Tenant allocation at College Gardens (FOI)

Request

This information is requested from the Strategic Housing Unit.

It concerns the way in which tenants were recently allocated homes at Garrett Anderson House, College Gardens, St Helier - a property owned by the Jersey Homes Trust comprising 37 one bedroom and 3 two bedroom social rented flats for over 55's.

Please provide the following:

A

A breakdown of the 40 tenancy allocations made at Garrett Anderson House by existing tenure immediately prior to the allocations, ie the number who were already tenants of social housing providers and if so, which specific social housing providers (eg Andium, Jersey Homes Trust and so on) and the number who were resident in the private sector prior to being offered accommodation at Garrett Anderson House.

B

A private company called Brunel Management is understood to manage the properties of the Jersey Homes Trust. Please confirm how many of the allocations made at Garrett Anderson House were to tenants of properties administered by Brunel Management and of these, how many were private sector tenants living in Brunel Management properties that were not social housing properties and how many were tenants of the Jersey Homes Trust (social housing properties).

C

Confirm what efforts were taken to inform all people whose names were already on the Housing Gateway List of the potential availability of new flats at Garrett Anderson House and what actions these people were informed they had to take if they wished to express a particular interest in being allocated a property there.

D

Confirm whether the Jersey Homes Trust had any discretion in choosing which people on the Housing Gateway List should be allocated properties at Garrett Anderson House or whether it was required to accept nominations handed down by the Housing Gateway List without the ability to reject certain nominations in favour of others that it preferred.

Response

A to D

The Jersey Homes Trust is an independent organisation and its activities are not covered under the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011.

The Affordable Housing Gateway administers a waiting list of applicants who want to access social housing and it has no direction which specific individuals are allocated properties.

This information is, therefore, not held by the States of Jersey.

However, the Department for Strategic Policy, Performance and Population, which is responsible for housing policy, has discussed the matter with the Jersey Homes Trust and is aware that the flats at Garrett Anderson House are in the process of being allocated. The Trust continues to allocate to persons registered on the Affordable Housing Gateway.

Article referenced

Article 10 Obligation of scheduled public authority to confirm or deny holding information

(1) Subject to paragraph (2), if:

(a) a person makes a request for information to a scheduled public authority; and

(b) the authority does not hold the information, it must inform the applicant accordingly.

(2) If a person makes a request for information to a scheduled public authority and:

(a) the information is absolutely exempt information or qualified exempt information; or

(b) if the authority does not hold the information, the information would be absolutely exempt information or qualified exempt information if it had held it, the authority may refuse to inform the applicant whether or not it holds the information if it is satisfied that, in all the circumstances of the case, it is in the public interest to do so.