FOI request (FOIR-329671776)

Social Housing for Vulnerable Adults

Requested Tue 27 April 2021
Responded  Thu 06 May 2021

1. Do you keep a register of the number of adults with learning disabilities in your local authority area? If so, how many adults in your local authority area are (at present) recorded as having learning disabilities?

2. What support is available for vulnerable adults (including those with learning disabilities) accessing social housing? How does your council support vulnerable adults in the process of finding suitable accommodation?

3. How many people with learning disabilities in your local authority have been housed outside of their local authority area in the last calendar year? If it does not exceed the cost limit, I would also like this information for the last three years please.

4. How many people on the current waiting list for social housing in your local authority area have a learning disability?

[Mencap define a learning disability as a reduced intellectual ability and difficulty with everyday activities. For example, household tasks, socialising or managing money, which affects someone for their whole life.]

I would like the following information sent back via an email to this address in electronic form. Please can the information be supplied in an excel spreadsheet.

I understand that by law I should receive a response within 20 working days.

Response

1. Do you keep a register of the number of adults with learning disabilities in your local authority area? If so, how many adults in your local authority area are (at present) recorded as having learning disabilities?

• Information not held. However, we do hold information on the number of people with learning disability currently on our housing register for social housing (see information below).

• People with learning disability presenting to us as homeless or at risk of homelessness can be found at https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/live-tables-on-homelessness

2. What support is available for vulnerable adults (including those with learning disabilities) accessing social housing? How does your council support vulnerable adults in the process of finding suitable accommodation?

• We would redirect people to the relevant support services, for example those over aged 65+ would be redirected to STEPS. However most people with major learning disabilities are supported by East Sussex Adult Social Care.

3. How many people with learning disabilities in your local authority have been housed outside of their local authority area in the last calendar year? If it doesn't exceed the cost limit, I would also like this information for the last three years please.

• Housed via the housing register, last three years = 0.

• Presented as homeless or at risk of homelessness and secured accommodation outside of area:

2018/19 = 3

2019/20 = 4

2020/21 = 4

4. How many people on the current waiting list for social housing in your local authority area have a learning disability?

• We only recently introduced an online housing register application form, of which there are 18 people currently on the housing register with a learning disability. For people who joined the register prior to the introduction of the online housing register application would mean a manual search of their application and would exceed the 18 hour guideline (see refusal notice below). There are over 1300 households currently on our housing register.

NOTICE OF REFUSAL

The information requested in respect of people currently on the waiting list who has a learning disability would require us to manually check each customer record, this would far exceed the time limit set out by the Information Commissioner. S12 of the Freedom of information Act 2000 provides an exemption from the obligation to comply with a request for information if the estimated costs of complying with that request would exceed the prescribed appropriate limit.

We estimate that the costs of complying with your request would exceed the appropriate limit by a significant amount.

For this reason we feel unable to comply with this request