Supported housing providers will have noticed recently that enhanced housing benefit claims are subject to more intense scrutiny than has historically been the case.
Tag: exempt accommodation
Claiming Enhanced Housing Benefit & the DWP Housing Benefit Guidance for Supported Housing Claims
This briefing is aimed at supported housing providers claiming enhanced housing benefit [both registered providers and non-registered providers] and local authority supported housing commissioning and Revenues and Benefits colleagues.
The Supported Housing (Regulatory Oversight) Act 2023
The Supported Housing (Regulatory Oversight) Act has some shortcomings, however, it’s a very big step in the right direction towards ridding supported housing of the parasites that infest it in the guise of certain supported housing providers, RPs, developers and investors that are interested in financially abusing people with additional needs in return for shoddy properties and negligible or no support.
The Exempt Accommodation Inquiry Report
There is a saying that “hard cases make bad law” and I believe, unfortunately, that this is what we’re seeing here. With some exceptions, notably on domestic violence and abuse services, this Report is a missed opportunity based on an inadequate grasp of the supported housing ecosystem that it wishes to reform.
The Problems with Exempt Accommodation
This influx of the uninvited has led to significant pressure on local authorities and enhanced Housing Benefit. Alleged supported housing providers, whether connected to dubiously motivated private capital or not, have popped up all over the place, usually in the form of a CIC, and demanded enhanced Housing Benefit for alleged supported housing services that no one asked them to provide.
Enhanced Housing Benefit, the Exempt Accommodation Project and the Oversight of Supported Housing
We have seen additional restrictions on, and greater scrutiny of enhanced Housing Benefit claims made by supported housing providers under the Exempt Accommodation rules.
Back in October 2020 I wrote a briefing on the National Statement of Expectations for Supported Housing in which I expressed concern that it would be used as an exercise in cost control. Unfortunately, those fears seem to be justified in many instances. Some local authorities are trying to insist on supported housing providers becoming registered providers to qualify for framework agreements and tenders in circumstances where, in England at least, this is a very difficult thing to do.
The Exempt Accommodation Project
It simply wrong and discriminatory that tenants’ entitlements to Enhanced Housing Benefit, which is a personal benefit, are dependent on the legal identity of their landlord.
Intensive Housing Management & Enhanced Housing Benefit
A List of Routinely Eligible Intensive Housing Management Tasks & Functions
Claiming Enhanced Housing Benefit for Intensive Housing Management
The reason that Enhanced Housing Benefit is payable is because qualifying supported housing providers provide additional and more intensive housing management and maintenance services than would be the case in general needs rented housing. They do so because supported & sheltered housing residents have additional housing needs and supported housing itself has additional maintenance and services costs.
Exempt Accommodation, Specified Accommodation & Intensive Housing Management
To explain what Exempt and Specified Accommodation is and to make clear my view that most “Specified Accommodation” is actually “Exempt Accommodation”
To explain the Welfare Reform Act implications of Exempt and Specified Accommodation
To give comprehensive examples of Additional/Intensive Housing Management tasks and functions
To examine the future for Enhanced Housing Benefit and Additional/Intensive Housing Management