FOI request (FOIR-555900735)

Homelessness

Requested Fri 20 October 2023
Responded Tue 24 October 2023

How many households across your council area have approached the council for advice and support to prevent them becoming homelessness in the past five years?

If possible, please provide data broken down by year by calendar year. If you could break it down from 2018-2022 and then any data you have so far this year. Spreadsheet format preferred.

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Response

Advice only cases:

2018 = 700

Please note that due to the introduction of the Homelessness Reduction Act, we implemented a new IT systems in 2018, so some of the 700 cases will be before 1st January 2018, but to identify those cases will involve a manual search of each case, which will exceed the 18 hours therefore:

NOTICE OF REFUSAL

The information as mentioned would far exceed the time limit set out by the Information Commissioner. Section 12 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.

2019 = 340

2020 = 375

2021 = 361

2022 = 297

2023 = 388 (up until 23rd Oct 2023)

Information on the number of assessments made for Prevention or Relief cases can be viewed on the .gov.uk website:

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/live-tables-on-homelessness