This article explains the process officers must follow to ensure their HPA2 cases are clear of errors and validated for the purposes of submitting the case information to DLUHC.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Understanding H-CLIC
What is H-CLIC?
H-CLIC standards for Homelessness Case Level Information Collection. It is a quarterly return made by Local Authorities to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC).
Your H-CLIC return includes data on:
- Application numbers
- Assessments completed
- Support Needs of applicants
- Duties awarded
- Households in Temporary Accommodation
- Outcomes at the end of applications e.g. Reason Prevention Duty Ended
Note: Personal Data is generally not included within the return.
What cases are included within the H-CLIC return?
A case is only included within your H-CLIC return if it meets certain "Trigger" conditions, including the below:
- You've moved the applicant into interim accommodation
- You've awarded the applicant a duty (e.g. Prevention)
- You've moved the applicant between duties (e.g. Prevention to Relief)
- You've closed the case
If any of the above are met, then the case would be included in the quarterly submission relevant to when the trigger happened.
Note: Advice-only cases aren't included within the submission, except where the applicant has been placed into Interim Accommodation / TA
What are H-CLIC Errors?
An H-CLIC error occurs when the information you’ve entered against a case does not match with the H-CLIC specification. By this it usually means there is some form of inconsistency in the information you’ve captured such as:
- Capturing the income of a “partner” without adding a partner to the application; or
- Entering the duty award date as earlier than the homelessness application date; or
- Awarding a Rough Sleeper the Prevention Duty
Note: There are many other examples of errors, which we will not list here. The best way to learn more about the types of errors which occur is through validating your cases.
Why do we need to resolve errors?
The quality of data submitted to DLUHC is published on a per-authority basis by DLUHC in publicly accessible dashboards. Submitting cases with errors within your Local Authority's H-CLIC return can easily erode the overall quality of your LA's data.
LA's with poor overall quality scoring have been informed by DLUHC that failure to improve would place government funding at risk - such as the Homelessness Prevention Grant.
The below image shows a sample dashboard with the relevant sections that Local Authorities are scored on.
Note: The overall score for a Local Authority is equal to your lowest score for any specific category. For example if you have three green sections but 1 red, then the overall score would be Red.
Validating Cases (Checking for Errors)
The process of checking a case for errors is called validation. To validate your case, follow the below steps:
- Go to the case workflows screen of your Homelessness applicant
- Click the "Validate H-CLIC Submission" button in the toolbar
- Choose the relevant dates (you can click the "Last Quarter" and "This Quarter" shortcuts)
- Click "Get Report"
Note: After validating the case, any errors or warnings found on the case will be displayed on the right hand side of the page.
How to resolve H-CLIC errors
After you have validated the case, any errors or warnings found on the case will be displayed on the right hand side of the page, like the below image.
To resolve the errors found, follow the below steps:
- Click the link above each error (most errors will have a link - this takes you to the correct task and highlights the relevant question)
- Amend the relevant question based on the guidance text with the error
- Save the task you've edited
- Repeat for any remaining errors
- Re-validate the case to confirm no errors remain
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