From need to choice: R(A) v Lambeth LBC; R(Lindsay) v Lambeth LBC
In the housing Green Paper, published in 2000, it was suggested that many of the ills of social housing could be alleviated by changing the way it is allocated from a system based upon a bureaucratic assessment of housing need to one which respects and prioritises customer choice.' It was suggested that the government wanted local authorities 'to see themselves more as providers of a lettings service which is responsive to the needs and wishes of individuals, rather than purely as housing "allocators"'.2 In 2001, the government funded a pilot programme of 27 schemes implementing choice-based lettings.3 The Government has announced that, by 2005, it expects 25 per cent of local authorities to let properties on a choice basis, to increase to all local authorities by 2010, although it is not prescriptive as to how that should be done and further guidance awaits the results of the evaluation of the pilot programme. Lambeth LBC was not one of the pilots funded under the Government programme, but, perhaps sensing the way the wind was blowing, elected to develop its own brand of choice based letting scheme. The Court of Appeal has now determined that Lambeth's scheme is unlawful because it did not give a 'reasonable preference' to those households required by legislation.4 Thejudgment poses questions regarding the legality both of the models of choice based lettings developed as part of the pilot programme and of schemes developed elsewhere. This doubt is not materially affected by the implementation of the Homelessness Act 2002. Thus, despite considerable financial resources ploughed into the pilots and other local authority housing capital resources,5 a discursive and ideological