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The Supported Housing (Regulatory Oversight) Bill

Supported Housing (Regulatory Oversight) Bill

Introduction

A legislative response to the industrial scale abuse of the Exempt Accommodation rules and enhanced housing benefit has taken a long time to happen, but now we see it in the form of the Supported Housing (Regulatory Oversight) Bill which at time of writing is making its way through the House of Lords. Its 2021 predecessor, the Supported Housing Regulation Bill, also a private members bill, got nowhere because of lack of parliamentary time.

The Supported Housing (Regulatory Oversight) Bill unsurprisingly succeeded because it was drafted in the light of the Exempt Accommodation Pilots report and, significantly, the Exempt Accommodation Inquiry Report, it mirrors much of the latter. Those of you who read my blog post on the Exempt Accommodation Inquiry Report will know that I have significant concerns about its conclusions and its failure to adequately grasp what Exempt Accommodation actually is.

Exempt Accommodation is not a dubious sub type of supported housing: the Exempt Accommodation rules are a set of rules that define who’s entitled to enhanced housing benefit. Most socially managed [or allegedly socially managed] supported housing is exempt accommodation.

General Observations

On balance, I think that the Supported Housing (Regulatory Oversight) Bill is a great improvement on the Exempt Accommodation Inquiry Report, but the principle that “hard cases make bad law” can still be seen in it, particularly its misplaced focus on “regulation”, when the real problem is the lack of accreditation of supported housing providers at local level and independent oversight of the services they provide.

The idea that all supported Exempt Accommodation providers should register as registered providers, as recommended by the Exempt Accommodation Inquiry Report, his woeful for reasons I focus on in the accompanying briefing on the Exempt Accommodation Project.

There are four regulators in the supported housing ecosystem already:

  • The Regulator of Social Housing [England]
  • The CIC regulator
  • The Charity Commission
  • The FCA

If you include the CQC (where personal care is provided in supported housing), then we have 5 regulators.

None of the above have any particular expertise in supported housing and none of them has a monopoly on supported housing providers. In the fight against dodgy supported housing providers and registered providers, the issue is not one of regulation, it is one of accreditation at local level and independent oversight of the services they provide.

The Clauses of the Supported Housing (Regulatory Oversight) Bill

So, let’s have a look at the content of the Supported Housing (Regulatory Oversight) Bill, including the amendments thus far proposed during its parliamentary journey.

Clause 1: The Creation of an Advisory Panel​

  • The Secretary of State will be required to appoint an Advisory Panel.​
  • The panel will represent the interests of certain stakeholders including registered providers; local housing authorities; social services authorities and residents.​
  • The purpose of the panel is to provide information and advice on issues related to supported exempt accommodation, including anything which the Panel views could have a significant impact on the provision or regulation of supported exempt accommodation.​

Whilst the creation of an Advisory Panel is a good idea in my opinion, I think that its proposed membership is skewed and reflective of the idea that the whole of the supported housing ecosystem is regulated by the Regulator of Social Housing, which isn’t the case, and neither should it be.

It is to be hoped that the membership of the Advisory Panel will be broadened to include a more representative, dare I say democratic, representation of the supported housing ecosystem to include charities, CICs, other voluntary agencies and the private sector.

Clauses 10 & 11 as amended (see below) provide for the creation of a national supported housing regulator. This regulator should be a new body with specific expertise in supported housing and the scope of which should include all supported housing providers, irrespective of their legal identity.

Clause 2: Local Supported Housing Strategies​

  • Local housing authorities will be required to carry out a review of the supported exempt accommodation in their districts and publish a “supported housing strategy” for the provision of supported exempt accommodation. ​
  • A supported housing strategy must include a local housing authority’s assessment of supply and demand for supported Exempt Accommodation in its district, and such other matters as may be specified by the Secretary of State in regulations.​

This is actually a requirement of the National Statement of Expectations for Supported Housing. It is clearly a good idea for local authorities to have a supported housing strategy based on a knowledge of existing services mapped against supply and demand.

LA control over which organisations can set up supported housing in their areas is essential. The Exempt Accommodation Pilots led to the development of local authority hubs/gateways through which all intending supported housing providers must apply via a Supported Exempt Accommodation application process. The hub/gateway model is becoming more commonplace now, although not all local authorities have them yet.

Non-commissioned Supported housing providers, particularly “investor-led” and “property-led” providers whose primary purpose seems often to be making money at the expense of the supported housing ecosystem, and the people who depend on it, take note. The recent disasters associated with Home REIT and associated providers such as Lotus Sanctuary are a case in point.

I am continually asked by non-commissioned supported housing providers and their partners to help them to find a registered provider to work with, or to assist them with enhanced housing benefit claims. My response is always a firm “no”, unless a local authority at commissioning level gives me a green light to proceed. 

By “commissioning level” I mean the local government departments and other statutory agencies (social care commissioners, supported housing commissioners, revenues and benefits teams, the NHS and other statutory agencies with an interest in supported housing). I do not mean Homelessness/Housing Options teams as currently constituted. However, it’s important that people with additional needs who present as homeless are assessed properly and routed to supported housing, not temporary accommodation. (More on this in the commentary on Clause 6 below).

Clause 3: National Supported Housing Standards​

  • This will give the Secretary of State new powers to prepare and publish “National Supporting Housing Standards” for England.​
  • This will set minimum standards in respect of the type or condition of premises used for the provision of supported Exempt Accommodation or the provision of care, support or supervision in supported exempt accommodation​.

There have been several amendments to this clause as follows:

Amendment 1 tabled by Clive Betts MP would give local housing authorities the power to introduce a scheme to enforce the National Supported Housing Standards such as that described in clause 4 and 5 below. For this to be workable there would need to be additional funding made available to LAs.

Amendments 2 and 4 tabled by Clive Betts would require Secretary of State to produce a progress report after one year if certain powers are yet to be exercised. By which I mean the powers to prepare and publish “National Supported Housing Standards” and to make provision about the sharing of information relating to supported exempt accommodation.

