CORE - Alerts

CORE Website Closed Tonight (Thursday 1st June 2023) for Essential Maintenance Between 6.00pm and 8.00pm

01/06/2023

With apologies for the short notice, the CORE website needs to close tonight (Thursday 1st June 2023) between 6.00pm and 8.00pm for essential maintenance. The CORE website will not be available during this time, so please ensure any work you are carrying out is completed well before 6.00pm.

REMINDER! 2022/23 CORE Collection Closedown - Friday 9th June 2023

26/05/2023

The CORE online collection closedown deadline for 2022/23 data for both lettings and sales will close 2 weeks today on Friday 9th June 2022.

There will not be a soft deadline for this collection; this will be the final cut-off and logs should not be submitted or amended after this date.

Please submit all of your 2022/23 lettings and sales logs. You should also revisit your ‘Saved’ and ‘Invalid’ log records to ensure they submit as valid, where appropriate. You can download your invalid logs by selecting ‘Administration’ and then ‘Your Logs’.

If you have had queries sent to the CORE Helpdesk on this matter, please be aware that they will be attended to. Otherwise, and for any further queries, the CORE Helpdesk can be contacted at the customer portal: https://digital.dclg.gov.uk/jira/servicedesk/customer/portal/4/group/21 - (please choose the appropriate query type) or by telephone (0333 202 5084, available 09:00 - 17:30 on weekdays).

2022/23 Online Collection Closedown Deadline is now less than 4 weeks away (Friday 9th June 2023)

15/05/2023

The cut-off date for 2022/23 CORE data forms for both lettings and sales is less than 4 weeks today (Friday 9th June 2023). This will be the final cut-off for this collection and logs should not be submitted or amended after this date.

Please ensure that all 'Saved' and 'Invalid' log records all submit as valid, where appropriate, and that any duplicate and/or unnecessary records you are aware of are dropped.

Please contact the CORE Helpdesk for any help in submitting CORE data (https://digital.dclg.gov.uk/jira/servicedesk/customer/portal/4/group/21 0333 202 5084, open Mon - Fri, 09:00 - 17:30).

Social Housing Lettings in England, 2021-2022

13/04/2023

Today we published the latest CORE Lettings stats release – “Social Housing Lettings in England, 2021/22”.

The release is split into two reports:

1. “Tenancies” focuses on the tenancies, rents, properties, stock ‘churn’ – how frequently social housing is relet – and how long properties were vacant for.

2. “Tenants” focuses on the people living in new social housing lettings - where they lived previously, their route into social housing, how long tenants spent on waiting lists, and information about the tenants themselves.

You can find the full reports and summary data tables at: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/social-housing-lettings-in-england-april-2021-to-march-2022

We will be publishing an interactive dashboard that you can use to explore the data at local authority or provider level in the coming weeks.

We would like to thank you all for your continued submission of CORE data, without it we couldn’t produce this release. Your data and efforts enable us to produce a robust evidence base for developing and monitoring social housing policy, enable academics and charities to undertake research, enable the general public to be informed and much more.

CORE Easter and Spring Bank Holiday Closures 2023

05/04/2023

Please note that the CORE Helpdesk will be closed for the following Easter and Spring Bank Holidays:

Good Friday - Friday 7th April

Easter Monday - Monday 10th April

Early May Bank Holiday - Monday 1st May

Bank holiday for the coronation of King Charles III - Monday 8th May

Spring Bank Holiday - Monday 29th May

Happy Easter to all CORE users.

CORE Lettings and Sales 2023/24 Forms Now Live

01/04/2023

The 2023/24 CORE collection for Lettings and Sales opens today.

Please be careful to choose the correct year when submitting data.

You should use the new 2023/24 forms and bulk upload for any new lettings or sales made on or after 1 April 2023.

You should continue to use the 2022/23 forms and bulk upload for any new lettings or sales made between 1 April 2022 and 31 March 2023. The deadline for these logs is Friday 9 June 2023. All the materials you need to submit data are available on the 'Guides and Manuals' page of the CORE website, including:

1. Paper forms;

2. Bulk upload template;

3. Bulk upload specification; and

4. Documents showing the differences between the new 23/24 forms and the previous 22/23 forms.

What changes can you expect for 2023/24

You may have heard that we are making improvements to CORE, to make it easier and quicker for data providers to submit valid CORE data first time.

We’ve done lots of research and testing with users to make sure the questions and response options are:

1. clear;

2. easy to understand;

3. accessible (for example, for people who have dyslexia or use screen readers); and

4. presented in a logical, themed way.

In response to your feedback, we have added in question numbers to help you refer back to questions. We have also ensured that question wording and ordering matches exactly across the paper forms, online form and bulk upload materials to help you enter your data quickly and accurately.

Thank you for your continued submission of CORE data. Your data directly helps us to design policies to improve housing supply and affordability, and support housing providers to reduce homelessness and ensure vulnerable people get the homes they need.

Q3 Cut-off is a week today (Friday 13th January 2023)

06/01/2023

By way of a reminder, the Q3 CORE cut-off date for 2022/23 Lettings and Sales is a week today (Friday 13th January 2023).

Q2 Cut-off is a week today (14th October 2022)

07/01/2022

By way of a reminder, the Q2 CORE cut-off date for 2022/23 Lettings and Sales is a week today (Friday 14th October 2022).

Invitation to propose changes for the 2023/24 CORE Lettings and Sales forms

30/08/2022

The aim of this annual review is to understand emerging policy needs for CORE data and balance these against the burden on data providers of supplying information to central government. We also want to ensure that the terms we use and the response options we provide match what makes sense to you as providers of social housing.

CORE data is an essential tool for developing, implementing and monitoring policy on housing supply, affordability, allocations, homelessness and more.

Our consultation is open to all - data providers, internal and external policy and operational colleagues, researchers, charities, members of the public and anyone else who contributes to or uses CORE data.

Changes to the CORE forms might be additions, removals or amendments to questions, response options, guidance or functionality of the online system.

Please complete this form by Tuesday 20 September - https://forms.office.com/r/C50SqDBBWs

If you would like to discuss in more detail, please email: core@levellingup.gov.uk and we will be happy to help.

Thank you for your contributions to CORE. Without you, we cannot provide essential services to help vulnerable people in need of housing.

REMINDER! 2021/22 CORE Collection Closedown - Friday 3rd June 2022

27/05/2022

The CORE online collection closedown deadline for 2021/22 data for both lettings and sales will close a week today on Friday 3rd June 2022.

There will not be a soft deadline for this collection; this will be the final cut-off and logs should not be submitted or amended after this date.

Please submit all of your 2021/22 lettings and sales logs. You should also revisit your ‘Saved’ and ‘Invalid’ log records to ensure they submit as valid, where appropriate. You can download your invalid logs by selecting ‘Administration’ and then ‘Your Logs’. Guidance on how to do this is available from our 2021/22 CORE Online user guidance - Co-ordinators document, available from our 'Guides and Manuals' page.

REMINDER! 2021/22 CORE Collection Closedown - Friday 3rd June 2022

20/05/2022

The CORE online collection closedown deadline for 2021/22 data for both lettings and sales will close 2 weeks today on Friday 3rd June 2022.

There will not be a soft deadline for this collection; this will be the final cut-off and logs should not be submitted or amended after this date.

REMINDER! 2021/22 CORE Collection Closedown - Friday 3rd June 2022

09/05/2022

The CORE online collection closedown deadline for 2021/22 data for both lettings and sales will close in around 4 weeks’ time on Friday 3rd June 2022.

There will not be a soft deadline for this collection; this will be the final cut-off and logs should not be submitted or amended after this date.

Quarterly cut-off dates for 2022/23

09/05/2022

Please note that the quarterly CORE cut-off dates for the 2022/23 reporting year are as follows:

Q1 - Friday 15th July 2022 (for all new tenancies and sales starting between 1st April 2022 and 30th June 2022);

Q2 - Friday 14th October 2022 (for all new tenancies and sales starting between 1st July 2022 and 30th September 2022);

Q3 - Friday 13th January 2023 (for all new tenancies and sales starting between 1st October 2022 and 31st December 2022).

End-of-year hard deadline: Q4 plus all remaining 2022/23 logs - Friday 9th June 2023 (final cut-off for 2022/23 - i.e. 2022/23 Q4 plus any late submissions).

These quarterly cut-off dates are important as DLUHC supplies weekly rents data on a quarterly basis to the Office for National Statistics to create high-profile Government inflation statistics.

It is also in users' interests to meet the quarterly cut-off as only logs submitted by the deadline will be included in the dataset that feeds into the analysis tools and reports - so, therefore, a high completion rate equates to higher quality output for users' own analysis. Earlier submission will also reduce the burden on users at the end of the year when finalising their annual dataset.

