Your request & our response
Please send me: 1) The average time it takes to be rehoused via Home Connections for all Bands (A,B,C,D) Please reference the attached spreadsheet 2) A weekly list of winning bids from Home Connections over the last 2 years (2019- 2022) stating what Band the winning bid was plus how long they had been on Home Connections before they had a successful bid As we did not get clarity on whether you wished this data for all bed sizes /properties or a specific type / size, we must presume you mean all property sizes. I can confirm that we have reviewed this part of your request but consider that to comply with the request would exceed the cost/time limit specified by s12 FOIA. Section 12 (cost of compliance exceeds the appropriate limit) 12. — (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. In this instance, we have decided that the process of determining whether the information is held will exceed the Appropriate Limit as provided by The Freedom of Information (Appropriate Limit and Fees) Regulations 2004. The Appropriate Limit applies to costs/time the Council reasonably expects to use in carrying out the following activities to comply with your request: • Determine whether the information is held • Locating the information or documents containing the information • Retrieving such information or documents • Extracting the information from the document The Appropriate Limit is currently set at £450 which is the equivalent to 18 hours of work at £25 per hour. It is estimated that to retrieve the information for this request would take at least 5 minutes per record to collate and there are 1743 files to examine giving a total of approximately 145 hours. The process of retrieving and collecting the data therefore exceeds the Appropriate Limit. In accordance with Section 17 FOIA this letter represents a Refusal Notice for this request. Should you wish to redefine or shorten your request then please resubmit another request to us and we will consider if we can respond. For example, you may specify a type of property and the number of bedrooms. Please note that this advice does not guarantee that your information request can be answered. 3) Is there a time limit/frame for someone to be on Home connections AND actively bidding each week without a winning bid? Does their priority increase the longer they have been on Home connections? There is no time limit. Priority within each Band is based on the Qualifying Date. The older the date, the higher the priority. 4) What is the method of allocating properties which have been advertised and bidded on via Home Connections? Bidding closes on a Sunday. On Monday and Tuesday Allocations Officers look at the bidding lists for the properties advertised and shortlist up to five bidders from each bidding list. They work from No1 on the bidding list downwards, bypassing bidders who have accepted another property, are shortlisted for another property or otherwise unsuitable for the property (it's too small, it's not suitable for wheelchair users etc), until they have the required number of shortlistees.