This is part of a wider Government aim of allowing people to have more say and more choice in the public services they use. CBL allows people more say in where they live.

CBL schemes work by:

• Widely advertising available rented properties, and inviting customers to say which ones they are interested in, called "expressing an interest" or "bidding"
• When all customers have had a chance to "express an interest", usually within a few days of the advert going out, a list of interested people is created
• The vacancy is then offered, usually to the applicant with the highest level of housing needs. If there is more than one person on the same level of need, the vacancy goes to the person who has been waiting the longest
• As well as advertising new vacancies, the scheme tells customers what happened to recent vacancies - what level of need the successful applicant had, and how long they had waited. This helps other customers judge how long they might have to wait for housing. It also makes the whole process of allocating housing more transparent - people can see exactly how the process works, how many vacancies there are, and what areas or type of property are the most popular
• The Government believes that giving people a choice in where they live will lead to greater satisfaction for customers, and result in neighbourhoods where tenants stay longer, look after their homes and have a stake in their communities.
  

Housing Needs

Councils, and the housing associations who work with them, still have an obligation to help those people in the greatest housing need. The law says that we must give preference to people who are homeless, overcrowded, or who have medical needs for instance. Even under choice-based schemes, we need to make sure that those most in need are helped first.

At the moment, most councils use a "points" scheme. Points are awarded for different types of need, and properties are generally offered to the person with the most points. But points schemes are complicated and customers often say they don't understand how points are worked out.

The Bedfordshire CBL scheme is looking at a simpler scheme, where applications are placed in a priority "band", depending on their needs. Over the next few months, we will be consulting customers and other organisations which work with our customers, to make sure any changes will meet customers' needs, and be fair to all.

As the CBL scheme will operate across Bedfordshire, the partners also want to work together to create more opportunities for people to move between districts, for work or family reasons, for instance.

There is still a lot of work to do, but hopefully there will be more to report later in 2007, after the consultation on banding has taken place.