Whilst every effort should be made to meet the above quarterly cut-off dates, if this is not possible, logs for tenancies and/or sales within that quarter should still be submitted after the cut-off so they are included in the finalised annual data.

CORE Easter Opening Hours 2022

11/04/2022

Please note that the CORE Helpdesk will be closed on Good Friday (15th April) and Bank Holiday Monday (18th April), reopening on Tuesday 19th April at 9.00am.

Happy Easter to all CORE users.

CORE Lettings and Sales 2022/23 Forms Now Live

01/04/2022

The 2022/23 CORE collection for Lettings and Sales opens today.

Please be careful to choose the correct year when submitting data.

You should use the new 2022/23 forms and bulk upload for any new lettings or purchases made on or after 1 April 2022.

You should continue to use the 2021/22 forms and bulk upload for any new lettings or purchases made between 1 April 2021 and 31 March 2022. The deadline for these logs is Friday 3 June 2022.

All the materials you need to submit data are available on the 'Guides and Manuals' page of the CORE website, including:

questions list
paper forms
bulk upload template
bulk upload specification

What changes can you expect for 2022/23

You may have heard that we are making improvements to CORE, to make it easier and quicker for data providers to submit valid CORE data first time.

We’ve done lots of research and testing with users to make sure the questions and response options are:

clear
easy to understand
accessible (for example, for people who have dyslexia or use screen readers)
presented in a logical, themed way

We have designed new versions of the online and paper forms to make them simpler and more straightforward to use.

CORE Lettings and Sales Paper Forms for 2022/23

25/03/2022

The 2022/23 CORE collection for Lettings and Sales will open on 1 April 2022.

Ahead of this, we have published the new paper forms for 2022/23 for both Lettings and Sales on the 'Guides and Manuals' page of the CORE website.

Earlier this year we also published the new 2022/23:

questions list
bulk upload template
bulk upload specification

You should use these for any new lettings or purchases made on or after 1 April 2022.

What changes can you expect?

You may have heard that we are making improvements to CORE to make it easier and quicker for data providers to submit valid CORE data first time.

We’ve done lots of research and testing with users to make sure the questions and response options are:

clear
easy to understand
accessible (for example, for people who have dyslexia or use screen readers)
presented in a logical, themed way

We have designed new versions of the paper forms to make them simpler and more straightforward to use.

CORE Sales Questions for 2022/23

04/03/2022

The 2022/23 CORE sales collection will open on 1 April 2022.

Ahead of this, we have published the new 2022/23 sales:

questions
bulk upload template
bulk upload specification

You should use these for any new sales completed on or after 1 April 2022.

We have not yet provided an updated paper sales log because we’re designing a new version to make it simpler and more straightforward to use. We’ll make this available before the 2022/23 collection opens.

What changes can you expect?

You may have heard that we are making improvements to CORE, to make it easier and quicker for data providers to submit valid CORE data first time.

We’ve updated the questions and response options to make sure they are:

clear
easy to understand
accessible (for example, for people who have dyslexia or use screen readers)
presented in a logical, themed way (including the paper lettings log)

The questions document shows the new questions for 2022/23 alongside the 2021/22 questions so you can see the differences.

You can find this document, and the bulk upload template and specification on the 'Guides and Manuals' page of the CORE website.

2022/23 CORE Lettings Questions Now Published

31/01/2022

The 2022/23 CORE lettings collection will open on 1 April 2022.

Ahead of this, we have published the new 2022/23 lettings:

questions
bulk upload template
bulk upload specification

You should use these for any new tenancies starting on or after 1 April 2022.

We have not yet provided an updated paper lettings log because we’re designing a new version to make it simpler and more straight-forward to use. We’ll make this available before the 2022/23 collection opens.

The Sales questions for 2022/23 (plus the bulk upload template and specification) will be published on 28 February 2022.

What changes can you expect?

You may have heard that we are making improvements to CORE, to make it easier and quicker for data providers to submit valid CORE data first time.

We’ve done lots of research and testing with users to make sure the questions and response options are:

clear
easy to understand
accessible (for example, for people who have dyslexia or use screen readers)
presented in a logical, themed way (including the paper lettings log)

The questions document shows the new questions for 2022/23 alongside the 2021/22 questions so you can see the differences. You can also find them on the 'Guides and Manuals' page on the CORE website.

The question and column order for the bulk upload template remains the same.

If you have any questions about these changes, you can contact the CORE Helpdesk here: https://digital.dclg.gov.uk/jira/servicedesk/customer/portal/4/group/21

What do you need to do next?

You should continue to use the existing 2021/22 questions and templates to collect and submit CORE data for:

new tenancies starting on or before 31 March 2022
new sales completing on or before 31 March 2022

The deadline for 2021/22 logs is Friday 3 June.

A short research activity

We would also like to make the way in which you answer the following question online easier to answer: ‘What is the tenant’s main reason for the household leaving their last settled home?’ We’ve put together this short exercise to get your feedback.

Q3 Cut-off is a week today (14th January 2022)

07/01/2022

By way of a reminder, the Q3 CORE cut-off date for 2021/22 Lettings and Sales is a week today (Friday 14th January 2022).

CORE Helpdesk - Christmas Opening Hours 2022

22/11/2020

The CORE Helpdesk opening hours for Christmas 2022 are as follows:

Friday 24th December 2021 - 9:00am - 3:00pm;

Monday 27th December 2021 and Tuesday 28th December 2021 - both Bank Holidays - closed;

Wednesday 29th December 2021 - Friday 31st December 2021 (New Year's Eve) - 9:00am - 3:00pm;

Monday 3rd January 2022 - Bank Holiday - closed; and

Tuesday 4th January 2022 (back to normal office hours) - 9:00am - 5:30pm.

Please note that particular queries may take a slightly longer time to respond to over the Christmas period. The Helpdesk will, however, return with a normal service on Tuesday 4th January 2022.

The CORE Helpdesk would like to wish all users of the system a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

CORE Helpdesk Telephony Issues

19/11/2021

UPDATE: The CORE Helpdesk telephone service is now back up and running once again. Calls can be made back to it on 0333 202 5084.

The CORE Helpdesk telephone service (0333 202 5084) currently has infrastructure hosting issues and cannot take calls.

We are aware of the issue, have engineers currently investigating and will keep you informed of progress.

In the meantime, please continue to submit queries using the CORE Helpdesk customer portal: https://digital.dclg.gov.uk/jira/servicedesk/customer/portal/4/group/21

Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience caused.

CORE Training Courses with Acuity Ltd. Throughout November 2021

27/10/2021

Are you new to CORE or need a refresher? If so, Acuity Research and Practice (Acuity) (a research and consultancy agency, specialising in social housing) are running some CORE Introductory/Refresher training courses over the next couple of months to help make sure you are collecting the data correctly and accurately.

CORE remains an essential tool for monitoring housing costs and affordability, turnover of stock, mobility within different client groups and general trends and patterns in respect of new tenants entering the social housing sector. Participating in CORE is highly beneficial, allowing landlords to review their lettings figures, produce performance information and explore trends in the sector. Ultimately, this allows them to manage their business more effectively. Training is a key part of any successful collection system in order to ensure high quality data is recorded.

All courses are run on-line (via Zoom/Teams) and are aimed at anyone working for a social landlord who is involved in the CORE process. The courses last about two hours and cover the background to CORE, reasons for collecting the data, common errors and how to avoid them and a step-by-step run through the lettings log. Training can also be arranged for those submitting sales logs.

The following dates are currently available: Tuesday 2nd November, Thursday 11th November and Tuesday 16th November.

If you are interested in attending any of these dates, please contact Pete Lomax at Acuity using the contact details below. Courses can also be arranged on different dates and tailored to meet your needs.

Alternatively, if it is an in-house course you would like, please also let Pete know.

For booking or further information, Pete can be contacted at Acuity, PO Box 395, Umberleigh, EX32 2HL. Telephone (01865) 594331 or 07939 158080. E-mail: pete.lomax@arap.co.uk

Acuity's website address is www.arap.co.uk.

Q2 Cut-off is a week tomorrow (15th October 2021)

07/10/2021

By way of a reminder, and for those who have not already contacted and heard back from us, the Q2 CORE cut-off date for 2021/22 Lettings and Sales is a week tomorrow (Friday 15th October 2021).

Invite to propose changes for the 2022/23 CORE Lettings and Sales forms

30/09/2021

We are seeking your views on changes to the CORE Lettings and Sales forms for the 2022/23 reporting year, i.e. for tenancies and sales taking place between 1 April 2022 and 31 March 2023.

