What is CORE and what does is provide?

What is CORE?

CORE (Continuous Recording of Lettings and Sales in social housing in England) is a national information source funded by the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) that records information on the characteristics of both private registered providers and local authority new social housing tenants and purchasers and the homes they rent and buy. Policy makers and practitioners regard the system as an essential tool for monitoring housing costs, assessing affordability and developing policy.

What information is available?

CORE provides information about new lets, sales and tenants. For example, household characteristics, economic status, ethnicity, primary reason for housing, source of referral and previous tenure of occupant. In addition, since information regarding housing costs is also recorded, broad assessments of housing affordability are also possible through CORE (please be advised, however, that this information is confidential.)

Who collects the information?

Data up to 2014/15 was collected via the TNS CORE website. The former Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) took over the management of CORE from 2012 with assuming responsibility for the collection of 2015/16 data up to 2021/22. The Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities now has responsibility for data collection.

How do I participate in CORE?

See Participating in CORE for full details.

Is there training or documentation I can use?

Various training documents on how to use the CORE website and data requirements are available on the Guides and Manuals page of this website (link at the top of the screen in the black-coloured ribbon - there is no need to log in to access this section). The information here will outline what information must be submitted for the CORE logs and how to do so.

How is CORE used?

See How Core Is Used

Who uses CORE?

Information from CORE is used by a range of organisations to inform funding, regulatory and other policy decisions relating to the activity of private registered providers' and local authorities' activity and contributes to the wider policy debate. CORE data feeds directly into policy decision making of central government departments as well as being used by the Office of National Statistics in their price indices.

Submit CORE Data

Our organisation is unsure of our position on completing CORE logs or when we last completed them. What's the best thing to do?

Please contact the CORE Helpdesk in the first instance.

The Helpdesk will be able to tell you if:

your institution has an existing CORE record; (or, if not, a new one can be created for you);
if your institution has completed the necessary Data Protection legislation details;
when you/your institution last entered CORE data (if applicable);
how you/your institution's user account information appears (if applicable) and what to do make amendments to any existing accounts and/or create any new ones.

How should our organisation consider and address what user accounts we will need?

Any institution user first needs to download the General Data Protection Agreement (there is no need to log in to access this section of the CORE website). Your institution then needs to nominate a Data Protection Officer (DPO), the name, e-mail address and direct dial phone number of whom needs to be sent to the CORE Helpdesk. The Helpdesk will provide the DPO with their specific log in details for them to then use to indicate on the system that they have read and agree, on the institution's behalf, with the document, by selecting 'Administration' and then 'Data Protection Details' in the 'Institution' section. The DPO should then click the box next to 'Confirm MHCLG agreement signed:' to denote the organisation has read and is now signing the Agreement on behalf of the institution. The DPO should then click on the 'Save' link to complete the process. The rest of the DPO's details on this page will then auto-populate afterwards when the DPO next goes back into this screen. If your institution has agreements to provide data for - or be provided with data from - other institutions, then these other institutions will each need to complete this DPO process as well. No institution will be able to proceed unless or until this process has been completed. So please check this with them or the CORE Helpdesk, who will be pleased to let you know the status of your institution and/or any institutions your own is linked with.

Once the institution has done this, new general user accounts can then be created so forms can then be submitted. There are 2 types of general user account: Coordinator and Data Provider.

A Coordinator account holder should generally use their account to monitor and report on the logs that have been input by Data Provider account holders, create supported housing management groups and schemes and create new user accounts themselves, although the CORE Helpdesk will be pleased to help with any of these. A Coordinator account holder is also generally considered to be a senior manager, supervisor or a team leader, the latter particularly where the institution involved has many account holders. A Coordinator cannot access another Coordinator account holder's log forms, so any Coordinator who wants to submit logs themselves should consider having both a Coordinator AND a Data Provider account, the latter used solely for CORE input.

A Data Provider account holder, as the user type's name suggests, should solely uses this account to input logs. The same-named person can be both a separate Coordinator and Data Provider account holder and there are no limits to the number of different Coordinator and Data Provider accounts that 1 institution can have.

Please keep the CORE Helpdesk informed of any institution detail changes and any inactive user accounts, or if you are in any doubt about these.

How do I log into the CORE website and begin entering data?

Logging in is only required for registered users who want to submit CORE data. Please follow the instructions as detailed in Participating in CORE for full details. Once your institution has been included on the CORE system, 1 of your Coordinators can then create a user account for you and can contact the CORE Helpdesk if they need any help in doing so. Your Coordinator will then supply you with your login and password details.

I look to have finished inputting my logs. How can I check I have done so properly?

Data providers can check they have completed inputting and submitting CORE logs properly by selecting 'Administration' and then 'Your Logs'. They will then see, by selecting the appropriate reporting year and log type, the logs they have submitted. Logs should only appear in the 'Status' field as 'Valid' (which denotes they have been accepted in the system) or 'Dropped' (which denotes they have been deleted and removed). Logs that appear as 'Saved' (largely if input by 'Log Creation', i.e. individually) or 'Invalid' (largely if input by bulk uploading files) will still need attention. These logs show what errors have occurred at the appropriate point on the online form which is highlighted in red for the user, together with a summary of the errors involved at the bottom of the form involved, and can be accessed by selecting the 'Edit' link to the right of each log on the 'Your Logs' page. If all reasonable steps have been taken and the form is accurate but still showing errors, please contact the CORE Helpdesk with the Tenant Code(s) of the log(s) involved which may then have to be manually validated.

Analyse CORE data

How can tenants use this information?

The CORE datasets contain a variety of data to allow a wide range of analysis in a spectrum of topics, from weekly rents to the gender of household representatives or the reason for vacancy. DLUHC publishes data at national and local authority level (see Social housing lettings statistics) and deposits record level data in the UK Data Archive to allow further analysis. There is also interactive reporting available at Analyse CORE data.

What predefined analyses can I have access to?

Users can view data via predefined reports showing annual trends for all data for common variables at local authority level. Data Providers can also view their own data through predefined organisation reports.

How do I use interactive reporting?

There is an interactive reporting tool to see data at local authority level. Data has been protected to avoid identification and disclosure of sensitive information. Users can select which variable(s) to view at local authority level and view data for 1 or more local authorities. If data is not available for a particular local authority, this is because its data is considered disclosive, usually due to small totals.

The number of logs assigned to me/my team in certain download reports in the 'Your Data' section of the 'Analyse CORE Data' page is down on what I was expecting. What is causing this?

If you are a Coordinator, please check which Data Provider account holders should be linked to your account by selecting 'Administration' and then 'Manage My Institution's Users' and clicking and dragging the users' e-mail addresses from the inactive (left-hand) column to the right-hand (active) column (or vice versa if they are not required).

For all Coordinators and Data Providers, please bear in mind when running these reports that CORE issues them based on the date they were input, not the Tenancy Start date. The date range format for these reports should always therefore be 'From: 01/04/20XX; TO: today's date', for example, (depending, of course, on what year the report is requested for) to automatically generate the maximum number of logs sought.

General

How can I feedback my views on this site and/or contact the CORE Helpdesk or DLUHC CORE Team more generally?

We welcome any feedback and ask that you please supply this via the CORE Helpdesk in the first instance. For any particular returns only that require a response to them directly, the DLUHC CORE Team can be contacted here