Ealing Council has signed technical consultancy PanLogic to help to deliver a London-wide Property Listing Platform.
It has carried out the procurement on behalf of London Councils, with a plan for the system to go live in the middle of this year.
The platform will provide a listing of temporary accommodation, with details provided by landlords, to help officials place homeless households at short notice.
Its main purposes will be to provide details of available properties for homeless households in real time, enable the centralised procurement of accommodation across London, eliminate competition for properties between authorities, and avoid duplication of properties being offered by different councils at the same time.
London Councils has said that 13 boroughs have committed team to take part in the development, with others expressing an interest in using the platform.
At the time the tender was published, Ealing indicated the contract would run for two years and involve integrating the platform with existing systems.
Broader initiative
This forms an element of the plans for Capital Letters, the organisation being set up to help provide more homes for homeless people in London. It has been backed by almost £38 million from the Government’s £1.2 billion investment in dealing with homelessness.
PanLogic has previously worked with London Councils – the association for local authorities in the capital – managing the migration of its intranet to a Drupal platform in 2016. It has also supported the UK fire and rescue services in migrating operational guidance documents to a dynamic platform.
Image from GOV.UK, Open Government Licence v3.0
Amended on 17 May on receipt of info from London Councils on number of councils signed up