The aim of this annual review is to understand emerging policy needs for CORE data and balance these against the burden on data providers of supplying information to central government.

CORE data is an essential tool for developing, implementing and monitoring policy on housing supply, affordability, allocations, homelessness and more.

Changes to the CORE forms might be additions, removals or amendments to questions, response options, guidance or functionality of the online system.

We are also particularly interested in your experiences answering the income, benefits and homelessness questions and any suggestions for improvements to these.

Please complete this form by Friday 22 October - https://forms.office.com/r/6ZMXvwBbyf

If you would like to discuss in more detail, please email CORE@communities.gov.uk and we will be happy to help.

Thank you for your contributions to CORE. Without you, we cannot provide essential services to help vulnerable people in need of housing.

Deactivating User's Accounts after 18 Months

09/09/2021

We are currently working to ensure we have accurate user details in our CORE system, as part of the CORE Quality Assurance process to ensure we keep up-to-date user details in the system and as part of our continued commitment to provide an efficient system to CORE users in general.

We will therefore be deactivating the accounts of all users (excluding Data Protection Officers accounts) who have not logged into the CORE system at any time over the past 18 months. All users who have recently, and continue to, log into their CORE accounts will not be affected by this new process.

We recommend that users who want to keep their account(s) active, should log into CORE now if they have not done so recently and ensure they do so regularly.

Users can contact their Coordinators or the CORE Helpdesk to reset their account(s) (if required) or use the reset password options on the CORE website.

Please note that this new process of deactivating users accounts who have not logged into the CORE system for the past 18 months will begin on the 28th September 2021 and continue on a monthly basis thereafter.

Quarterly cut-off dates for 2021/22

09/08/2021

Please note that the quarterly CORE cut-off dates for the 2021/22 reporting year are as follows:

Q1 - Friday 10th September 2021 (for all new tenancies and sales starting between 1st April 2021 and 30th June 2021);

Q2 - Friday 15th October 2021 (for all new tenancies and sales starting between 1st July 2021 and 30th September 2021);

Q3 - Friday 14th January 2022 (for all new tenancies and sales starting between 1st October 2021 and 31st December 2021).

End-of-year hard deadline: Q4 plus all remaining 2021/22 logs - Friday 3rd June 2022 (final cut-off for 2021/22 - i.e. 2021/22 Q4 plus any late submissions).

These quarterly cut-off dates are important as MHCLG supplies weekly rents data on a quarterly basis to the Office for National Statistics to create high-profile Government inflation statistics.

REMINDER! 2020/21 CORE Collection Closedown_ Friday 4th June 2021

28/05/2021

The CORE online collection closedown deadline for 2020/21 data for both lettings and sales will close next week on Friday 4th June 2021.

There will not be a soft deadline for this collection; this will be the final cut-off and logs should not be submitted or amended after this date.

Please submit all of your 2020/21 lettings and sales logs. You should also revisit your ‘Saved’ and ‘Invalid’ log records to ensure they submit as valid, where appropriate. You can download your invalid logs by selecting ‘Administration’ and then ‘Your Logs’. Guidance on how to do this is available from our 2020/21 CORE Online user guidance - Co-ordinators document, available from our 'Guides and Manuals' page.

If you have had queries sent to the CORE Helpdesk on this matter, please be aware that they will be attended to. Otherwise, and for any further queries, the CORE Helpdesk can be contacted at the customer portal: https://digital.dclg.gov.uk/jira/servicedesk/customer/portal/4/group/21 - (please choose the appropriate query type); by email (mhclg.digital-services@communities.gov.uk (please give the subject as "CORE - " followed by a summary of your query); or by telephone (0333 202 5084, available 09:00 - 17:30 on weekdays).

REMINDER! 2020/21 CORE Collection Closedown_ Friday 4th June 2021

21/05/2021

The CORE online collection closedown deadline for 2020/21 data for both lettings and sales will close in 2 weeks’ time on Friday 4th June 2021.

There will not be a soft deadline for this collection; this will be the final cut-off and logs should not be submitted or amended after this date.

If you have had queries sent to the CORE Helpdesk on this matter, please be aware that they will be attended to. Otherwise, and for any further queries, the CORE Helpdesk can be contacted at the customer portal: https://digital.dclg.gov.uk/jira/servicedesk/customer/portal/4/group/21 - (please choose the appropriate query type); by email (mhclg.digital-services@communities.gov.uk (please give the subject as "CORE - " followed by a summary of your query); or by telephone (0333 202 5084, available 09:00 - 17:30 on weekdays).

REMINDER! 2020/21 CORE Collection Closedown_ Friday 4th June 2021

10/05/2021

The CORE online collection closedown deadline for 2020/21 data for both lettings and sales will close in around 4 weeks’ time on Friday 4th June 2021.

There will not be a soft deadline for this collection; this will be the final cut-off and logs should not be submitted or amended after this date.

If you have had queries sent to the CORE Helpdesk on this matter, please be aware that they will be attended to. Otherwise, and for any further queries, the CORE Helpdesk can be contacted at the customer portal: https://digital.dclg.gov.uk/jira/servicedesk/customer/portal/4/group/21 - (please choose the appropriate query type); by email (mhclg.digital-services@communities.gov.uk (please give the subject as "CORE - " followed by a summary of your query); or by telephone (0333 202 5084, available 09:00 - 17:30 on weekdays).

CORE Site Research Recruitment Request

05/05/2021

As part of a project to improve CORE, we would like to speak to users of the CORE system to understand their needs and help us test out potential solutions to make the CORE submission process more user-friendly and efficient. If you are interested in taking part in a 45min - 1 hour research session, please fill in your details on this form, or contact fay.beverton@communities.gov.uk directly.

Social Housing in England, April to September 2020' Statistical Release

09/04/2021

We are pleased to inform you that we have now published the 'Social Housing Lettings in England, April to September 2020’ statistical release, also known as the CORE Lettings interim report. This is a one-off publication of half-year data to provide an initial insight into the impact of COVID-19 on new social housing lettings, including information about the tenants, their reason for moving, their tenancies, why properties were vacant and for how long.

We have published the related stats release and summary tables at https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/social-housing-lettings-in-england-april-to-september-2020. In Autumn 2021, we will be publishing the full year data as part of the usual annual release. We hope that this interim publication will serve as a pilot for a new series of quarterly CORE publications, bringing you more timely information for benchmarking against other organisations.

The MHCLG CORE Team wishes to warmly thank providers for all of their input. The publication is the culmination of much work from you and your colleagues, is very much appreciated and, indeed, cannot be done without this input. Your data and efforts enable us to produce a robust evidence base for developing and monitoring social housing policy, academics and charities to undertake research, the public to be informed and much more.

The 2021/22 CORE data collection is now live

01/04/2021

The 2021/22 CORE data collection is now live.

Please use the 2021/22 forms and eCORE (bulk upload) templates for all new lettings starting on or after 1st April 2020 and for all sales occurring on or after 1st April 2020. Please be careful when selecting which form to complete as the existing 2020/21 collection is still open.

The 2020/21 deadline is Friday 4th June. Please submit any remaining Lettings and Sales logs for 2020/21 by this date, including logs that are currently ‘saved’ (not fully complete) or ‘invalid’ (showing error messages). Please contact the CORE Helpdesk (details below) if you need assistance.

On the 'Guides and Manuals' page, you can find the new 2021/22 CORE documents which include:

CORE Manual (detailing the data to be collected with definitions);
Online user guidance (explaining how to use the CORE system, with versions for data providers, coordinators and the general public);
Log forms both with and without guidance notes (to be printed and used manually when collecting data from tenants/purchasers);
eCORE templates (to bulk upload data);
eCORE specifications (which set out each question for each log type and the required format); and
Data dictionaries (descriptions of the variables in the dataset that will be published via the ‘Analyse Data’ once logs have been submitted).

The versions of these documents for the existing 2020/21 year are still available on the 'Guides and Manuals' page.

The CORE Helpdesk can be contacted at https://digital.dclg.gov.uk/jira/servicedesk/customer/portal/4/group/21 or via 0333 202 5084 (open Mon - Fri, 09:00 - 17:30 – closed Good Friday and Easter Monday).

The data you provide through CORE is vital for us to understand trends in new tenancies and sales, stock churn and tenant characteristics, forming a crucial part of the allocations and homelessness evidence base. We thank you for your continued participation in CORE.

2021/22 Lettings And CORE Forms, Specifications And ECORE Templates

31/03/2021

Please note that the 2021/22 Lettings and Sales pdf log forms (both with and without guidance notes), eCORE templates and specifications, and updated online user guidance are now available to download from the 'Guides and Manuals' page of the CORE website. All changes from the previous year are indicated in red text throughout.

