks to confirm that they are virus free. Any email and contents sent or
received by the Council may need to be disclosed by the Council under the
Freedom of Information Act 2000. Any personal information contained within
this email and its attachments must be processed in accordance with the
Data Protection Legislation. For further information on how Carlisle City
Council will process your personal information, please visit the Council’s
privacy statement at https://www.carlisle.gov.uk/Privacy-Stat...

References

Visible links
1. http://www.ico.org.uk/
2. https://www.carlisle.gov.uk/Privacy-Stat...

Dear Alessandra Berti,

Freedom of Information Act 2000
Thank you for your request for information about Housing which was
received on 25/07/2022.

Please see below response to your request.

Request

I am writing to request the following information under the Freedom of
Information Act 2000.

Q. 1. i.) Please state the local authority’s expenditure (including use of
Government grants) on clearing the arrears of tenants in the following
financial years.

a. 2017/2018
b. 2018/2019
c. 2019/2020
d. 2020/2021
e. 2021/2022

ii.) For each of the above years, please provide a breakdown of
expenditure on clearing the arrears of council housing tenants, housing
association tenants and private rental sector tenants.

Q. 2. i.) Please state the local authority’s expenditure (including use of
Government grants) on discretionary housing payments to assist ongoing
renting costs of tenants in the following years.

a. 2017/2018
b. 2018/2019
c. 2019/2020
d. 2020/2021
e. 2021/2022

ii.) For each of the above years, please provide a breakdown of
expenditure on assisting the ongoing renting costs of council housing
tenants, housing association tenants and private rental sector tenants.

Response
We have considered your request under the terms of the Freedom of
Information Act and can confirm that we hold information in relation to
your request. However, Section 12 of FOIA allows a public authority to
refuse to deal with a request where it estimates that it would exceed the
appropriate limit.

12 Exemption where cost of compliance exceeds appropriate limit.
(1)Section 1(1) does not oblige a public authority to comply with a
request for information if the authority estimates that the cost of
complying with the request would exceed the appropriate limit.
(2)Subsection (1) does not exempt the public authority from its obligation
to comply with paragraph (a) of section 1(1) unless the estimated cost of
complying with that paragraph alone would exceed the appropriate limit.
(3)In subsections (1) and (2) “the appropriate limit” means such amount as
may be prescribed, and different amounts may be prescribed in relation to
different cases.
The appropriate limit is currently £600 for central government and £450
for all other public authorities. On average, for a public authority, this
cost translates to 18 hours’ worth of work.

On this occasion it has been assessed that this limit would be excessively
breached because we do not record this information in a reportable format.
The Council does not record the breakdown of the split between DHP awards
specifically for rent arrears or DHP awards specifically for ongoing rent
shortfalls. The Council also does not record the split of DHP expenditure
for housing association tenants and private rental sector tenants (please
note there are no Council Houses in the Carlisle District).

The only method by which the full information required could be retrieved
is by a manual trawl of the DHP application forms. The Council had 299 DHP
applications in the financial year 2021/22 and it is estimated it would
take officers approximately 5 minutes to manually review each DHP
application and approximately 25 hours to extract the requested
information for one financial year only. The council is therefore
withholding the information as detailed above under section 12(1) of the
Act.

If you are dissatisfied with the handling of your request, you have the
right to ask for an internal review.  Internal review requests should be
submitted within 40 working days of the date of the response and should be
sent to [email address].  An independent reviewing officer
unconnected with the original request will review the decision. 

If you are not content with the outcome of the internal review, you have
the right to apply directly to the Information Commissioner for a
decision.  The Information Commissioner can be contacted at: 

Information Commissioner’s Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow,
Cheshire, SK9 5AF, [1]www.ico.org.uk, telephone 0303 123 1113. 

Please remember to quote the reference number above in any future
communications.

Kind regards,

Information Team

Carlisle City Council

Civic Centre

Carlisle

CA3 8QG

[email address]

[2]https://www.carlisle.gov.uk/Privacy-Stat...

>
This e-mail and its attachments may include confidential information or
protectively marked material up to OFFICIAL SENSITIVE and should be
handled accordingly and, is solely for use by the intended recipient(s).
If you have received this e-mail and its attachments in error, please
notify the sender immediately, delete them and do not disclose, copy,
distribute, disclose or retain any part of them. The views and opinions
expressed by the author are not necessarily those of Carlisle City
Council. Carlisle City Council has scanned this e-mail and its attachments
to ensure that they are virus free. The Council can take no responsibility
if a virus is actually present and you are advised to make the appropriate
checks to confirm that they are virus free. Any email and contents sent or
received by the Council may need to be disclosed by the Council under the
Freedom of Information Act 2000. Any personal information contained within
this email and its attachments must be processed in accordance with the
Data Protection Legislation. For further information on how Carlisle City
Council will process your personal information, please visit the Council’s
privacy statement at https://www.carlisle.gov.uk/Privacy-Stat...

References

Visible links
1. http://www.ico.org.uk/
2. https://www.carlisle.gov.uk/Privacy-Stat...