Overview

Housing Associations across the country have been adopting internet-based Choice Based Lettings (social housing bidding systems) in order to reach government targets for choice of housing for all. These systems can now be extended to be available on DiTV and mobile and partners who have integrated into their Looking Local sites have seen an incredible response and usage.

Looking Local works with a range of CBL system providers - Abritas, Home Connections, Locata and IBS Systems - creating opportunities for local authorities and housing associations to enable vulnerable and otherwise hard to reach people within local communities to access the service. Organisations using any of these CBL providers can now simply ask for a Looking Local plugin to extend their service on to their Looking Local site. To read more about the success of CBL to date to read more click here.

Benefits

• Housing partners who have integrated CBL into their Looking Local services have seen incredible usage - Kent Home choice, Birmingham City Council, Twin Valley Homes, Housing Pendle and Devon Homechoice all regularly get in excess of 5,000 hits a week on their CBL services (to read more click here)
• Home Options in Greater Norwich found that within six months of launching on Looking Local, DiTV became the second most popular channel to the web, with more usage than telephone, face to face and paper
• Launching CBL on to Looking Local adds no administrative overheads to the CBL workload if using Abritas, Home Connections or IBS systems (other systems can be integrated)
• Goes towards meeting digital inclusion targets and widening electronic services

Service Features

• CBL on Looking Local allows people to view images and descriptions of homes in their area and bid on those they are keen on
• The service allows people to make a certain number of bids per week and see the status of those bids, including their priority/eligibility
• The system uses personal PIN and IDs to give safe and secure access
• Free on DiTV, available 24/7 and accessible on the go on mobile phones and on the Wii
• Easy to navigate, accessibility and usability tested and specifically designed for each device
• Looking Local works with a number of CBL providers to talk to us further about CBL and how easy it is to integrate contact us

Comments

Home Options are delighted with the satisfied house seekers they have seen as a result of adding Looking Local to their platform portfolio. These are just a few of the recent successful bids and housing allocations through the system:

• A young family with severe financial difficulties faced with homelessness moved into a two bedroom bungalow in South Norfolk they found through CBL on Looking Local
• An older couple with health problems making stairs difficult found a small bungalow through the system, leaving a much bigger house free for another family who needed it more
• A young single man who had been living with his parents for over a year because of his relatively low need band successfully used CBL on Looking Local to qualify for a new build development earmarked for local residents.

"There has not been one complaint about the DiTV service, which is testament to how easy it is to use."

In the Worcestershire district of Wychavon, logs showed that their web based CBL system getting peaks of traffic on a Thursday lunchtime. After some investigations, they found that parents were sending their children to school with their CBL IDs in order to bid for a property of their choice as they did not enjoy PC/Internet access at home. This is a classic example of digital exclusion which has now been addressed via the CBL plugins on Looking Local that enables these, and other, parents to make the same choices via their television at home or mobile whilst on the move.