It is essential that these National Supported Housing Standards are devised by a representative group of agencies with a full understanding of the supported housing ecosystem. The current proposed membership of the Advisory Panel referred to in Clause 1 will not be sufficient. Clearly, “local housing authorities; social services authorities and residents” are essential parties to this Panel, but it should also include independent thought leaders in supported housing who do not have bias towards any specific part of the supported housing ecosystem such as the Regulator of Social Housing or related agencies.​

Clauses 4 & 5: Licensing​

  • Clause 4 would give the Secretary of State power to make regulations requiring people managing supported Exempt Accommodation to obtain and comply with a license issued by the relevant local housing authority.  ​
  • Clause 5 sets out the range of issues which licensing regulations may cover, including: enforcement, consequences of non-compliance, exemptions and fees, restrictions and the areas that a licensing scheme should cover.​

There are already number of “selective licensing schemes” being piloted or considered by local authorities.

The Supported Housing (Regulatory Oversight) Bill identifies that people who apply for a license to operate supported housing must be “fit and proper persons”. A failure to meet whatever that means will result in the refusal of a license.

There are a significant number of areas that would fall within the scope of a selective licensing scheme:

  • The standard of accommodation.
  • The use of accommodation.
  • Carrying out of assessments of the needs of residents (or potential residents) and relating to the conduct of such assessments.
  • The provision of care, support or supervision.
  • Compliance with National Supported Housing Standards (whenever published)

The draft Bill provides for penalties to be applied to supported housing providers and the people who run them.

A license can be revoked and a fine levied where a supported housing provider or a person who controls it commits a relevant housing offence for the purposes of section 249A of the Housing Act 2004.

A supported housing provider or the person who controls it may be subject to a banning order as provided for in Chapters 2 and 3 of Part 2 of the Housing and Planning Act 2016. This includes being recorded on a database of “rogue landlords” and requiring the repayment of rents received whilst in breach of a licensing requirement.

Clause 6: Consultation​

  • The Secretary of State must consult statutory consultees before exercising the power to make licensing regulations.​
  • The statutory consultees listed are: Local Government Association, National Housing Federation and the Regulator of Social Housing. ​

Amendments to the Bill by its sponsor/author Bob Blackman MP propose that local authorities be identified as “statutory consultees” on the Bill on licensing regulations and the National Supported Housing Standards in place of the Local Government Association.

Again, the choice of the Regulator of Social Housing and the National Housing Federation limits the scope and expertise of the “statutory consultees”. This doesn’t mean that they shouldn’t be included, but it is essential that this mechanism has a wider set of interests other than just agencies that are regulated by the Regulator of Social Housing.

Amendment 3 tabled by Clive Betts MP ensures that assessing the needs of persons who are residents/potential residents is a condition that may be attached to a license to operate supported housing. The assumption is that LAs would be responsible for such assessments via a single hub or gateway through which all supported housing referrals should be routed. This would give LAs control over who becomes a supported housing resident in their area as well as preventing providers offering accommodation to “self-referrals” and people from other geographical areas. Presumably, different arrangements might be required for people fleeing domestic violence and abuse, for example.

It is also possible that supported housing providers may be responsible for undertaking needs assessments within a local authority approved framework.

The single hub/gateway arrangement, which some LAs already implement, is a by-product of the Exempt Accommodation Pilots and should also contribute to LAs’ requirements to balance need and demand within their local supported housing ecosystem.

However, there is a structural problem at local authority level with Homelessness/Housing Options teams not being part of local commissioning infrastructure. These teams have a statutory obligation to house people, the great majority of whom have additional needs, so there is an unmanaged overlap between them and their commissioning colleagues. The needs assessment process could therefore be an important part of local infrastructure, whether conducted by local authorities or supported housing providers, in ensuring that homeless people with additional needs are routed into supported housing rather than temporary accommodation.

Clause 7: Local Housing Authority Functions ​

  • A local housing authority must, in the exercise of its functions under licensing regulations, have regard to— (a) National Supported Housing Standards (if any), and 10 (b) any guidance issued by the Secretary of State for the purposes of this section.​

This section is self-explanatory, and the missing part is the National Supported Housing Standards document, with which supported housing providers must comply, as described in Clause 3 (above).

Clause 8: Planning​

  • This places a duty on the Secretary of State to review the effect of licensing requirements within three years of regulations being made.​
  • Following such a review, the Secretary of State would be required to consider whether to specify exempt supported accommodation as a use-class which would require planning in certain circumstances​.

This clause needs to be read in conjunction with clauses 4, 5, 6, & 7 above.

Currently the planning use class position for supported housing (remember that pretty much all socially managed supported housing is “exempt supported accommodation”) is confused.

Supported living (i.e. where a single person or a couple receives support in their own home) is subject to use class C3(a) and supported housing where up to 6 people live together as a single household is subject to use class C3(b). See here.

It is therefore the case that supported housing schemes of 7 or more people in shared accommodation fall outside of the planning use classes. If the Supported Housing (Regulatory Oversight) Bill provides an opportunity to sensibly rationalise the planning use classes for supported housing, then this would be a good thing.

Clause 9: Homelessness​

This clause would ensure that where someone chooses to leave exempt supported accommodation due to poor conditions or care, and the standards within the accommodation do not meet the National Supported Housing Standards, they will not be classed as “intentionally homeless”.​

This clearly a good thing. It is nothing short of disgraceful that people with additional needs are faced with a Catch 22 situation where they’re forced to continue to live in poor conditions in so-called supported housing, or to live on the streets because they’re “intentionally homeless”, having refused to live in poor conditions in so-called supported housing that takes their enhanced housing benefit entitlements in exchange for poor accommodation with nil or negligible support.

Clauses 10 & 11: Information Sharing About Exempt Accommodation​

  • Gives the Secretary of State power to make regulations relating to the sharing of information on Exempt Accommodation by a local authority; a registered provider of social housing; the Regulator of Social Housing and the Secretary of State.​
  • Provides that certain information obtained under specified legislation relating to housing benefit or council tax, can be used by a local housing authority for any purpose connected with the exercise of any of its functions under the Bill, or otherwise relating to specified exempt accommodation, or for the purposes of investigating whether any offence has been committed by virtue of the Bill.​

Amendment NC1 tabled by Clive Betts MP would require the Secretary of State to consult on the establishment of a national regulator of supported exempt accommodation. This might be “an existing public authority”.

