Running a transparent housing needs assessment with Citizen Space
The challenge
In 2025, Sandwell Council set out to update its Housing Needs Assessment, expanding on the previous 2022 version with the latest data and projections running through to 2041. The Assessment is a substantial, data-heavy document covering everything from house prices and stock profiles to the specific needs of disabled households, older people, care-experienced young people, and migrant and refugee communities.
A document like this only does its job if the people it affects recognise their lives in it. Sandwell needed to test whether the draft genuinely reflected local housing realities, whether it was clear enough for residents to engage with, and whether anything important was missing. The Council wanted to hear from a broad audience: residents, tenants, employees, and councillors. And as a statutory evidence base subject to public scrutiny, the whole process needed to be open, well-documented, and demonstrably responsive to what people said.
The approach
Sandwell ran the activity on Citizen Space where it ran for eight weeks. The consultation combined quantitative and qualitative questions, asking respondents whether the Assessment reflected the housing situation in their community, how easy it was to read and understand, and whether any gaps or missing information needed to be addressed.
Crucially, the online activity sat at the centre of a wider, joined-up engagement programme rather than standing alone. Sandwell paired the Citizen Space activity with:
- A policy engagement session on 12 September 2025, where residents could review the draft in paper form and then feed back online or by post, ensuring those who were not online could still take part.
- Resident engagement groups, including the Tenant and Leaseholder Scrutiny Group, which reviewed draft versions and suggested improvements.
- Collaboration across housing management teams, domestic abuse services, and community partnerships, so that specialist perspectives were built in from the start.
This blended model, with a single digital hub coordinating multiple strands of input, is exactly what Citizen Space is built to support. Offline contributions from the paper and postal routes could be brought together with online responses, giving the Council one place to manage, analyse, and report on the full picture.
The results
The consultation surfaced clear, actionable themes. On the headline questions, confidence was solid: 60% of respondents felt the Assessment clearly showed current housing demand in Sandwell, and 80% felt it clearly showed the available housing supply. Most respondents also felt the data reflected the housing situation in their own community.
Rather than treating the consultation as a box-ticking exercise, Sandwell published a full consultation report and responded point by point to what it had heard, complete with planned actions and timescales. In response, the Council committed to:
- Reviewing its data sources and methods to better capture hidden homelessness and overcrowding
- Simplifying the language, adding summaries, and introducing visual aids such as charts and infographics to improve clarity.
- Carrying out further analysis of tenancy patterns, subletting, and mobility in multi-unit building
- Using the Assessment to inform housing planning, allocation, and initiatives that better match households to suitable homes.
- Providing translated and accessible versions where needed.
- Scheduling annual reviews and engagement sessions to keep the Assessment current.
The final Housing Needs Assessment, amended in light of the feedback, was published in November 2025 and now guides housing planning and decisions across the borough.
Sandwell's Housing Needs Assessment consultation shows Citizen Space doing what it was designed to do: supporting a high-stakes statutory process from end to end. From gathering quantitative and qualitative input, to bringing online and offline feedback together, to analysing the results and publishing a transparent response, the Council managed the full journey in a single, secure platform.
Delib is a govtech leader specialising in consultation and engagement, trusted by over 600 government organisations worldwide, including major planning projects. Since 2004, we've been building secure, accessible digital platforms to make participation simpler, fairer, and more inclusive. Our flagship product, Citizen Space, was built in collaboration with the UK government and has supported more than 11 million responses across over 110,000 democratic activities.