These materials should be used for new tenancies starting, and new sales taking place, on or after 1st April 2021.

The CORE Manual and data dictionaries for the 2021/22 reporting year will all be available when we go live with the new data collection on 1st April.

These materials should be used for new tenancies starting, and new sales taking place, on or after 1st April 2021.

The current 2020/21 collection remains open until 4th June.

Thank you for your continued cooperation.

CORE Easter Opening Hours 2021

18/03/2021

Please note that the CORE Helpdesk will be closed on Good Friday (2nd April) and Bank Holiday Monday (5th April), reopening on Tuesday 6th April at 9.00am.

Happy Easter to all CORE users.

Short Survey on Improving CORE Data Collection

05/03/2021

In response to feedback from data providers, MHCLG have started a project to look at how we can improve the CORE data collection. As part of this, we will be investigating options for streamlining the submission of data. We know that some data providers use a range of systems to compile their CORE data - understanding more about how common this is would help inform our work. We would be extremely grateful if you could spare some time to complete a short survey (less than 10 minutes to complete) to help us capture some of this complexity. The survey will close on 16th March.

The information we gather will be used for research purposes only. Please contact us for a copy of our privacy policy detailing how data will be used and stored.

This survey should be answered by someone in your organisation with knowledge of your internal processes for collecting, storing and submitting housing data for central government. If you think you are not the right person, please forward this e-mail to a relevant colleague.

If you have particular challenges or issues which you think we would find useful, then please contact fay.beverton@communities.gov.uk

Many thanks in advance for your participation.

CORE Quarter 3 2020/21 Deadline

04/01/2021

Please note that the Quarter 3 deadline for all CORE input of Lettings and Sales forms for 2020/21 is Friday 8th January 2021.

'Social Housing Lettings in England, April 2019 to March 2020’ statistical release

18/12/2020

We are pleased to inform you that we have now published the 'Social Housing Lettings in England, April 2019 to March 2020’ statistical release, also known as CORE Lettings. This release covers new social housing lettings by local authorities and private registered providers. We have published the related stats release, infographic, maps and summary tables on www.gov.uk. In the new year, we will publishing data the within the website, upon which data providers will be able to access reports and interactive tools for their local area and compare these against national totals through the 'Analyse CORE Data' page.

CORE Helpdesk - Christmas Opening Hours 2020

09/12/2020

CORE Helpdesk opening hours for Christmas 2020 are as follows:

Thursday 24th December - 9:00am - 3:00pm

Christmas Day and Bank Holiday Monday (28th December) - Closed

Tuesday 29th December and Wednesday 30th December - 9:00am to 5:00pm

New Year's Eve (Friday 31st December) - 9:00am to 3:00pm

New Year's Day (Monday 1st January) - Closed

Tuesday 4th January - Back to Normal Office hours (9:00am to 5:30pm)

Please note that particular queries may take a slightly longer time to respond to over the Christmas period. The Helpdesk will, however, return with a normal service on Monday 4th January 2021.

The CORE Helpdesk would like to wish all users of the system a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

CORE Training with Acuity Training - Latest News

24/11/2020

Acuity Research & Practice Ltd. (Acuity) (a research and consultancy agency, specialising in social housing) run all the CORE training courses with the course remaining one of the key elements of the research training programme.

Acuity continues to provide training to social landlords aimed at improving their understanding and management of CORE and promoting the use of CORE data. Two types of training are available (although this can be mixed and matched to suit your requirements):

1. Introductory/Refresher course (training for front line staff involved in CORE)

2. Advanced course. Management of CORE process, analysis and use of CORE data (for Co-ordinators, Housing Managers, Policy and Research staff)

Courses are currently being offered via an online webinar to groups of up to six participants, either from different organisations or they can be run for an in-house team. The courses are around two hours, with a short break, and run via zoom conferencing. The courses are designed to improve learning and understanding around CORE and can be tailored to individual needs.

Current courses will be run online for up to 6 people per session. Delegates will need access to a PC/laptop with internet access. Dates can be arranged to fit the groups and courses are now available.

For more information about any of the courses and costs, please contact: Pete Lomax, Research Project Manager at Acuity on 07939 158080 or pete.lomax@arap.co.uk

2018/19 Data Available via Reports, Graphical Tools and Download

16/09/2020

We are pleased to announce that the 2018/19 CORE Lettings data is now available for use via .pdf reports, interactive graphical analysis tools and via .csv download. These are available to all at national (England) level and local authority area level, and at organisation level (for your organisation only) when logged in as either a data provider or coordinator.

We apologise for the delay in publishing this data this year. We encountered several technical difficulties which took longer to resolve than we had hoped. We are continuing to work on these to ensure the 2019/20 data will be available via the CORE website tools much sooner after the National Statistics release.

To access the data, please go to the 'Analyse CORE Data' page of the CORE website, select the type of analysis/report/download required and select the dataset called '2018/19 Final Data'.

The national level data is in line with the data published in our National Statistics release 'Social Housing Lettings in England: April 2018 to March 2019', published in January 2020, although none of the data in the CORE system is weighted or imputed. The national report, summary tables, infographic and maps are available at https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/social-housing-lettings-in-england-april-2018-to-march-2019.

At local authority and organisation level, there are certain restrictions on the data shown to prevent the risk of disclosing sensitive information in cases of small numbers.

Invite for Proposals for Change for 2021/22 CORE Logs - Reminder

12/10/2020

A reminder to users that the closing date to propose changes to CORE logs for the 2021/22 reporting year for all new social housing lettings and sales from 1st April 2021 is this Friday (16th October 2020).

Please return completed forms to CORE@communities.gov.uk

Invite for Proposals for Change for 2021/22 CORE Logs

16/09/2020

MHCLG is inviting users to propose changes to CORE logs for the 2021/22 reporting year for all new social housing lettings and sales from 1st April 2021.

The annual review will, as usual, balance emerging policy needs with the need to manage the overheads on social housing providers. It also aims to, for example:

* ensure that existing questions and guidance are still relevant or amended where clarity is required by you or your users;

* consistency can be checked against other data sources;

* views can be sought as to whether existing potentially obsolete questions can be removed; and

* proposals can be sought for any necessary changes arising from any new policy.

This also represents an ideal opportunity for users who have contacted MHCLG during the past year with feedback on the CORE process to have that now recognised officially.

This form, which is available here and can also be found on the website at 'Learn about CORE' > 'Guides and Manuals' and in the 2021/22 section (there's no need to log in to this part of the website to access this), also provides full details about the consultation process including the criteria that must be followed. One form should be completed for each proposed alteration you would like considered.

The consultation will close on Friday 16th October 2020.

Please send forms to CORE@communities.gov.uk

For your reference, the current (2020/21) Lettings log form can be found here and the Sales log form here

Remaining quarterly cut-off dates for 2020/21

01/09/2020

Please note that the remaining quarterly CORE cut-off dates (for quarters 2, 3 and 4) for the 2020/21 reporting year are as follows:

Q2 - Friday 9th October 2020 (for all new tenancies and sales starting 1st July 2020 to 30th September 2020);

Q3 - Friday 8th January 2021 (for all new tenancies and sales starting 1st September 2020 to 31st December 2020); and

End-of-year hard deadline: Q4 plus all remaining 2020/21 logs - Friday 4th June 2021 (final cut-off for 2020/21 - i.e. 2020/21 Q4 plus any late submissions).

These quarterly cut-off dates are important as MHCLG supplies weekly rents data on a quarterly basis to the Office for National Statistics to create high-profile Government inflation statistics.

2019/20 Collection Closedown

28/07/2020

CORE online data collection for 2019/20 has now closed. This is the final cut-off; logs cannot now be submitted for 2019/20 and we cannot accept any new or edited logs. We would like to thank all organisations and users for submitting logs during this year.

If, however, users find any major issues within their input which affect large numbers of incorrectly submitted data and forms, then please contact us at the CORE Helpdesk either at the customer portal: https://digital.dclg.gov.uk/jira/servicedesk/customer/portal/4/group/21, where enquiries are likely to be resolved more quickly as they will automatically be assigned to the correct team and the portal will prompt you for the specific information that we need to resolve your query, based on query type); or by e-mail - mhclg.digital-services@communities.gov.uk (giving the subject as "CORE - " followed by a summary of your issue).

New CORE Helpdesk Customer Portal Arrangements Starting on Monday 27th July 2020

24/07/2020

Our contact details are changing. From Monday 27th July we are introducing a new online customer portal for the CORE Helpdesk and updating our email address. There is no change to our telephone line.

We strongly recommend that when contacting us you use the customer portal.