As with some other parts of the Supported Housing (Regulatory Oversight) Bill, the focus here is too limited to the Regulator of Social Housing and Regulator of Social Housing regulated agencies, which by no means represent the totality of the supported housing sector. This limited scope excludes charities, CICs, other forms of voluntary agency and, crucially, the private sector. As I have observed above, the same criticism can be applied to the membership of the Advisory Panel under clause 1 (above).

Clive Betts’ amendment NC1, however, gives us the opportunity to establish a new “national regulator of supported exempt accommodation”. This agency should specifically not be the Regulator of Social Housing, the Charity Commission, the CIC regulator, the FCA or the CQC, none of which really understand supported housing and none of which have a monopoly on the regulation of supported housing providers.

Amendment NC2 by Kate Hollern MP states that all residents of supported housing should be provided by the local authority with a Charter of Rights that should include:

  • A statement of the rights of residents of supported exempt accommodation.
  • A statement of the responsibilities of providers of supported exempt accommodation.
  • Information about support services for residents of supported exempted accommodation.

Rather than reinvent the wheel on this, why not simply adopt Spring Housing’s “Charter of Rights for Supported Exempt Accommodation” residents?

Conclusions

At time of writing the Supported Housing (Regulatory Oversight) Bill is making its way through the House of Lords. It has cross-party support, so it is highly likely to be enacted as law.

This Bill 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 Bill provides for local infrastructure to manage supported housing, including licensing powers. It prescribes a set of national standards for supported housing, which are well overdue, although these should be informed by a wider set of interests than has been proposed.

The Bill has an unnecessary preoccupation with supported housing providers that are regulated by the Regulator of Social Housing, and this comes at the expense of other non-profit supported housing providers and of the private sector. We need an overarching piece of legislation that captures the totality of the supported housing ecosystem. The future regulator of supported housing must not be an existing regulator.

The Bill doesn’t challenge the status quo of the exempt accommodation rules, which should be abolished, and the local authority subsidy rules, which should be changed to stop local authorities favouring registered providers, for financial reasons, as supported housing landlords.

The Bill also doesn’t specifically address the confusion at local authority level where people with additional needs are routinely routed into temporary accommodation by Homelessness/Housing Options teams when they should be routed to supported housing. However, the amendments to Clauses 4 & 5 that require a local authority (or supported housing provider on its behalf) to carry out needs assessments of people in the context of supported housing may be a means by which this anomaly is resolved.

The Bill rightly emphasis the rights of people with additional needs by requiring a Charter of Rights for residents of supported housing. It also requires that people who leave poor quality supported housing should not be declared to be “intentionally homeless”.

How We Can Help You

We are currently offering Board, SMT and staff team briefings to supported housing providers, registered providers, social impact investment agencies and the statutory sector on the implications of the Supported Housing (Regulatory Oversight) Bill. These can be delivered face to face or remotely and are based on an agreed brief with each agency. Usually, they are 2–4-hour events, depending on what your organisation requires.

Please call 0800 002 9467 to discuss this.

Michael Patterson

April 2023

Categories
Policy

The Exempt Accommodation Inquiry Report

Exempt Accommodation Inquiry Report

Introduction and Background

On 27th October we finally saw the long-awaited Exempt Accommodation Inquiry Report. The purpose of this briefing is to summarise it and the wider context of Exempt Accommodation in general.

My name is commonly associated with Exempt Accommodation as one of a few people who identified it, and Enhanced Housing Benefit, as a means for supported housing providers to offset some of their revenue loss from the retrenchment of the Supporting People initiative from 2005 onwards.

The Exempt Accommodation Inquiry Report states “we would describe the system of Exempt Accommodation as a complete mess”. Those of you who read my blog posts and briefings will know how strongly I feel about people and organisations who use the Exempt Accommodation system for personal gain, some of whom do so on an industrial scale.

Work that I and others have done on Exempt Accommodation and Enhanced Housing Benefit has led to the creation of a revenue stream for supported housing of around £1 billion a year, in the absence of any meaningful alternative revenue stream for supported housing.

The term “Intensive Housing Management”, which is what Enhanced Housing Benefit funds for Exempt Accommodation providers to provide eligible services, exists because I identified and reintroduced that term in 2005 to describe the tasks and functions Enhanced Housing Benefit funds.

The problem is that greedy, unprincipled, money grabbing people have taken it upon themselves to abuse people with additional needs for their own financial gain. In some cases, making millions of pounds every year off the backs of people they’re supposed to be accommodating and supporting.

Since I and others began raising concerns about the situation some years ago, we have seen developments such as the National Statement of Expectations for Supported Housing, the Exempt Accommodation pilots and related things such as the May 2022 DWP Guidance for the Administration of Housing Benefit claims for supported housing as well as the Exempt Accommodation Inquiry itself.

I have strongly advocated a values-based approach to the management of the supported housing ecosystem, including accreditation of supported housing providers at local level and an independent oversight system.

General Observations

I’m pleased to say some of what I advocate in this regard has been acknowledged in the Exempt Accommodation Inquiry Report including the language I have used to describe Exempt Accommodation abuse such as the “wild west gold rush“. This particular soundbite also seems to have been adopted by Bob Blackman MP, a member of the DLUHC Inquiry Committee and the sponsor of the recently published “Supported Housing (Regulatory Oversight) Bill” currently heading for its second reading in Parliament. However, the Exempt Accommodation Inquiry Report, whilst justifiably angry, is a somewhat patchy and in places a disappointingly unhelpful response.

Detail on the Supported Housing (Regulatory Oversight) Bill is currently sparse, but I assume that its content will reflect that of the Exempt Accommodation Inquiry Report. If it does, it will cause me similar concern to that raised by my reading of the Report, which follows below. We have the opportunity to deal with the unfit for purpose Exempt Accommodation Rules and the dubious people who abuse them and the people they’re supposed to accommodate and support. My reading of the Report does not give me confidence that we’re on the right track here.

