The returns include households who apply to the authority even if the authority does not regard them as qualifying for assistance under the legislation. It should be noted, however, that households who do not approach an authority for assistance, for example persons sleeping rough who consider there is little likelihood of the authority providing them with accommodation, are not included in the statistics. 11.4 Cases take varying lengths of time to reach conclusion, and some tend to take a considerable number of months. In fact there will be households who applied during 1997-98 whose cases are still not complete, and for whom HL1 returns have yet to be submitted. For this reason, previous years information may differ from previous publications as figures are updated as more information becomes available.
Some authorities fail to submit complete returns.
The number of HL1 returns received for any year is usually less than the number of applicant households recorded via the HL2 return, even allowing time for cases to reach conclusion. It is not possible to quantify and gross up for these shortfalls in earlier years, though we do so for more recent years, as described in paragraph 11.6 below. Most of the information presented in this bulletin is derived from the HL1 return. It is assumed that the cases which have not been submitted show the same characteristics as those that have, for example the distribution of household types among those cases not returned is the same as among those cases which have been returned. This is not necessarily the case but it is impossible to make any other assumption.