Queries received through the portal are likely to be resolved quicker than those received by email as they will automatically be assigned to the correct team to help you, based on query type. In addition, the portal will prompt you for the specific information that we need to resolve your query, based on query type, reducing the need for subsequent emails.

Before contacting us remember to check the existing guidance on the 'Guides and Manuals' page to see if your query is answered there. The 'CORE Manual' also provides definitions and guidance on answering form questions, and the online user guides explain how to use the CORE system (with screenshots).

Our new contact details are:

Customer portal: https://digital.dclg.gov.uk/jira/servicedesk/customer/portal/4/group/21 - please choose the appropriate query type.

Our email address is mhclg.digital-services@communities.gov.uk; please give the subject as “CORE –“ followed by a summary of your query.

Telephone: 0333 202 5084 – available 9.00am - 5.30pm on weekdays.

19/20 CORE Lettings and Sales deadline extended to Friday 26th June

08/06/2020

Thank you to everyone who submitted their 19/20 CORE logs before last Friday’s deadline. We have seen good submission levels, with the majority of expected 19/20 logs already submitted.

However, we recognise that in light of current circumstances not every individual organisation has been able to meet the deadline. As a result, we are extending the deadline to Friday 26th June. This applies for all organisations, including those who have already contacted us regarding an extension.

Please contact us urgently with any queries or issues with submitting logs. Our helpdesk is happy to assist you. We can be reached at core@tso.co.uk or 0333 202 5084 (open Mon – Fri, 09:00 – 17:30).

Reminders:

Please be careful when submitting logs by ensuring you select the correct reporting year to capture the correct year’s information.

Please also ensure that any existing saved logs are completed, validated and submitted.

The data you provide through CORE is vital for us to understand trends in new tenancies and sales, stock churn and tenant characteristics, forming a crucial part of the allocations and homelessness evidence base, amongst others. We thank you for your continued participation in CORE.

CORE 2019/20 Lettings and Sales Logs Closedown Next Week (5th June 2020)

29/05/2020

The deadline for all logs to be submitted for the 2019/20 reporting year is next Friday (5th June 2020). We would appreciate it if you can continue to submit all Lettings and Sales logs for the 2019/20 reporting year by this date, ensuring all currently saved and invalid logs are validated and submitted.

Please get in touch with the CORE Helpdesk (details below) about any particular issues or queries regarding your data returns. Please be careful when submitting logs by ensuring you select the correct reporting year to capture the correct year’s information, although our validations in the log form should notify you if you have chosen incorrectly. The data you provide through CORE is vital for us to understand trends in new tenancies and sales, stock churn and tenant characteristics, forming a crucial part of the allocations and homelessness evidence base.

The CORE Helpdesk can be contacted at core@tso.co.uk or 0333 202 5084 (open Mon – Fri, 09:00 – 17:30)

New Buckinghamshire Area Supported Housing CORE Lettings Log Forms for 2019/20 and 2020/21 Can Now Be Submitted

04/05/2020

Further to our previous Alert on the subject on 2/4/2020 (see below), Supported Housing Lettings logs for the new Buckinghamshire local authority area for either 2019/20 and 2020/21 can now be submitted.

CORE Helpdesk Easter Closure 2020

06/04/2020

The CORE Helpdesk will be closed on Good Friday (10th April) and Easter Bank Holiday Monday (13th April) and will re-open on Tuesday 14th April at 9.00am. Happy Easter to everyone from the CORE Helpdesk and the MHCLG CORE Team.

Currently not able to Submit Supported Housing CORE Form logs for the new Buckinghamshire Area for 2019/20 and 2020/21

02/04/2020

Yesterday, 2020/21 CORE logs went live enabling users to submit forms for the year ahead. However, it currently is not possible to submit Supported Housing logs for lettings in the new local authority area of Buckinghamshire (previously and separately, Aylesbury Vale, Chiltern, South Bucks and Wycombe) for either 2019/20 or 2020/21. We expect to resolve this within a couple of weeks and will alert you again when this is fixed.

General Needs Lettings and Sales logs for Buckinghamshire can still be submitted, as can logs for all other areas.

2020_21 Lettings and Sales Logs now Live

01/04/2020

Today, on 1 April 2020, we have opened the collection for the new 2020/21 reporting year. These 2020/21 logs are for all tenancies starting on or after 1st April 2020 and for all sales occurring on or after 1st April 2020. Please submit logs shortly after the tenancy or purchase date in each case where you can, or at a later stage if need be, either through the manual online form or via eCORE (bulk upload) in the same way as for previous years.

For the 2019/20 reporting year the deadline for all logs to be submitted is Friday 5th June. We would appreciate it if you can continue to submit all Lettings and Sales logs for the 2019/20 reporting year by this date, ensuring all currently saved and invalid logs are validated and submitted. Please get in touch with the CORE Helpdesk (details below) about any particular issues or queries regarding your data returns.

Please be careful when submitting logs by ensuring you select the correct reporting year to capture the correct year’s information, although our validations in the log form should notify you if you have chosen incorrectly.

On the 'Guides and Manuals' page, you can find the new 2020/21 CORE documents which include the following:

1. CORE Manual (detailing the data to be collected with definitions);

2. Online user guidance (explaining how to use the CORE system. This document has 3 versions: Data Provider, Coordinator and the general public);

3. Log forms both with and without guidance notes (to be printed and used manually when collecting data from tenants/purchasers);

4. eCORE templates (to bulk upload data);

5. eCORE specifications (which set out each question for each log type and the required format); and

6. Log change guidance (listing the changes made for the 2020/21 reporting year).

The versions of these documents for 2019/20 are still available on the 'Guides and Manuals' page.

The CORE Helpdesk can be contacted at core@tso.co.uk or 0333 202 5084 (open Mon - Fri, 09:00 - 17:30).

Publication of 2018/19 CORE Data

29/01/2020

We are pleased to inform you that we have now published the 'Social Housing Lettings in England 2018/19' statistical release, also known as CORE Lettings. This release covers new social housing lettings by local authorities and private registered providers. We have published the related stats release, infographic, maps and summary tables on gov.uk, the United Kingdom Government public sector information website. We will then also be publishing data within the CORE system shortly, following which data providers will be able to access reports and interactive tools for their local area and compare these against national totals through the 'Analyse CORE Data' page on the CORE website.

The MHCLG CORE Team wishes to warmly thank providers for all their input. The publication is the culmination of much work from you and your colleagues, is very much appreciated and, indeed, cannot be done without this input; this of course being one of the datasets we receive from local government as well as private registered providers to help inform Ministers on social housing policy.

The CORE Helpdesk remains on hand to answer any queries you might have. Please send all queries to core@tso.co.uk or 0333 202 5084 (open Mon - Fri, 9 - 5.30).

2020/21 Lettings and CORE Forms, Specifications and eCORE Templates

23/01/2020

Please note that the 2020/21 eCORE templates and specifications and log forms (both with and without guidance notes) for Lettings and Sales are all now available to download from the 'Guides and Manuals' page of the CORE website. All changes from the previous year are indicated in red text throughout. A log change guidance document detailing all of the changes and their rationale is also available via the same page.

These templates and specifications should be used for tenancies starting on or after 1st April 2020. It will not be possible to upload eCORE files for 2020/21 to the CORE website until after this date.

We are currently finalising the updated online user guidance, CORE Manual and data dictionaries for the 2020/21 data collection year, which will all be available when we go live with the new data collection in April.

All outstanding (including any saved and invalid) 2019/20 log forms for all lettings and sales which have begun or will begin up to Tuesday 31 March 2020 can and indeed should continue to be input, submitted and validated. By way of a reminder, the quarter 3 deadline for all CORE log input and validation is now a week tomorrow (Friday 31st January) (as per our previous 'Alert' message).

The MHCLG CORE Team wishes to thank all users for their continued cooperation using the CORE system.

Remaining quarterly cut-off dates for 2019/20

15/01/2020

Please note that the remaining quarterly CORE cut-off dates (for quarters 3 and 4) for the 2019/20 reporting year are as follows:

Q3 - Friday 31 January (for all new tenancies and sales starting 1 October 2019 to 31 December 2019).

End of year hard deadline: Q4 plus all remaining 2019/20 logs - 5th June 2020 (final cut-off for 2019/20 - i.e. 2019/20 Q4 plus any late submissions).

These quarterly cut-off dates are important as MHCLG supply weekly rents data on a quarterly basis to the Office for National Statistics to create high-profile Government inflation statistics.

Whilst all effort should be made to meet the above quarterly cut-off dates, if this is not possible, logs for tenancies and/or sales within that quarter should still be submitted after the cut-off so they are included in the finalised annual data.

CORE Helpdesk - Christmas Opening Hours 2019

13/12/2019

Tuesday 24th December - 9:00am - 3:00pm.