My own view is that the Exempt Accommodation rules should be abolished. They have been used for the obverse of which they were intended, which was (ironically) to prevent abuse of the Housing Benefit system. For the past 10 years people in supported housing (except private sector supported housing) have had the housing component of their Universal Credit administered as Housing Benefit under the Exempt Accommodation rules, meaning that it is effectively uncapped. Why don’t we formalise that arrangement so the tenants of locally accredited supported housing providers of any legal identity can claim what I have previously referred to as “Supported Housing Rent“?

We need radical, uncomplicated, structural change to rid the supported housing ecosystem of the thieves and abusers that infest it in the guise of supported housing providers, and in some cases registered providers. But the Exempt Accommodation Inquiry Report doesn’t go nearly far enough to achieve this.

I still don’t think that the Exempt Accommodation Inquiry has quite grasped the fact that most (socially managed) supported housing is actually Exempt Accommodation, and that Exempt Accommodation isn’t just a potentially dubious subtype of supported housing. If the Inquiry had taken this wider view of Exempt Accommodation, maybe it would have come up with a more comprehensive prescription for structural change in the funding of supported housing.

The Exempt Accommodation Inquiry Report’s focus on “regulation” is unfortunate. I have been saying for a long time that the issue is not one of regulation, it’s one of accreditation and oversight. I note the Report does now use the term “oversight”, but unfortunately not of the services supported housing providers provide. The emphasis seems to be more on “regulatory oversight” of the supported housing providers themselves.

The Exempt Accommodation Inquiry Report comments on the variable “quality of Exempt Accommodation” and refers to the National Statement of Expectations as a framework to focus on the housing element of Exempt Accommodation. It rightly emphasises the need for there to be recognised referral pathways into Exempt Accommodation.

Any of you involved in Exempt Accommodation on the ground will know that many local authorities already place significant emphasis on referral pathways into Exempt Accommodation as part of their efforts to manage their supported housing ecosystems.

The Exempt Accommodation Inquiry Report also calls for a clear definition of “care, support and supervision” the provision of which on a “more than minimal basis” is a requirement of Exempt Accommodation compliance. It recommends a set of national standards for “referrals, support and accommodation” should be enforced by local authorities. It recommends that the UK Government should, within 12 months, publish national standards on:

  • Referrals processes
  • Care support and supervision
  • Housing quality
  • Information supported housing providers should give to residents

And that new funding should be given to local authorities to implement these.

Domestic Violence and Abuse.

On the issue of domestic abuse, the Exempt Accommodation Inquiry Report is more reassuring. I’m very aware of the fact that there is a proliferation of organisations offering housing to victims of domestic violence and abuse whilst having no specialist experience in this area.

This isn’t helped by local authorities routinely referring such people to non-specialist supported housing via their statutory homelessness obligations.

The Exempt Accommodation Inquiry Report rightly recommends that Enhanced Housing Benefit, in this context, should only be paid to supported housing/refuge providers that “meet the standards in Part 4 of the Domestic Abuse Act 2021” and that there should be an increased supply of such “relevant specialist services”.

Regulation and Oversight

My view has always been and remains that supported housing providers should be accredited (or not as the case may be) by local authorities exactly as they were under the Supporting People initiative, and that their services should be overseen by an independent agency using the three Value Generation principles.[1]

Unfortunately, the Exempt Accommodation Inquiry Report’s recommendations in respect to regulation and oversight is something of a dog’s breakfast. The report acknowledges, as I have consistently maintained, there are several regulators in the supported housing ecosystem, none of which has “complete oversight of the different elements of Exempt Accommodation”. It also observes that some supported housing providers are not regulated. It recommends the creation of “National Oversight Committee” to address the oversight of supported housing providers (but not the services they provide.) This committee should apparently be comprised of “existing regulators” (presumably the Regulator for Social Housing, Charity Commission and the CIC Regulator) which the Report describes as being “expert in their own areas”.

To be honest I do not believe that any of these regulators are remotely “expert” in supported housing in general or Exempt Accommodation in particular. My experience of the RSH, for example, is that it has never understood supported housing and that it tends to treat supported housing a “bolt on” to mainstream social housing. Its attempts to try and force rent structures for supported housing into the unviable “low-cost social housing” model as per section 69 of the Housing and Regeneration Act 2008 is an illustration of this.

I reiterate that accreditation at local level would be a much stronger and more effective solution. We already have the Supporting People accreditation frameworks which could be refreshed and reused for this purpose. A “National Oversight Committee” on the terms suggested by the Exempt Accommodation Inquiry Report would add to the “complete mess” the Report identifies. The supported housing sector doesn’t need more regulation: it needs accreditation at local level and oversight on an independent basis.

What is perhaps even more alarming is the recommendation that supported housing providers should have to register as registered providers and its blithe dismissal of the fact that the Regulator for Social Housing has deliberately made it increasingly difficult for supported housing providers to register. The report states that “registration should not be unnecessarily onerous or expensive, and if it is that should change”.

Trying to register supported housing providers with the RSH is akin to trying to stuff a camel through the eye of a needle, and if it were a straightforward process we would end up with a situation where supported housing providers are forced to register with a regulator that doesn’t want them and doesn’t understand them. Furthermore, why should it be the case that, for example, supported housing provider charities and CICs, which are already regulated, are forced into the regulatory purview of another regulator? Private sector supported housing providers, some of which are very good, may simply cease to operate rather than be forced to register with the RSH.

A solution to this problem can be seen in the Exempt Accommodation Project, which brokers relationships between supported housing providers and community-based registered providers wherein the registered providers take leasehold interests in the supported housing providers’ properties, thus becoming the landlord.

This is a far simpler solution than trying to force supported housing providers to register as registered providers, and it does comply with the spirit of the Exempt Accommodation Inquiry Report’s rather misguided approach to this issue without making the mistakes of that approach.

