Help With Claiming Enhanced Housing Benefit

Introduction

Supported housing providers will have noticed recently that enhanced housing benefit claims are subject to more intense scrutiny than has historically been the case. 

There is nothing wrong with Revenues and Benefits colleagues scrutinising housing benefit claims. It is public money. There remains a situation where too many people see enhanced housing benefit as easy money to make from a property portfolio or as a good return on a capital investment. 

Value Generation

I have no problem with people making money in the supported housing ecosystem provided that the social value of what they do is greater than the money they make. You may remember my “Value Generation” principles, which anyone can use to assess the personal, financial, and social impact of supported housing. What are the: 

• Outcomes for people who live in supported housing [measured qualitatively]  

• Financial cost benefits [measured quantitatively]  

• Wider social and community benefits [measured qualitatively and quantitatively] 

Of course, the problem is that we do not yet have a sensible and accepted way of measuring value in supported housing. The supported housing ecosystem, with local authorities at its heart, could do a lot worse than adopting these Value Generation principles as a means of fulfilling its oversight and accreditation responsibilities under the Supported Housing Regulatory Oversight Act (SHROA).

The Supported Housing Regulatory Oversight Act (SHROA) & the DWP Guidance on Housing Benefit for Supported Housing Claims

Talking of which, we have had a loud silence from the UK Government on the progress of this legislation. Yes, I know it’s early days so far, but some urgent indication of a timescale for the implementation of the Supported Housing Regulatory Oversight Act would be a good thing. The fact that, as part of this, the DWP is supposed to be developing a definition of “care, support or supervision” (CSS) illustrates that the Supported Housing Regulatory Oversight Act and enhanced housing benefit, the primary revenue funding stream for supported housing, are intersecting themes. 

SHROA was developed as a response to the industrial scale abuse of enhanced housing benefit by people who do not give a damn about “social value” or about people who live in supported housing. In parallel, the DWP published its Guidance on Housing Benefit for Supported Housing Claims in May 2022. This guidance is what has created the situation of intensified scrutiny of enhanced housing benefit claims to which I referred in the first sentence of this blog post. 

If you are interested and you have the time. You can listen to the recording and view the slides of the event I ran earlier this year on the DWP Guidance. These sources contain more information than I can include here, but I will include some of the key takeaways: 

• Revenues and benefits and SHIP (Supported Housing Improvement Programme) teams are organising themselves differently to review enhanced housing benefit claims. 

• Their focus is on individual claimants, not so much the buildings those claimants live in. 

• There is a stricter definition of eligibility for enhanced housing benefit in relation to the services supported housing providers deliver: it’s much more focused on property and related tasks and functions. 

• There is a fully justified preoccupation by Revenues and Benefits and SHIP teams on providers being able to properly evidence the intensive housing management and CSS services they provide. 

• Some revenues and benefits teams are suspending enhanced housing benefit claims pending detailed investigations of existing claims. 

Subsidy Loss

Subsidy loss is a massive issue for councils. Where a registered provider is the landlord and a reasonable, well founded enhanced housing benefit claim is submitted, the council in question can usually reclaim 100% of the amount of enhanced housing benefit they pay. Where the landlord is not a registered provider, the council in question can only reclaim 60% of the difference between the applicable LHA level and the amount of enhanced housing benefit being claimed. 

Revenues and benefits teams are not allowed to determine an enhanced housing benefit claim on the basis that they will lose subsidy on that claim. However, subsidy loss is a major issue that costs councils millions each year. Whilst Revenues and Benefits teams cannot technically refuse a claim due to subsidy loss, there is nothing to stop a council at commissioning level from refusing to “commission” supported housing that attracts subsidy loss. This has already begun to happen. 

The Exempt Accommodation Project

There is a straightforward solution to this in the form of the Exempt Accommodation Project (EAP), which I formed in 2021. Supported housing providers do not have to become registered providers; they just need to work with one to enable the council to fully recover subsidy. If you work for a supported housing provider and think it will help your HB position if your local authority can fully recover what it pays you, or you work for a council with a subsidy loss problem, please contact me about the EAP. It will not cost you anything and may save you a lot of time, loss, and stress. 

Help With Claiming Enhanced Housing Benefit

I do a lot of work on enhanced housing benefit claims. It was me who first publicised the existence of enhanced housing benefit back in 2005 and identified the term “intensive housing management” to describe (some of) what enhanced housing benefit funds.

I work with both supported housing providers and local authorities in this regard. Most commonly, supported housing providers want me to devise and negotiate their enhanced housing benefit claims, and local authorities want me to give a view on the reasonableness [both the amount and the basis] of enhanced housing benefit claims. I do not work for both parties on the same claims. 

For supported housing providers, the time is fast approaching when enhanced housing benefit claims need to be revised for April 2025. Usually, this process starts in October/November. I have a specific rent model I use that breaks down the cost of an enhanced housing benefit claim to the penny per week per resident across the entirety of a rent structure. I have a forensic approach to devising enhanced housing benefit claims based on what it genuinely costs a supported housing provider to provide housing benefit eligible services to people assessed as needing them.  

I also have a strong values base. I do not work with supported housing providers that councils do not want to work with or have not been given the chance to take a view about. [Back to my preoccupation with urgently getting SHROA up and running].

I decline to work with more supported housing providers than I agree to work with because I want to be part of the solution to the abuse of enhanced housing benefit and the supported housing ecosystem by those who shouldn’t be part of it, not part of the problem.

I do not take an adversarial approach with revenues and benefits colleagues: they are stakeholders in this. I do understand the relevant case law and regulations and other definitions that are critical to a successful enhanced housing benefit claim, and my fees are factored into the HB claims themselves. So, if any enhanced housing benefit claim I manage is unsuccessful, I do not get paid. 

Please contact me if you need help with enhanced housing benefit claims, subsidy loss, working with a registered provider or any aspect of SHROA and the DWP guidance.  

Supported Housing People Ltd

I should also mention that I will in future be working via Supported Housing People Limited. My website at michaelpatterson.co.uk will continue to exist and the Supported Housing Blog will continue to be developed exactly as it was before. The only difference people will notice is my e-mail signature will change, and the contracts agreed with clients will be via Supported Housing People Ltd. Clients needing help with enhanced housing benefit and/or working with a registered provider will still work directly with me. 

Michael Patterson September 2024