Ms Ann-Marie O'Reilly:

Threshold was very supportive of the tenant in situ scheme. We saw it as a very effective intervention in preventing homelessness. Obviously there have been some difficulties in the actual doing of it. Buying and selling a house is always difficult and complicated but we were very supportive of its overall purpose and we did want to see it expanded. We actually want to see it become part of the mainstream delivery of social housing. While some will say that it does not actually add stock, it does add to the social housing stock. This would lead into the Housing Commission's recommendation to increase social and cost rental to 20% of all stock. We were quite shocked to see how quickly the funds ran out this year and it is now not available as a homeless intervention tool for the remainder of the year in the vast majority of local authorities. Instead of that being a financial allocation, we would like to see it set out as a target for the number of homes that need to be purchased under tenant in situ scheme each year, and that figure to be determined based on the number of notices of termination being submitted to the RTB.