The Exempt Accommodation Project needs more community based registered providers to get involved with us to work with supported housing providers. Please get in touch with me for more information about this.

Lease-Based Models

The Exempt Accommodation Inquiry Report accepts that leased-based models similar to that used by the Exempt Accommodation Project are a necessary part of the supported housing ecosystem. It does, however, object to this model on a “for-profit” basis.

I absolutely understand the need to stamp out excessive profiteering through lease-based supported housing models, but the approach of the Exempt Accommodation Inquiry Report, which wants to “prohibit lease-based profit-making schemes from being set up” is frankly silly.

We definitely need to sort out the lease-based sheep from the goats, but the Exempt Accommodation Inquiry Report recommendations will also throw the baby out with the bathwater. There is a world of difference between the approach taken by excellent lease-based models used by social impact investors that look to establish high quality, transparently costed supported housing with an annual return in the region of 5-6% on the one hand, compared to others that grossly inflate the capital costs involved and then look for excessive percentage returns on their artificially inflated capital sum.

Supported housing absolutely needs private capital investment with acceptable rates of return for social impact investors. Is the UK Government about to announce large-scale public capital investment in supported housing? I doubt it somehow, and I think that the language used in this regard by the Exempt Accommodation Inquiry Report is positively dangerous for essential private capital social impact investment in supported housing that must rely on a reasonable profit-making lease-based model.

Funding

The Exempt Accommodation Inquiry Report recommends that the UK Government, not for the first time, should “conduct a review of Housing Benefit claims to determine how much is being spent on what”.

It also says that “rent should be capped at a reasonable level to meet the higher costs of managing Exempt Accommodation”, a principle that I have proposed as part of my “Supported Housing Rent” proposition.

It is imperative in this context that local authorities resist the temptation to apply a cost control approach when establishing what a “reasonable level” is. A reasonable level is the actual cost of providing good quality supported housing on a transparent, open book basis, that the Exempt Accommodation Inquiry Report wants to see.

The Exempt Accommodation Inquiry Report states that “funding for support should be provided separately”. It doesn’t say how. Since the demise of Supporting People, “support” has hardly been funded at all. Whilst Enhanced Housing Benefit doesn’t fund “support”, the last few years, and especially since the DWP guidance of May this year, have seen an increasing pressure on the part of local authorities to restrict Enhanced Housing Benefit funding to strictly directly property-related tasks and functions. Please see the Supported Housing Blog for a list of routinely eligible Enhanced Housing Benefit tasks and functions.

It’s all very well for the UK Government to say that “funding for support should be provided separately”, but where is this funding?

The Exempt Accommodation Inquiry Report also states that “the Government should also consider how to give councils greater control over rents for Exempt Accommodation to ensure value for money”. The DWP guidance mentioned above does do this to a certain extent, but a much more effective response would be to abolish the Exempt Accommodation Rules, as I’ve previously argued, replace Enhanced Housing Benefit with Supported Housing Rent, which should have reasonable local maxima and have a locally administered accreditation system for supported housing providers without which supported housing rent cannot be paid.

Planning

The Exempt Accommodation Inquiry Report recommends that all supported housing, irrespective of the number of people living in a particular scheme, should be subject to HMO licensing. This includes properties where the landlord is a registered provider.

This will have a detrimental impact on many existing supported housing schemes which may have to be reconfigured in order to comply. Any loss of capacity (i.e. room numbers) as a consequence will lead to a corresponding loss of revenue that may render it unviable. In addition, who is going to pay for the necessary work?

Many local authorities are currently rolling out selective licensing schemes for supported housing within which there should be mechanisms for ensuring health and safety within such supported housing schemes that do not currently require an HMO licence.

Blanket enforcement of HMO regulations is at best a crude instrument. HMO regulations are right and proper within the properties to which they were originally meant to apply. Applying them wholesale to the entirety of our supported housing stock will cause significant expense, potential loss of revenue on a permanent basis, unviability and, in some cases, will create an unnecessarily institutional environment in smaller supported housing schemes.

Conclusions

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 preoccupation with “regulation” as opposed to local accreditation of supported housing providers and independent oversight of their services skews the focus and conclusions of the Report. Furthermore, the idea that the Regulator for Social Housing and the Charity Commission, for example, should be responsible for the “regulatory oversight” of supported housing providers and the development of national policy in this regard is akin to suggesting that the Football Association should oversee rugby clubs. Supported housing, in my opinion, does not need more regulation, especially from agencies that don’t fully understand it. It is, however, in desperate need of organisational accreditation and service delivery oversight systems.

The recommendation that no further “for profit leased-based” supported housing should be developed is a crude response to an undoubted problem. It would certainly get shot of dodgy developers after a fast buck, but it would also prevent good quality social impact investors from providing much needed (and inexpensive) private capital for supported housing in circumstances where public capital is scarce indeed and the need for supported housing is increasing, not decreasing.

Similarly, the insistence that all supported housing providers should register with the RSH and also be subject to HMO regulations is an impractical, kneejerk response that will cause huge problems.

We don’t need to reinvent the wheel here. The solution to the abuse of the Exempt Accommodation rules is to abolish those rules, reintroduce the organisational accreditation process to which supported housing providers were subject under Supporting People, introduce an independent (of local authorities and providers) service oversight system based on Value Generation principles, and pay Supported Housing Rent to accredited providers instead of enhanced Housing Benefit, which should be abolished along with the Exempt Accommodation rules.

[1] Outcomes for people (measured qualitatively), cost benefit to the public purse (measured quantitively) wider social and community benefit (measured qualitatively and quantitively).

Categories
Policy

The Problems with Exempt Accommodation

problems with exempt accommodation
problems with exempt accommodation

Background

Back in 2005 the primary revenue funding stream for supported housing was “Supporting People funding”, a £1.8 billion UK wide funding pot that had been rolled out two years earlier but was already retrenching markedly. Supported housing providers were struggling to cope with revenue reductions after having been encouraged to grow their services by the government of the day, which then immediately set about restricting the Supporting People revenue upon which those schemes depended.

