A housing charity opposes a second bid by Edinburgh Council to hold off allocating any council houses until March 2027.
Shelter Scotland said an extension should only be granted until February 2026, and that housing staff should use the time to work up an interim allocations policy.
But a senior council officer has questioned why an interim policy is needed, saying that the council has been clear over its priorities since the freeze began.
Officers will present data to councillors next week which shows the suspension has reduced the number of households in the capital living in unsuitable accommodation.
From April this year, most allocations of council houses have been suspended. That has freed up temporary accommodation spaces for people who are presenting to the council as homeless.
The exceptions to this are people with accessibility concerns, or whose only alternative is going into care, and a handful of other people in exceptional circumstances. They have all been offered housing.
Shelter Scotland
Shelter Scotland’s assistant director of communications and advocacy, Gordon Llewellyn-MacRae, said: “It is clear that work to end the housing emergency in Edinburgh and ensure the council operates lawfully will take many months.
“That is why it is important that elected members and council officers maintain public confidence in how decisions are made by demonstrating the highest standards of transparency and evidence gathering.
“In our view the suspension of choice-based lettings should not be extended until March 2027 because key information to inform the public about how decisions will be made is missing at present.”
He added that any interim allocations policy drafted by council officers should show how priority is given to those being housed, how equalities concerns are being managed and what evidence would allow choice-based lettings be re-opened earlier than March 2027.
Mr Llewellyn-MacRae also said that ‘it would not be appropriate’ to remove democratic oversight of allocations policy until those changes were in place.
March 2027
In August, the city’s housing officers asked for an extension to March 2027, but councillors refused, calling the proposal “stark” and “a shock”.
Instead councillors agreed on an extension to December of this year, and requested monthly updates on progress made while the policy was suspended.
A report before next week’s Housing Committee states that scale of the homelessness crisis is still stark – however, it is claimed the suspension is working.
Council officers argue that an extension would ensure that 400 fewer households will be living in unsuitable housing by that time.
Housing Convener, Tim Pogson, said: “We’ve been clear that priority is being given to homeless households and those living in unsuitable temporary accommodation, and are unclear why a further allocations policy would be needed to demonstrate this.
“Officers have regularly reported on progress in allocating properties, and we’re pleased to note that since April 25 over 500 council properties have been allocated to homeless households.
“This is a core aspect of Edinburgh’s Housing Emergency Action Plan that Shelter support, and also of The Scottish Government’s Housing Emergency Action Plan.”
He added that the policy had been taken on a “risk-based approach”, and repeated that the goal of the housing freeze was to ensure Edinburgh complied with its duty to house homeless people in the capital.
Figures which will be presented to the committee show that 50.4% of households presenting as homeless in October could not be accommodated by the council – down from 58.6% in April.
Some 271 households could not be accommodated by the council in October, while data for 10 November showed that 99 people were known to be sleeping rough in the capital.
The report also stated that 978 households were in unsuitable accommodation as of 14 November, including 180 households with young people and 18 families with children.
April’s suspension was a response to the dual pressures of a homelessness crisis and the need to move temporary accommodation tenants out of unlicensed HMOs.
The policy is intended to resolve a situation where the council is in breach of the law both due to its HMO use and the high numbers of homeless households who it fails to accommodate.
Council staff say that hundreds of beds have been added to temporary accommodation during the suspension, through both changes of use and new purchases.
Some 64 beds were freed up by the council’s purchase of the ELS House student flats block in Gorgie, as well as around 250 rental homes which the council has been able to procure.
By Joseph Sullivan Local Democracy Reporter
