Test results for Council housing - apply for it

Here is the table of test results for this task. The score on each row is out of a possible total of 20, and the importance column is a rating of 1-5 according to how important testers considered being able to complete this task was.

Filter within results: or click headings to sort.

CouncilNavigationA-ZGoogleSite searchScoreTestsImportance
Aberdeen City CouncilEasyVery easyVery easy143
Birmingham City CouncilVery easyEasyVery easy163
Birmingham City CouncilVery easyVery easyVery easy13
Birmingham City CouncilVery easyGave upGave up-93
Bracknell Forest CouncilVery easyVery easyVery easy203
Brent CouncilVery easyVery easyGave up75
Buckinghamshire County CouncilEasyVery easyDifficult123
Cheshire East CouncilVery easyEasyVery easy163
Cheshire East CouncilVery easyVery easyVery easy203
City of Edinburgh CouncilDifficultDifficultDifficult43
Copeland Borough CouncilVery easyVery easyGave up73
Coventry City CouncilVery easyVery easyVery easy205
Coventry City CouncilVery easyVery easyVery easy203
Dudley Metropolitan Borough CouncilVery easyGave upGave up-93
Gloucestershire County CouncilGave upGave upGave up-121
Great Yarmouth Borough CouncilEasyDifficultVery easy123
Great Yarmouth Borough CouncilGave upGave upGave up-123
Harrow CouncilVery easyVery easyEasy43
Havant Borough CouncilVery easyVery easyGave up23
Liverpool City CouncilEasyEasyEasy123
Liverpool City CouncilEasyVery easyDifficult123
London Borough of Hammersmith and FulhamEasyEasyGave up41
London Borough of LewishamVery easyVery easyVery easy100
Manchester City CouncilVery easyGave upGave up-53
Newcastle City CouncilVery easyVery easyVery easy201
North Yorkshire County CouncilEasyVery easyVery easy163
Northampton Borough CouncilVery easyVery easyGave up123
Norwich City CouncilEasyVery easyGave up80
Nottingham City CouncilVery easyEasyEasy145
Plymouth City CouncilVery easyEasyEasy93
Sefton CouncilVery easyVery easyEasy131
South Lanarkshire CouncilVery easyEasyVery easy50
South Tyneside CouncilVery easyVery easyVery easy103
Surrey County CouncilVery easyVery easyVery easy205
Wandsworth CouncilVery easyVery easyVery easy15
West Lindsey District CouncilVery easyDifficultEasy145

Specific comments made about this task

Birmingham City Council - 2016-07-14
The links I thought I needed to follow took me to a separate website, which danced around the issue of actually applying with a whole load of jargon. Working through the jargon it ended up with a downloadable form rather than an online form

Birmingham City Council - 2017-01-11
Started off easy enough, but was taken to a separate website where I had to give up. Internal search results were useless. Navigation was useless - I couldn't find anything referring to council housing in the navigation.

Bracknell Forest Council - 2014-02-28
Long page with a lot of different information (find an affordable rented home)

Buckinghamshire County Council - 2014-09-04
Internal search took me to a page where there was a link http://www.buckscc.gov.uk/social-care/disabled-persons-car-badges/. But the link didn't work.

City of Edinburgh Council - 2014-02-12
Getting to the application form was very easy. However, there was no online application process, but more critically, the form to download was a .pdf document meaning the only way to complete it would be to print it out and write on it, rather than being able to fill it on one's own computer had it been a word document.

Copeland Borough Council - 2014-02-12
I assume the fact of the Housing main page referring only to housing association homes means Copeland does not have its own housing stock? By the way, I found the large picture of a homeless person being used as eye-candy on the page to be quite offensive.

Coventry City Council - 2014-02-06
This section of the website has been organised and done very well. It is not just easy but very easy for users to find the page and to apply for council housing.

Dudley Metropolitan Borough Council - 2018-08-28
Link from home page eventually took me to a separate site called Dudley At Home, which seemed to require me to log in in order to do anything. "Your search for apply for a council house produced no results" Following the top Google search result took me to the first page of the complete list of all the forms on the site. Going to the second Google result took me to a page inviting me to continue or amend my online application.

Gloucestershire County Council - 2014-02-08
Not a service that the County Council provides but no links to other councils that I could find.

Liverpool City Council - 2013-12-17
Housing being at the very bottom of the home page, and the link being labelled housing associations stopped it from being very easy.

Liverpool City Council - 2015-01-13
I found the page I wanted eventually, but it was difficult to find the correct term to search under. I first reached the 'find a housing association page' which is a list of names and addresses and doesn't point me to the 'join the housing register' page.

London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham - 2014-02-10
Reasonably straightforward task, made harder by use of housing department terminology ("housing options") rather than more usual language ("I need a house"). Also, an impossibly slow website - gave up on the internal search.

Manchester City Council - 2013-12-17
Top level 'homes and property' rather than usual 'housing'; had to look hard to find it due to random arrangement.

Northampton Borough Council - 2014-02-11
spelling errors in the form. Results page from the form was too similar to the starting page so it wasn't clear I was getting a result to the form I submitted. Using IE8 on a desktop computer

Nottingham City Council - 2015-01-09
The process was easy and all raods lead to NCH Homelink organisation for Social Housing in Nottingham. Homelink web site is easy to navigate in simple language

Sefton Council - 2014-12-05
The link from the homepage and the link from Google took me to similar but different online forms. Lack of continuity might be confusing!

South Lanarkshire Council - 2014-09-15
Form not online.

West Lindsey District Council - 2014-02-26
Anything from google that contains the word apply brings up job vacancies.