It was at that time that I and a few others identified a means of offsetting some of that revenue loss. We identified the existence of the Exempt Accommodation rules, an arcane set of regulations that entitled agencies that complied with them to claim enhanced levels of Housing Benefit for providing certain housing related services to people with additional needs. I reinvented the term “intensive housing management” to describe those services and set about promoting the Exempt Accommodation rules, enhanced Housing Benefit, and intensive housing management to the supported housing sector. Over 15 years later, enhanced Housing Benefit has become the primary funding stream for supported housing totalling around £1 billion per year.

Problems?

I hope you’ll forgive me for taking pride in having been instrumental in creating that £1 billion revenue pot. However, in addition to a sense of pride I also have a sense of intense anger at the fact that the Exempt Accommodation rules have been roundly abused by organisations and individuals that have made massive amounts of money, and still do, through the wholesale financial abuse of people with additional needs.

Housing Benefit, whether enhanced or not, is a personal benefit. This personal benefit is being diverted into the pockets of dubiously motivated people on an industrial scale.

To qualify your tenants for enhanced Housing Benefit you must be an “exempt landlord”: put simply; a “housing association”, a charity or voluntary organisation.

The Exempt Accommodation rules were devised in 1996 to prevent ill motivated private landlords from robbing the Housing Benefit system by providing poor quality bed-and-breakfast accommodation to homeless people and charging the local authority a fortune for it. The government of the day introduced the Exempt Accommodation rules to restrict private landlords to Local Reference Rent levels (now known as Local Housing Allowance). Certain landlords, identified above, were exempt from those rent levels, so exempt landlords could claim enhanced levels of Housing Benefit.

What has happened since enhanced Housing Benefit became a major revenue stream is that certain individuals have abused the system by setting up allegedly exempt landlord structures, which are nothing more than badly motivated private businesses masquerading as exempt accommodation compliant supported housing providers.

These businesses are exploiting the Exempt Accommodation rules to use them for the very opposite purpose for which they were intended, which was to prevent, not enable, the abuse of peoples’ Housing Benefit entitlements.

But it’s not just dubious supported housing providers, which milk the system and provide poor quality accommodation and minimal or non-existent services that are the problem. Commercial greed has affected the entire supported housing ecosystem.

Private Capital

Don’t get me wrong here; I absolutely believe that private capital is essential for the development of new supported housing schemes. Whether you fund supported housing, commission supported housing, deliver it, or measure its quality you need to do so according to a set of principles. A few years ago, I devised “Value Generation” as this set of principles:

  • Outcomes for people (qualitatively measured)
  • Cost benefit to the public purse (quantitatively measured)
  • Wider social and community benefit (qualitatively and quantitatively measured)

So, if you don’t generate value you shouldn’t be involved in supported housing.

Just as many supported housing providers do a brilliant job for people with additional needs, some private capital providers do the same thing. To get an idea of what I mean you could do worse than to book onto our free virtual supported housing conference 2022. One of the sessions will be led by Assetz Exchange, which acquires and leases property for supported housing and whose investors can expect a yield of in the region of 5%, which is entirely reasonable and is an exercise in Value Generation.

By comparison, I’m aware of other private capital providers who think that 9%, 10%, 12% or 15% yields are reasonable and some of which would think nothing of using dubious valuation methodologies as a means of inflating the property lease cost for enhanced Housing Benefit claim purposes. Often the only value being generated in such examples is financial value to investors and shareholders at the expense of services for people with additional needs, who are supposed to be the point of and the priority for supported housing.

The Invasion of the Supported Housing Ecosystem & the Response to it

Many of the money motivated private capital providers have made common cause with equally money motivated registered providers, which in turn work with supported housing provider agencies that take on the identity of CICs and other allegedly non-profit structures.

This has led to an invasion of the supported housing ecosystem by people and organisations who know how to play the system for financial gain.

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.

One of the consequences of this is the National Statement of Expectations for Supported Housing, published by the UK government (England only) in October 2020, which tells local authorities to restrict the number of new supported housing “market entrants”, to restrict the payment of enhanced Housing Benefit (without actually using those words) and exhorts commissioners and revenues and benefits teams to work together in the administration of enhanced Housing Benefit.

“Inside Housing” magazine continues to run an information campaign on the uncontrolled growth of exempt accommodation. Thea Raisbeck on behalf of Commonweal Housing and Spring Housing published “Exempt From Responsibility?“, which focuses in particular on Birmingham; an outlier in exempt accommodation abuse with 22,000 exempt accommodation bed spaces. Many of these are in poor quality housing within which negligible or no services are provided, but which attract high levels of enhanced Housing Benefit. Where does that money go, I wonder?

But it’s not just Birmingham, bad though the situation is there. The MHCLG (now the DLUHC) set up five exempt accommodation pilots in Birmingham, Hull, Bristol, Blackburn and Blackpool all of which are exempt accommodation “hotspots”. Those pilots recently reported.

The “Supported Housing Oversight Pilots” evaluation report is heavily qualified methodologically and contains a plea for more funding for further evaluation. This wish appears to have been partially met by the UK government’s recent announcement of £20m towards a Supported Housing Improvement Programme.

The report recommends that “care, support and supervision” (an Exempt Accommodation rule criterion) should be defined and that regulations around rent levels and subsidy rules should be reviewed. The temptation to use this as a means of exercising cost control rather than Value Generation must be resisted. It might sound a bit “old hat” of me to say that investment in preventative services such as supported housing saves a fortune in otherwise avoidable statutory interventions, but it’s still true. The point should be to deny revenue to dodgy operators, not restrict revenue to good ones.

The report also reflects the National Statement of Expectations for Supported Housing in saying that local authorities should be able to intervene to stop new supported housing supply where it is unnecessary or of poor quality. Many local authorities have set up “gateway” arrangements which prospective supported housing providers have to go through, rather than just setting up and applying for enhanced Housing Benefit.

Rather confusingly, the report claims that “local authorities’ oversight of support is currently limited by existing regulation….”. It seems to me that there is a distinct difference between regulation on the one hand (and the supported housing sector has several regulators) and oversight on the other, which pretty much doesn’t exist. In my view, ALL supported housing providers should be subject to local accreditation as they were during the Supporting People initiative. No accreditation should mean no funding.