Christmas Day and Boxing Day - Closed.

Friday 27th December - 9:00am to 5:00pm.

Monday 30th December - 9:00am to 5:00pm.

Tuesday 31st December - 9:00am to 3:00pm.

Wednesday 1st January - Closed.

Thursday 2nd January - Back to Normal Office hours (9:00am to 5:30pm)

Please note that particular queries may take a slightly longer time to respond to over the Christmas period. The Helpdesk will, however, return with a normal service on Monday 6th January 2020.

The CORE Helpdesk wish all users of the system a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

CORE 2020/21 proposed log changes for Lettings and Sales

10/12/2019

We invite you to feedback on our proposed changes for the 2020/21 CORE Lettings and Sales forms. These changes are the result of suggestions from policy colleagues, data providers and other stakeholders following the recent consultation on changes needed. A description of the changes and how they would look in the form can be found here

If you have any feedback or concerns with any of the changes, please contact core@communities.gov.uk putting 'Feedback for 2020_21 Lettings and sales forms' in the subject field by the end of Friday 13th December 2019.

We really appreciate your feedback and your contribution to ensure CORE data collection continues to meet the needs of our users and is a really valuable source of data to guide policy on social housing.

Invite for Proposals for Change for 2020/21 CORE Logs - Final Call for Responses to Consultation

31/10/2019

This is a reminder to users of our consultation on proposals for changes for 2020/21 CORE logs (see below). The original deadline for responses from users is today but we are now extending this until the middle of next week. By way of a reminder, the consultation is open to any and all CORE users. To submit a proposal for change, please complete and submit this form and send it to core@communities.gov.uk by Wednesday 6th November.

Invite for Proposals for Change for 2020/21 CORE Logs

01/10/2019

MHCLG is inviting users to propose changes to CORE logs for the 2020/21 reporting year for all new social housing lettings and sales from 1st April 2020.

The annual review will, as usual, balance emerging policy needs with the need to manage the overheads on social housing providers. It also aims to, for example:

* ensure that existing questions and guidance are still relevant or amended where clarity is required by you or your users;

* consistency can be checked against other data sources;

* views can be sought as to whether existing potentially obsolete questions can be removed; and

* proposals can be sought for any necessary changes arising from any new policy.

This also represents an ideal opportunity for users who have contacted MHCLG during the past year with feedback on the CORE process to have that now recognised officially.

This form also provides full details about the consultation process including the criteria that must be followed. One form should be completed for each proposed alteration you would like considered.

The consultation will close on Thursday 31st October 2019.

For your reference, the current (2019/20) Lettings log form can be found here: 2019/20 Lettings Log and the Sales log form here: 2019/20 Sales Log

CORE Access and Function Issues Resolved

13/08/2019

We are pleased to report that CORE access and function issues discovered during the latter part of last week have now been resolved after work carried out by our technical colleagues on Friday evening. Users can now resume submitting logs once again. Thank you for your patience on this matter and please accept our apologies for any inconvenience caused.

CORE Access and Function Issues - Friday 9th August 2019 update

09/08/2019

We have not been able to resolve the CORE issues we first notified you of yesterday. Please accept our apologies for the problems we are all facing while this continues. Please do not create, save or send CORE logs while these issues remain. Our technical colleagues are conducting a technical exercise this evening which we hope will resolve matters and we will review the outcome of this on Monday morning. Our apologies again.

CORE Access and Function Issues

08/08/2019

You may be aware that CORE may not be granting users access to the system and, if it does, that users may then not be able to perform functions in the system. In both cases, this may be taking far longer than usual as well.

For the time being, please do not enter any logs on to the CORE system. We are aware of the issue and have been in contact with our technical colleagues to resolve it urgently. We will contact you again tomorrow (9/8/19) with an update and hope you will soon be able to regain access to the system and enter logs again.

Publishing of Q3 2018/19 data and soft cut-off for Q1 2019/20

25/06/2019

The CORE Lettings data for Quarter 3 2018/19 is now available to view through the reporting tools and to download via the system.

The figures in this report should be regarded as provisional since they will not include any late submissions for the quarter. We hope this delivers value to data providers by enabling more timely comparisons against national and local totals across a range of tenancy, demographic and property indicators.

We seize this opportunity to announce that the soft cut-off deadline for Quarter 1 2019/20 will be Friday 12th July.

Please endeavour to meet this deadline as only logs submitted by the cut-off date will be included in the dataset that feeds into the analysis tools and reports – so a high completion rate equates to higher quality output for your own analysis. Earlier submission will also reduce the burden at the end of the year when finalising the annual dataset. Also, this data forms part of a key quarterly government inflation figure – the Retail Price Index (RPI) – so it is important the data is as complete as possible by this deadline.

Please contact the Helpdesk if you encounter any problems in accessing the data or submitting logs. Please send all queries to core@tso.co.uk or 0333 202 5084 (open Mon - Fri, 9 - 5.30).

2018/19 Online Collection Closedown today - (Friday 7th June 2019)

07/06/2019

Today is the cut-off day for both lettings and sales on the CORE system. Unless you have notified us otherwise, today will be the final cut-off and 2018/19 logs should not be submitted after today.

Please ensure that any 'Saved' and 'Invalid' log records all submit as valid, where appropriate. Please ensure all questions on logs that involve compulsory responses from users have been answered and that, for example, all Data Protection Sharing Privacy Notice responses to individual logs and bulk uploads have been included. Please also ensure that any duplicate and/or unnecessary records you are aware of are dropped.

The CORE Helpdesk is on hand to help you complete your 2018/19 forms. They can be contacted at core@tso.co.uk or on 0333 202 5084 until 5.30pm today and from 9.00am on Monday as regards 2019/20 CORE forms.

2018/19 Online Collection Closedown Deadline is 1 week today (Friday 7th June 2019)

31/05/2019

The cut-off date for 2018/19 CORE data forms for both lettings and sales is 1 week today (Friday 7th June). This will be the final cut-off for this collection and logs should not be submitted or amended after this date.

Please ensure that all 'Saved' and 'Invalid' log records all submit as valid, where appropriate, and that any duplicate and/or unnecessary records you are aware of are dropped.

If you are having difficulties in meeting this deadline and have not already notified us, please contact the CORE Helpdesk for this or any help in submitting CORE data (core@tso.co.uk or 0333 202 5084, open Mon - Fri, 09:00 - 17:30).

2018/19 Online Collection Closedown Deadline is 2 weeks today (Friday 7th June 2019)

24/05/2019

The cut-off date for 2018/19 CORE data forms for both lettings and sales is 2 weeks today (Friday 7th June). This will be the final cut-off for this collection and logs should not be submitted or amended after this date.

Please ensure that all 'Saved' and 'Invalid' log records all submit as valid, where appropriate, and that any duplicate and/or unnecessary records you are aware of are dropped.

Please contact the CORE Helpdesk for any help in submitting CORE data (core@tso.co.uk or 0333 202 5084, open Mon - Fri, 09:00 - 17:30).

CORE: 2018/19 Online Collection Closedown

01/05/2019

The cut-off for 2018/19 data returns for both lettings and sales will be Friday 7th June. There will not be a soft deadline for this collection; this will be the final cut-off and logs should not be submitted or amended after this date.

Please revisit your 'Saved' and 'Invalid' log records to ensure they submit as valid, where appropriate. Guidance on how to do this is available in our '2018_19 CORE Online Data Collection Guidance Data Provider' document available from our 'Guides and Manuals' page.

If your organisation has not submitted logs since 25th May 2018, you will be unable to submit logs until you have carried out the necessary processes to confirm all GDPR requirements have been met.

Please contact the CORE Helpdesk for help submitting data into CORE (core@tso.co.uk or 0333 202 5084, open Mon - Fri, 09:00 - 17:30).

CORE Documents now able to be downloaded again in CORE

05/04/2019

Further to our previous release on 3rd April 2019 (see below), users are once again now able to download files from the 'Guides and Manuals' page using Google Chrome. Google Chrome remains the recommended browser for using the CORE system.

2019/20 CORE Lettings and Sales Logs now live

03/04/2019

Users are now able to submit Lettings and Sales logs for the 2019/20 reporting year. These logs should be used for all tenancies starting on or after 1 April 2019 and for all sales occurring on or after 1 April 2019. Logs can be submitted either through the manual online form or via eCORE bulk upload in the same manner as for previous years.

Users will still be able to submit Lettings and Sales logs for the 2018/19 reporting year during April, May and June 2019.

Please be careful when submitting logs by ensuring you select the correct reporting year.

