Private sector discharge of homeless duties

Response to this request is long overdue. By law, under all circumstances, Lewisham Borough Council should have responded by now (details). You can complain by requesting an internal review.

Dear Lewisham Borough Council,

Could I please have the following information for the period from 06/11/2023 to 06/03/2025 in relation to private sector discharge of homeless households.

Question 1 - private sector offers to homeless households

For the above period, please provide the following information for *each* mandatory offer of private housing to a homeless household made in discharge of a homeless duty:

The homeless duty in which the offer was made in discharge of (eg. prevention, relief, or main)
The local authority area of the offer (eg. Havering)
The number of bedrooms of the offer (eg. 1,2,3 etc)
The month and year of the offer (eg. Jan-2024, Nov-2024 etc.)
Whether the offer was accepted? (Y/N)
Whether the council then proceeded to discharge the relevant homeless duty? (Y/N)
Whether the offer was later withdrawn by the council? (Y/N)

The information would ideally be provided in an excel table with a column for each of the questions above and a row for each offer made.

Question 2 - policy/guidance documents

Can I please have the guidance your housing officers follow when making these mandatory offers in discharge of homeless duties?

Note: this should include any document that details how to select households for an offer out of all potential households.

Yours faithfully,

Jo Staines

Foi, Customer, Lewisham Borough Council

Dear Jo Staines,

Re: Freedom of Information Act 2000
Environmental Information Regulations 2004
Reference No: 29478741

Your request is being considered and you will receive a response within the statutory timescale of 20 working days, subject to the application of any exemptions. Where consideration is being given to exemptions the 20 working day timescale may be extended to a period considered reasonable depending on the nature and circumstances of your request. In such cases you will be notified and, where possible, a revised time-scale will be indicated. In all cases we shall attempt to deal with your request at the earliest opportunity.

There may be a fee payable for the retrieval, collation and provision of the information requested where the request exceeds the statutory limit or where disbursements exceed £10. In such cases you will be informed in writing and your request will be suspended until we receive payment from you or your request is modified and/or reduced.

Your request may require either full or partial transfer to another public authority. You will be informed if your request is transferred.

If we are unable to provide you with the information requested we will notify you of this together with the reason(s) why and details of how you may appeal (if appropriate).

Please note that the directorate team may contact you for further information where we believe that the request is not significantly clear for us to respond fully.

Kind regards

FOI Team
Information Security & Governance
Chief Executive’s Directorate
Lewisham Council

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Dear Foi, Customer,

It has now been more than 20 working days and no FOI response has been provided. Please provide a reply within 7 days, otherwise we will report the failure to respond to the ICO

Yours sincerely,

Jo Staines