Oversight should be based on an independently developed and implemented oversight system based on Value Generation principles.

Given the prominence of some registered providers in what has become the exempt accommodation industry, the Regulator of Social Housing (RSH) in England has sanctioned several exempt accommodation registered providers. The modus operandi of some of those registered providers is to use associated private companies to charge large amounts of money often for unspecified services to supported housing providers (both good and bad) that work as their agents. Let’s do the maths here; if for example, a registered provider has 5000 agency managed bed spaces and an associated private company charges 10% of the rent roll to those agencies (for unspecified services that may not be provided), given an average weekly enhanced Housing Benefit charge of, say, £200 a week, it’s making £5.2 million per year. Where is this money going?

Thus far the RSH has claimed it has no control over third party organisations associated with registered providers, even in circumstances of apparent “disguised profit”. However, that is about to change as a consequence of legislative changes to sections 107, 108, 203 and 208 of the Housing and Regeneration Act 2008, which will give the RSH “look through” powers to demand that registered providers explain where money that has left the regulated sector has gone, and not before time.

The UK government DLUHC is currently conducting an Inquiry into Exempt Accommodation. You can see my submission to that enquiry here. The thrust of my submission is that Exempt Accommodation as a concept should be abolished, that enhanced Housing Benefit should be abolished and replaced with “Supported Housing Rent“, which is an uncapped housing component of Universal Credit, that all supported housing providers should be accredited at local level (as they were under “Supporting People”) and that there should be an independent oversight system for Supported Housing  based on Value Generation principles.

At time of writing the Inquiry is ongoing, but we will be updating you on any progress it makes at our supported housing conference 2022 which, I repeat, is a free event. At time of writing, we have 800 bookings across the six separate components of the conference.

The Exempt Accommodation Project.

One of the serious implications of the abuse of the Exempt Accommodation rules and enhanced Housing Benefit is that local authorities have, in many cases, implemented quite stringent interpretations of the National Statement of Expectations for Supported Housing by making it much harder for supported housing providers to claim enhanced Housing Benefit. I can quite understand their position, but it affects genuine supported housing providers as well as their dubious counterparts.

In addition to making it harder to claim enhanced Housing Benefit, some local authorities have told supported housing providers to register as registered providers. This is because where a registered provider is the landlord a local authority can recover from the DWP all the enhanced Housing Benefit it pays. Where a charity or voluntary organisations the landlord in an exempt accommodation/enhanced Housing Benefit claim, the local authority can only recover 60% of the difference between the Local Housing Allowance rate and the amount of the claim, so the local authority will lose a lot of money if it pays the claim.

However, the RSH has an effective embargo on registering new supported housing registered providers, again due to the conduct of those wrongly motivated supported housing registered providers, many of which have been sanctioned by the RSH.

Our solution to this is the Exempt Accommodation Project, which brokers relationships between reputable supported housing providers and reputable registered providers to enable local authorities to pay reasonable, well-founded enhanced Housing Benefit claims without loss of subsidy.

Talk To Us

If you represent a reputable supported housing provider struggling to claim enhanced Housing Benefit, or a reputable registered provider willing to take a short-term lease on a supported housing provider’s property for a good revenue stream please contact us.

Finally, if you’re looking for values driven professional consultancy advice and support in supported housing, please get in touch.

Categories
Finance & Funding Policy

Enhanced Housing Benefit, the Exempt Accommodation Project and the Oversight of Supported Housing

supported housing head image

Introduction

Some months ago, I wrote a briefing on the oversight of supported housing. Since then, much has happened in the supported housing space, including the National Statement of Expectations for Supported Housing and consequential structural changes at local authority level. These changes include more integrated “commissioning” of supported housing, often in conjunction with Revenues and Benefits departments, as local authorities consider how to manage the supported housing “market”.

Enhanced Housing Benefit and the Exempt Accommodation Rules

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.

Other local authorities are restricting enhanced Housing Benefit payments to non-registered supported housing providers to artificial local maxima of less than they need and are entitled to. They do this to avoid the subsidy loss they incur when they pay enhanced Housing Benefit to non-registered supported housing providers. This is understandable in a way, but it further reinforces the three-tier system in which a tenant’s entitlement to enhanced Housing Benefit is dependent on the legal identity of their landlord, which is patently bonkers as well as discriminatory:

  • Private supported housing landlord: Local Housing Allowance levels only
  • Nonregistered supported housing provider landlord: reduced levels of enhanced Housing Benefit
  • Registered provider supported housing landlord: full enhanced Housing Benefit

We actually need to get rid of the Exempt Accommodation rules and move to a supported housing rent based on an unrestricted Universal Credit housing component. This should be irrespective of the legal identity of the supported housing provider.

The Exempt Accommodation Project

Whilst we are stuck with the Exempt Accommodation rules, we’ve developed the exempt accommodation project in order to:

  • Stop financial discrimination based on the legal identity of a supported housing landlord
  • Enable local authorities to fully recover the enhanced Housing Benefit they pay
  • Ensure full regulatory compliance through the optional use of the ClouDigs cloud-based supported housing management system (it’s effectively free, so why not?)
  • Ensure that supported housing providers are of good quality and only operate with the consent of local statutory sector partners

The Exempt Accommodation Project works by connecting non-registered supported housing providers that own or lease their properties with smaller, community-based registered providers that then take a legal interest in the properties concerned. This enables the payment of enhanced Housing Benefit, which the local authority can fully recover. We provide all the necessary documentary infrastructure and regulatory compliance systems, and we calculate and secure the enhanced Housing Benefit. It effectively costs nothing as the small costs involved are Housing Benefit eligible.

Exempt Accommodation Project Flowchart

Exempt Accommodation Project Flowchart
Exempt Accommodation Project Flowchart

Please get in touch if you want to be part of the Exempt Accommodation Project, if you’re:

  • a supported housing provider, irrespective of legal identity, looking for enhanced Housing Benefit
  • a registered provider needing an additional revenue stream within a risk-managed structure
  • a local authority wanting a strategic approach to full subsidy recovery on enhanced Housing Benefit payments, and the effective management of the local supported housing market.

