Page 94 - Solving Housing Disputes

267
desert. Our Working Party is therefore concerned that the time limit for
homelessness appeals to the County Court is too short, given the challenges
around access to advice wrought by LASPO. To our mind, the time limit pre-
dates the realities of LASPO. It is not enough time for appellants given the
limitations on advice provision on the ground. We recommend the time limit
for appealing a local authority internal review decision on homelessness to
a Circuit Judge pursuant to section 204 of the Housing Act 1996 ought to be
extended from 21 to at least 28 days, to give appellants more time to access
legal aid.

3.71 There is an associated need to ensure that where a local authority makes an
internal review decision which upholds a denial of homelessness assistance, the
applicant can gain access to material from which the decision has been made to
appraise themselves of their legal position. Local authorities when sending
their written decision from an internal review to a person seeking
homelessness assistance should offer the applicant access to the full case file
from which the decision was made.

3.72 One way to make this process easier might be through digital case files, which
could then be transferred seamlessly to the courts, should the appellant elect to
appeal the authority decision. The Traffic Penalty Tribunal (TPT) has had great
success in working with all local authorities across England and Wales in
developing digital case files and digital pins. When a motorist challenges a local
authority issued traffic penalty notice, something akin to an internal review is
offered by the local authority. Should the charging authority reject the person’s
representations, they issue a Notice of Rejection of Representations, which
268
features a weblink and digital pin code to the TPT’s digital appeal system. The
pin code is used to populate all relevant details from the penalty notice to the
TPT system, rather than the appellant having to input those details manually.

3.73 We think it is worth exploring whether a similar approach could work within the
context of local authority homelessness decisions. Applications for
homelessness assistance through a local authority portal could generate a unique

267 For example, a tenant lawyer we spoke to at a roundtable in October works in Bristol, but provides
housing representation through legal aid contracting across the West Country and into Wales, on account
of the paucity of face-to-face advice in those regions

268 Available at https://www.trafficpenaltytribunal.gov.uk/accessibility-and-the-tribunal/

88