For Housing Departments
Victoria Forms’ solution for Housing is continually expanding. With over a decade of experience, expertise and reliability in the specialist area of creating online forms for Local Government, Victoria Forms can provide a library of housing forms which are intelligent and can be integrated directly into back office systems.
Central to the Victoria Forms Housing solution is the Rented Housing Application / Renewal form which combines two important forms into one. All eForms are branded for individual authorities, and with additional design work, new forms can be created or aspects of any of our ready-made eForms may be further customised if required.
eForms are launched and managed within the powerful management application, Enterprise Forms Server, and received eForms can be exported to PDF and TIFF image files as part of the base solution, and then integrated with EDRM systems. Adaptable additional modules ensure customers can select functionality that will offer most benefit to their individual working processes.
Housing Forms
Features and Processing
Key Form: Application and Renewal for Rented Housing
Combining two important forms into one, the Application / Renewal form is used to gather information for applications to the Housing Register.
The full application form, based on Reigate and Banstead’s paper application form, has 20 pages of questions and guidance, whereas the renewal form only has 11. Both versions of the form cover topics of household information, current accommodation, current living situation and financial situation, as well as requesting evidence to support the data within the form.
Where photocopies of documents are accepted, this form can be paired with the attachments module to allow applicants to upload their evidence documents directly to the form. Images and PDF files can be added to the back of the PDF form export so all files are indexed together.
Supplementary Forms
Accompanying the main application – the Housing form library incorporates a number of supplementary forms to collect additional information as required:
Income and Expenditure – Asking for additional information about what the customer has done to try and find cheaper housing themselves, for example, whether they would move area, or whether they have spoken to their landlord. This form also asks for basic weekly / monthly income and outgoings.
Medical Assessment – Asking for additional information about a disabled or an ill person, which medications are taken, which hospitals and GP they have visited, any special requirements they may need, any benefits received for illness / disability, details of their social worker / care manager / nurse, about their current housing situation and how it is affecting their health.
Housing Interview Options – An interview form, which is designed for people who are homeless or at risk of becoming homeless (next 28 days) – details of previous addresses and current situated are asked, as well as whether the applicant is already on the Housing Register; if not then the form contains a dynamic prompt to help the applicant apply.
Key Form: Direct Debit
Victoria Forms provide a direct debit form specifically for housing, to allow applicants to set up direct debit payments for council rent online. Applicants must be the account holder, and the account must only require one authorisation in order to be able to use the online form.
Details are entered on page 3, which can also be printed out and used as a paper form. This layout has been approved by a number of banks as an accepted Direct Debit submission, and includes the Direct Debit Guarantee.
This form can be paired with our Bank Account Details and Sort Code checker, to ensure that the account details entered are able to pay direct debits – preventing account rejection and the associated costs.
Housing Forms Library
A number of forms for housing are ready-made and can be branded to your organisation straight away, using our innovative branding file and form configuration settings.
Should new forms be required – from existing paper forms, web forms or new from specification – our experienced design team are on hand to build intelligent online housing forms.
Features and Processing
Address Lookup
Using a snapshot of a back office property database, or a service such as Gazetteer, an address lookup functionality can be added to any eform to help claimants or assistive members of staff quickly find a valid address.
The address lookup service also provides a Unique Property Reference Number (UPRN) to accompany the property address, which helps with direct XML integration into Back Office Systems such as Northgate, which may require manual intervention without the UPRN.
Enterprise Forms Server
The Enterprise Forms Server is the core system for forms administration. It handles hosting of forms, user access to blank and filled forms, and processes completed forms.
A number of Add-On Modules are available to further enhance the functionality and usefulness of the system, tailored to your needs.