The Council is required to publish this information under the Local Government Transparency Code 2015 set out by the Department of Local Government (DCLG), now the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG).
The Council has followed this guidance on data protection when compiling this information. The guidance requires the data for individual postcode sectors to be merged so that each postcode sector or merged postcode sectors contains at least 2,500 households. It also requires the data for valuation bands to be combined when the number of occupied social housing properties in any valuation band is less than 10. The data is merged with the next lowest valuation band so that no individual valuation band contains the data for less than 10 properties.
This guidance requires Councils to explain the difference between the tenanted sale value of dwellings within the Housing Revenue Account and their market sale value and to include assurance that the publication of this information is not intended to suggest that tenancies should end to realise the market value of properties. The market value is the Council’s estimate of the total sum that it would receive if all the dwellings were sold on the open market. The existing use value for social housing value (EUV-SH) is calculated on the basis of rents receivable on existing tenancies. These are less than the rent that would be obtainable on the open market, and the EUV-SH value is therefore lower than the market value. The difference between the two values therefore shows the economic cost of providing housing at less than market value.