Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:

To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Baroness Taylor of Stevenage on 13 July (HL1406), whether they intend to publish the technical specification of the data that is requested from local housing authorities on local authority housing waiting lists via continuous recording of lettings by local authorities data; and whether they have reviewed the data collection in this regard given its accredited official statistics status of the social housing lettings in England publication.

Data on the number of households on the housing register (waiting lists) is collected as a snapshot at 31 March each year via the Local Authority Housing Statistics (LAHS). While commentary on the findings is included in the Social Housing Lettings statistical release, no data on housing registers is collected via the Continuous Recordings of Social Housing Lettings.

The latest guidance for the LAHS is published on gov.uk here. The LAHS data is quality assured by my department’s statisticians, as per the publication’s technical notes and in line with Code of Practice for statistics. The latest available are the 2024-25 technical notes which can be found on gov.uk here.