The total number of households the council is currently housing in temporary accommodation — emergency housing like B&Bs, hostels and short-term flats for people who are homeless and have nowhere else to live. It is the headline measure of how big the area's homelessness crisis is: every household counted is a family or person in limbo, at significant cost to the council. High means many people stuck without a settled home; low means few.
| name | ta_households_total |
|---|---|
| dataset | 06-hclic-temporary-accommodation |
| kind | extracted |
| type | count |
| unit | households |
| grain | local authority (England) |
| role | outcome |
| source | data/Statutory_Homelessness_Detailed_Local_Authority_Data_202603.ods, sheet TA1, col 2 'Households in TA Total[note 34]' |
| period | Quarter-end snapshot, 31 March 2026 (Q4 FY2025-26); quarterly series from 2018 Q2; same columns in 202512_revised and 2024-25 annual files |
| missingness | Small counts rounded and some values suppressed; some LAs miss or partially complete H-CLIC returns and are imputed/flagged by MHCLG (see Notes sheet); previous-quarter figures routinely revised. |
| score_note | The core caseload denominator; raw demand context rather than efficiency. |
| peer_group | council class (district / county / unitary / metropolitan / London) — not yet scored on the leaderboard |
Total households living in temporary accommodation at quarter end — the core TA caseload measure. A high or rising count shows a council under homelessness pressure and carrying the fastest-growing cost in local government. Point-in-time snapshot, not a flow; compare to inflow (A1) for backlog dynamics. Exclude the England and region rows when using per-LA.