On the 'Guides and Manuals' page, you can find the updated 2019/20 CORE documents. These include the 2019/20:

1. CORE Manual (detailing the data to be collected with definitions);

2. online user guidance (explaining how to use the CORE system with 3 versions, one for each of Data Providers, Coordinators and members of the public);

3. log forms with and without guidance notes;

4. CORE bulk upload templates (to be used to bulk upload data);

5. eCORE specifications (explaining how to use the bulk upload); and

6. log change guidance (listing the changes made for the 2019/20 reporting year)

Currently, there is an issue downloading files for the Guides and Manuals page using Chrome. This is being investigated and you will be updated when the issue is resolved.

A temporary solution to the issue is to use a different browser (Internet Explorer or Microsoft Edge). This will allow you to download as normal.

Please send all queries to core@tso.co.uk or 0333 202 5084 (open Mon - Fri, 09:00 - 17:30).

2019/20 Lettings and Sales Forms and eCORE Templates

05/03/2019

Please note that the 2019/20 eCORE templates and specifications and log forms both with and without guidance notes for Lettings and Sales are all now available to download from the 'Guides and Manuals' page of the CORE website. Changes are indicated in red throughout. A log change guidance document detailing all of the changes and their rationale is also available via the same page.

UPDATE (21/03/2019): The eCORE templates and specifications have been updated to fix an error. Please ensure you are using the most recent versions available on the 'Guides and Manuals' page of the CORE website.

These templates and specifications should be used for tenancies starting on or after 1st April 2019. It will not be possible to upload eCORE files for 2019/20 to the CORE website until after this date.

We are currently finalising the updated online user guidance, CORE Manual and data dictionaries for the 2019/20 data collection year, which will all be available when we go live with the new data collection in April.

2018/19 Quarter 1 and 2 Data Published

05/03/2019

We are pleased to inform you that the data for quarters 1 and 2 of the 2018/19 data collection is now available to view through the reporting tools and to download via the system.

As mentioned in a previous bulletin, going forward we will be publishing quarterly management information through the Analyse CORE Data page of the website. These should be regarded as provisional since they will not include any late submissions for these quarters. We hope this delivers value to data providers by enabling more timely comparisons against national and local totals across a range of tenancy, demographic and property indicators.

Please contact the Helpdesk if you encounter any problems in accessing the data. Please send all queries to core@tso.co.uk or 0333 202 5084 (open Mon - Fri, 9 - 5.30).

Publication of 2017/18 CORE Data

16/01/2019

We are pleased to inform you that the data for the 2017/18 data collection is now available to view through the reporting tools and to download via the system. It is available at national and local authority levels via graphical tools and .pdf reports. If you as a data provider, you can also access data for your own organisation.

The national level data is in line with the data published in our National Statistics release 'Social Housing Lettings in England: April 2017 to March 2018', published on 28th November 2018, although none of the data in the CORE system is weighted or imputed.

At local authority level, there are certain restrictions on the data shown to prevent the risk of disclosing sensitive information. In the supported housing datasets, there are also a number of cases where the scheme page did not have the right local authority information so it will not be shown.

To access the data, please go to the 'Analyse CORE Data' page of the website, select the type of analysis required and select the dataset called '2017/18 Final Data'. You can then view the data in counts or as percentages. The year-on-year comparison is currently unavailable.

Please contact the Helpdesk if you encounter any problems in accessing the data. Please send all queries to core@tso.co.uk or 0333 202 5084 (open Mon - Fri, 9 - 5.30).

2018 e-Bulletin August

24/08/2018

The August 2018 Bulletin containing information on recent and upcoming changes and how these affect you has been published. Please see here for more information: 2018 eBulletin - August. Key items include:

1. Revised 2016/17 data available on the CORE website.

2. Quarterly data to be published through the system.

3. Quarterly submission cut-off dates.

4. Call for proposals for 2019/20 log forms review.

5. Updated data sharing agreement.

REMINDER! Collection Closedown_ 6th August 2018

30/07/2018

This is a one week reminder that the CORE online collection closedown for 2017/18 data for both lettings and sales is fast approaching and will close on Monday 6^th August 2018.

As stated in our earlier alert, there will not be a soft deadline for this collection; this will be the final cut off and logs should not be submitted or amended after this date.

Please ensure to submit all your 2017/18 logs. You can also revisit your ‘Saved’ and ‘Invalid’ log records to ensure they submit as valid where appropriate. Guidance on how to do this is available in our ‘ 2018_19_CORE_Online_Data_Collection_Guidance_Coordinator’ document available from our Guides and Manuals page

If you have had queries sent to the CORE helpdesk on this matter, please be aware that they will be attended to. Otherwise for further queries, Please contact the CORE help desk for help submitting data into CORE (CORE@tso.co.uk

CORE: 2017/18 Online Collection Closedown

06/07/2018

The cut-off for 2017/18 data returns for both lettings and sales will be Monday 6^th August. There will not be a soft deadline for this collection; this will be the final cut off and logs should not be submitted or amended after this date.

Please ensure you revisit your ‘Saved’ and ‘Invalid’ log records to ensure they submit as valid where appropriate. Guidance on how to do this is available in our ‘2018_19_CORE_Online_Data_Collection_Guidance_Coordinator’ document available from our Guides and Manuals page

We would like to remind you of the changes made to the CORE data collection process due to GDPR and highlight that these changes will result in organisations not being able to submit data until they have set up a data protection officer and have signed the data sharing agreement.

If you are unable to submit logs, please first check that your organisation has set up a data protection officer and signed the agreement. The CORE Helpdesk (details below) will be able to confirm if your organisation has created a data protection officer user account. To check if your organisation’s data protection officer has signed the Agreement, select ‘Administration’ and then, in the ‘Institution Information’ section, select ‘Data Protection Details’. This screen will then need to be completed.

To set up the data protection officer and sign the agreement please see the guidance in the GDPR alert towards the top of the CORE website alert page: https://core.communities.gov.uk/content/COREAlerts.html

Please contact the CORE help desk for help submitting data into CORE (CORE@tso.co.uk)

General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)

On 25th May, the new General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) came into effect. The changes made to the collections process to ensure CORE is compliant are now in effect. If not done so already, Institutions need to complete the steps below to continue submitting data without disruption:

Create a Data Protection Officer CORE user.

Coordinators should select 'Administration' > 'Manage Your Institution's Users' and then select the 'Create New User' link at the bottom of the screen, complete the details of their organisation's Data Protection Officer and then select 'Save'. A Data Protection Officer user type has no facility to either input or monitor data their colleagues have input on CORE; it is purely for data protection purposes.

The Data Protection Officer is required to read the new CORE data sharing agreement and sign on behalf of their institution. Note: MHCLG do not require a signed copy of this agreement to be returned, this is for the institution's records.

The Data Protection Officer must log onto the CORE website and electronically confirm that the data sharing agreement has been signed, via a tick box. Note: If an Institution has not carried out this step, that Institution will not be able to submit data into CORE until they have completed this step.

Institutions submitting data must confirm the tenant/buyer referred to in the letting/sale log has seen the new privacy notice. When data providers are submitting data into CORE, they are required to confirm this step has been taken for each log submitted by ticking a box before submitting data. Note: This must be carried out for each log and applies to both data collections currently open (2017/18 and 2018/19).

GDPR affects all data, not just newly collected data. So Institutions must make Annex 2 of the data sharing agreement available to all of their social housing tenants. MHCLG understand that it is practically impossible to share Annex 2 with all past tenants. Instead Annex 2 should be shared via a method of communication to be determined locally, which is proportionate in meeting tenants/buyers rights to be informed of how their data are shared.

If you have any questions or concerns on the above, please send an e-mail to the CORE helpdesk at core@tso.co.uk under the subject "Data Protection"

Publication of 2016/17 CORE data

30/05/2018

We are pleased to inform you that the data for the 2016/17 data collection is now available to view through the reporting tools and to download via the system. It is available at national and local authority level via graphical tools and via PDF reports. If you are a data provider, you can also access data for your own organisation.

The national level data is in line with the data published in our National Statistics release, ‘Social housing lettings in England: April 2016 to March 2017’, published on 30th January 2018, although none of the data in the CORE system is weighted or imputed.

At the local authority level there are certain restrictions on the data shown to prevent the risk of disclosing sensitive information. In the supported housing datasets, there are also a number of cases where the scheme page did not have the right local authority information so it will not be shown.

To access the data please go to the ‘Analyse CORE data’ page of the website, select the type of analysis you wish to do and select the dataset called 2016/17 Final Data. You can view the data in counts or as percentages. The year-on-year comparison is currently unavailable.

New CORE Helpdesk arrangements

20/04/2018

As part of continuous improvement in the way we deliver service and support to CORE users, and to ensure that incoming queries are effectively and speedily resolved, we now have a new arrangement in place for incoming queries.

