The Mayor is firmly committed to increasing opportunities for mobility among social tenants and aims to have a pan-London scheme in place by April 2011. The scheme will include a proportion of all new social rented homes across the capital, as well as an element of relets of existing homes.

This Homes and Communities Agency (HCA) London Board consultation paper sets out the Mayor’s policies and proposals for enabling geographical mobility for London’s social tenants and applicants through a new pan-London scheme. Its purpose is to elicit the views of boroughs, housing associations and other key stakeholders about:

• the broad principles for the scheme
• how best to ensure a fair, rational and cost-effective way for those seeking a social rented home to live in their area of choice.

You can read the full consultation document using the link below:

Mobility for London’s social tenants: a HCA London Board consultation

This consultation ended on 17 January 2011. Feedback was received from 44 organisations, and respondents were overwhelmingly supportive of a new pan-London mobility scheme for the capital. You can read a summary of responses to the consultation using the link below:

Mobility for London's Social Tenants: Consultation Report - March (PDF)

Based on the consultation findings, the HCA London Board has now endorsed the Mayor's high-level principles for a scheme. These are:

• To base the pan-London mobility scheme, in the first instance, on a proportion of relets to existing social homes rather than on new build social homes.
• That this proportion should be “notional”. That is, boroughs can choose contribute new build or general relets as they see fit, but that the calculation of homes to be contributed should be determined by a borough’s predicted number of relets rather than new build.
• That the pan-London mobility scheme should be reciprocal, with each borough and RSL contributing an equivalent to 10% relets to the scheme, but with actual moves capped at 5% per borough/RSL.
• That boroughs/RSLs should have as much flexibility as possible as to the actual homes they contribute, as long as the number of homes contributed is equivalent to 10% of relets, and that the mix of homes is proportionate to their overall relets of 1, 2 and 3 bed homes, and accessible homes.
• That the scheme should be integrated or aligned with the London Accessible Housing Register and the g15 mobility pilot, and become operational during 2011/12
• That the scheme should, in the first instance, exclude relets of Affordable Rent homes and lettings to new homes on "strategic sites", but that the scheme is expanded to include both of these during 2012/13.