Freedom of information response
Temporary accommodation
Can you provide a breakdown of how much the council has spent on temporary accommodation in each of the last five financial years up to 2024 (2019/20-2023/24), broken down by provider.
By provider I mean the company contracted to provide this accommodation (of any type - hotel, b and b, caravan, private rented sector etc) to the council as part of its housing duty.
If the council has procured this accommodation from more than 5 providers in any given year, can you limit your search to the 5 companies that have received the most funding from the council.
Can you provide the information in Google Sheets or Excel in the example format in the image attached.
Table attached captures the provider spend totals against HG251.
In issuing our response the Council has applied S43 of the Freedom of Information Act. Information is exempt information if its disclosure under this Act would, or would be likely to prejudice the commercial interests of any person (including the public authority holding it). A commercial interest relates to a person’s ability to successfully participate in a commercial activity, i.e. the purchase and the sale of goods or services. The reasons for this have been captured below under the public interest test section.
Public Interest Test:
The council have considered the public interest test in relation to section 43 (2) in releasing the information in scope of your request. The outcome of this is below.
- Public interest in disclosure:
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- The overall TA figures paid out to private providers would be sufficient to highlight the issues around higher expenditure in this regard and public money being spent on private landlords for short term accommodation..
- It would compromise the trust that providers have in the Council about the funds we pay them in line with both ad hoc and contractual lease arrangements. This may impact on their willingness to work with us in the future.
- Public interest to maintain the exemption:
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- The total expenditure figure already given, gives the public the information about how much we spend in this regard. Providing deeper detail based on provider may damage our reputation/trust amongst the larger providers and reduce our ability to provide statutory temporary accommodation in the future.
- By withholding it, we protect the commercial interests of partners who provide us with a large proportion of the accommodation we are required to provide to homeless households under law. Should companies feel this is a breach of trust, then we would no longer have access to that accommodation, to the detriment of these households.
Based on the above, it is the Council’s view that there is a stronger public interest to maintain the use of the exemption for section 43 (2).