The CORE Helpdesk email and telephone contact details have now changed. Please send all new queries to core@tso.co.uk or 0333 202 5084 (open Mon – Fri, 9 – 5.30), who will address your enquiries in the first instance. These new contact details replace the existing arrangements for CORE Helpdesk support with immediate effect.

Please note that the existing e-mail inbox and telephone helpline are no longer in use, so emails sent there will not be attended to. However, all queries which have been outstanding before the change will be dealt with fully, so you do not need to resend them.

Changes to CORE data collection in preparation for new EU General Data Protection Regulations

20/04/2018

When the new GDPR comes into effect on the 28th May organisations registered with CORE will need to:

1. Sign the new Data Sharing agreement in order to submit any data for that organisation. From 1st April, Co-ordinators have been able to set up a Data Protection Officer user who will be responsible to sign the agreement on behalf of the organisation.

2. Confirm that the tenant/buyer that is referred to in the letting/sale log has seen the new privacy notice. This has to be done for each log submitted. This will apply to all records collected via the 2017/18 and 2018/19 forms submitted from the 28th May onwards.

If you have any questions or concerns on the above, please send an e-mail to the CORE helpdesk at core@tso.co.uk under the subject "Data Protection'.

Datamart Release: No CORE Access between 18:00 14th December and 09:30 15th December

13/12/2017

A major release will be made to Datamart applications by our third party Hosting Services between 18:00 hours tomorrow (Thursday 14th December) and 09:30 hours (Friday 15th December). During the time, users will not have access to the CORE Datamart service.

We would ask users to please take an overall look at their CORE system on Friday morning to ensure that you have no problems with the system.

Proposed changes for 2018-19 Lettings form

05/12/2017

You have an opportunity to feedback on our proposed changes for the 2018_19 Lettings forms. These changes are the result of suggestions from policy colleagues, data providers and other stakeholders following the recent consultation on changes needed. A description of the changes and how they would look in the form can be accessed via https://core.communities.gov.uk/public/download/guides-and-manuals/2018_19%20LOG%20CHANGES%20PROPOSAL.pdf?download-format=pdf

If you have any feedback or concerns with any of the changes, please email core.helpdesk@dclgdatamart.co.uk under the subject ' Feedback for 2018_19 Lettings form' by end of Friday 15th of December.

We really appreciate your feedback and your contribution to make sure that the CORE data collection continues to meet the needs of our users and is a really valuable source of data to guide policy on social housing.

Publication of 2015/16 CORE data

08/08/2017

We are pleased to inform you that the data for the 2015/16 data collection is now available to view through the reporting tools and to download via the system. It is available at national and local authority level via graphical tools and via PDF reports. If you are a data provider, you can also access data for your own organisation.

The national level data is in line with the data published in our National Statistics release Social housing lettings in England: April 2015 to March 2016, published on 10th November 2016, although none of the data in the CORE system is weighted or imputed.

To access the data please go to the ‘Analyse CORE data’ page of the website, select the type of analysis you wish to do and select the dataset called 2015/16 Final Data. You can view the data in counts or as percentages. The year-on-year comparison is currently unavailable.

Please do contact the helpdesk if you encounter any problems in accessing the data.

2016/17 CORE closedown

07/08/2017

Please note that the data collection for the 2016/17 reporting year closes at 5pm today (Monday 7/8/2017). The 2016/17 data collection covers start tenancy dates from 1st April 2016 to 31st March 2017. Although the data collection will remain open in the CORE system to allow DCLG to finalise the datasets, any new logs submitted by data providers will not be taken into account.

We ask CORE data providers to spare a couple of minutes to complete the online survey on the 2016/17 data collection – please could you complete by the end of Monday 4th Septemberhttps://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/MDVSLHW

Data providers may continue submitting logs for the 2017/18 data collection (which covers start tenancy dates from 1st April 2017 until 31st March 2018).

Changes to CORE

04/07/2017

Some development changes will be released to CORE on Wednesday 5 July between 18:00 - 19:00 hours. CORE will be available to users. However, we would suggest not completing any important work during this time.

If you have any objections to this work going ahead, please let us know by contacting us on 0303 444 2001 by midday Tuesday 4 July.

Please check your stock information

03/05/2017

You may be aware that we have made improvements to the CORE system to ensure that only the correct log types are submitted.
• If the website shows that your organisation has no stock, no one will be able to provide data on your behalf.
• If the website indicate you have no general needs stock and there is no unspecified stock, no data can be submitted for general needs.
• If it indicates no supported housing stock and there is no unspecified stock, no data can be submitted for supported housing.

If the stock information for your organisation is incorrect, please contact the CORE Helpdesk and provide your current stock situation for (a) general needs, (b) supported housing, and (c) other unspecified stock. If you are unsure of the precise type of stock held, please list it as ‘unspecified’ stock.

If you are trying to submit data for a parent organisation, please ensure that they have the correct stock information or you may not be able to submit the correct log.

Thank you for your cooperation in this matter. We apologise for any inconvenience caused. The Helpdesk can be reached at core-helpdesk@dclgdatamart.co.uk or on 0303 444 2001 (Mon-Fri 9am-5pm).

Cut off dates for 2016/17

19/04/2017

Since we have now reached the end of the 2016/17 reporting year, we would appreciate if every effort could be made to submit any outstanding logs for your institution. In order for us to produce accurate quarterly analysis for inclusion in the price indices, please can you submit any outstanding logs by the 24th April 2017.

The cut-off for 2016/17 data returns will be Tuesday 30th May. Please ensure you revisit your ‘Saved’ and ‘Invalid’ log records to ensure they submit as valid where appropriate. Guidance on how to do this is available in our ‘2017_18 Online User Guidance for Coordinators’ document available from our Guides and Manuals page. If any outstanding issues remain following this date, you will have until the 26th June to resolve these and submit valid data to the system. This will be the final cut off and logs should not be submitted or amended after this date.

We are aware of some technical difficulties that some users have been experiencing whilst uploading data for the new reporting year. We are working hard to resolve these and appreciate your patience whilst we resolve these issues.

2017/18 Lettings and Sales logs now live

01/04/2017

Users are now able to submit Lettings and Sales logs for the 2017/18 reporting year. These logs should be used for all tenancies starting on or after 1 April 2017, and for all sales occurring on or after 1 April 2017. Logs can be submitted either through the manual online form or via eCORE bulk upload in the same manner as for previous years.

Users will still be able to submit Lettings and Sales logs for the 2016/17 reporting year during April, May and June.

Please be careful when submitting logs ensuring you select the correct reporting year.

Publication of record level 2015/16 Lettings and Sales data on the UK Data Archive

23/03/2017

Record level 2015/16 Lettings and Sales data is now available from the UK Data Archive. Users should also note that the 2014/15 datasets have been revised to include final weights and ethnic groups have been revised in all historic datasets available through the UKDA. The accompanying documentation explains these revisions. Data dictionaries and a 'how t' guide have also been published.

Anyone wishing to access record level data will need to obtain a licence via the UK Data Archive. There are three tiers of licence each providing different levels of access and with different eligibility requirements, the details of which can be found in the UKDA Core Guidance Matrix on the Guides and Manuals page.

To begin the registration process with the UKDA, click here: http://ukdataservice.ac.uk/get-data/how-to-access/registration/otherukusers.aspx

2017/18 Lettings and Sales log forms and eCORE templates

07/03/2017

Please note that the eCORE templates, eCORE specifications and the log forms both with and without guidance notes for Lettings and Sales are now available to download from the 'Guides and Manuals' page of the CORE website. Changes are indicated in red throughout. A log change guidance document detailing all the changes and their rationale is also available via the same page.

These templates and specifications should be used for tenancies starting on or after 1st April 2017. It will not be possible to upload eCORE files for 2017/18 to the CORE website until after this date.

We are currently finalising the updated online user guidance, CORE manual and data dictionaries for the 2017/18 data collection year, which will all be available when we go live with the new data collection in April.

Local authority level and institution level analysis tools

15/02/2017

Please note that following a review of their functionality, the graphical analysis tools for local authority level and institution level data have now been enabled again. Apologies for any inconvenience caused whilst they were temporarily disabled.

Local authority level and institution level analysis tools

09/02/2017

Please note that the graphical analysis tools for local authority level and institution level data are temporarily disabled due to a review of its functionality. An alert will be published when it becomes available again. Sorry for the inconvenience.

Publication of Local Authority and Organisation level tables for 2015/16

21/12/2016

Please note the Local Authority and Organisation level tables for 2015/16 have now been published and can be found at:
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/social-housing-lettings-in-england-april-2015-to-march-2016. We have also published a new table of Organisations by local authority level.