The Exempt Accommodation Project will not accommodate supported housing providers that are not welcome by the local authority within which they seek to operate. We conduct extensive due diligence on ALL supported housing providers (and registered providers) asking to be involved in the Exempt Accommodation Project. The first consideration the due diligence process is whether the supported housing provider in particular is “approved” by the local authority.

The Accreditation and Oversight of Supported Housing

It would be much simpler if supported housing providers were accredited by local authorities (not regulated or overseen, more on that in a minute). Why not simply refresh the old Supporting People accreditation framework? This would prevent the ill motivated people who set up poor quality supported housing providers and dubious registered providers as a moneymaking exercise from being able to claim enhanced Housing Benefit. Unaccredited providers should not be eligible to claim enhanced Housing Benefit. Thea Raisebeck’s “Exempt from Responsibility?” Report is an insight into the dangers of unaccredited providers.

The National Statement of Expectations requires local authorities to manage their local supported housing “market”, including supported housing services that they don’t fund, so-called non-commissioned services.

I think we need to clarify what we mean when we talk about “commissioned” and “non-commissioned” services. Both the National Statement of Expectation for Supported Housing and the abuse of the enhanced Housing Benefit system require us to do so.

In my view supported housing services should not be eligible for enhanced Housing Benefit or other funding unless they operate at the behest or with the approval of the local authority and its strategic partners.

Local authorities should actually accredit supported housing providers, whether or not they do so in a formal way. In this sense all enhanced Housing Benefit eligible supported housing services would effectively be “commissioned”. Commissioned with a capital C if they are recipients of local authority or other statutory funding aside from enhanced Housing Benefit and commissioned with a small c if they receive enhanced Housing Benefit only. The point is that the latter, which are erroneously referred to as “non-commissioned services”, should only be paid enhanced Housing Benefit if they operate at the behest of or with the approval of local authorities and are accredited by them. If they do this they should be regarded as commissioned services, albeit commissioned with a small c, as they do not receive local authority funding aside from enhanced Housing Benefit.

Accreditation is not regulation or oversight. It’s acceptance by a local authority that a provider operates strategically relevant supported housing that generates value[1].

As I have mentioned before, there is a multiplicity of regulators in the supported housing space: various national housing association/registered provider regulators, the Charity Commission, the CIC Regulator, the FCA none of which are specialists in supported housing.

For the most part supported housing is not overseen. The National Statement of Expectations doesn’t require local authorities to oversee supported housing, which is just as well as they are neither resourced and consequently skilled to do so.

I continue to argue for an independently developed and implemented supported housing oversight system with national scope and based on Value Generation principles. It should be developed by a university or think tank in consultation with the local authorities and providers but implemented independently. The outcomes it generates through formal oversight of supported housing should be fed back to local authorities and providers to inform funding and commissioning decisions and service improvement strategies.

The supported housing quality assessment system I propose (SHQAS) should be a Value Generation-based system. I defined the three value generation principles before and it’s important also to identify how these principles should be measured:

  1. Outcomes for people: qualitatively measured
  2. Cost benefit: quantitatively measured
  3. Wider social and community benefit: both qualitatively and quantitatively measured

The SHQAS should be funded by the UK and national governments. It shouldn’t cost providers and local authorities anything.

Conclusions

So, if you’re thinking about claiming enhanced Housing Benefit, be mindful of the fact that many local authorities are placing restrictions on the amounts they will pay and to whom.

Blanket approaches at restriction are exercises in cost control, not necessarily strategies to invest in supported housing providers that generate value and to restrict resources to those who don’t.

This means that there are many good supported housing providers, that don’t work with registered providers, that will have their revenue restricted. There are some not so good supported housing providers that work with registered providers (some of which are also questionable) which won’t have their revenue restricted.

The Exempt Accommodation Project is a means of rectifying this problem by matching good supported housing providers, which are “approved” by their local authorities, with good community-based registered providers.

In terms of how a local authority “approves” a supported housing provider I believe it should do so via a local accreditation process. No need to reinvent the wheel here: this is what local authorities used to do in the days of “Supporting People”. Bring out the old Supporting People accreditation framework, dust it down and update it for use today.

I don’t believe that local authorities are resourced or skilled to oversee supported housing, and in any event, we need to separate oversight on the one hand from commissioning and funding on the other. Hence, I have argued that a system for the oversight of supported housing, with national scope, should be developed by an independent agency such as a university or think tank and then implemented by that agency independently of both local authorities and supported housing providers. Clearly, the outcomes of the oversight process, which must be based on Value Generation principles, should be shared with both local authorities and providers to inform commissioning/funding decisions and service outcomes.

Michael Patterson

August 2021

[1] Value Generation is: outcomes for people (who live in supported housing); cost benefit to the public purse & wider social and community benefit.

Categories
Uncategorized

The Exempt Accommodation Project

The Exempt Accommodation Project
The Exempt Accommodation Project

Background

We have recently been contacted by a large number of non-registered supported housing providers (i.e supported housing providers that are not registered providers/housing associations) who tell us that their local authorities require them to become registered providers of social housing in order to be able to be included on the local framework agreements and in order to qualify for Enhanced Housing Benefit.

We are also aware, as per my recent blog post, that some local authorities are restricting Enhanced Housing Benefit payments to non-registered providers to levels well below those paid to registered providers. This is because local authorities can only fully reclaim from the DWP the Enhanced Housing Benefit they pay to registered providers.

Add to that the fact that private-sector providers have never been entitled to Enhanced Housing Benefit and what we have is a three-tier system in which:

  • Tenants of registered provider supported housing can receive full Enhanced Housing Benefit entitlements
  • Tenants of nonregistered supported housing providers receive partial Enhanced Housing Benefit entitlements
  • Tenants of private sector supported housing providers receive no Enhanced Housing Benefit at all

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.

The Exempt Accommodation Project

The Exempt Accommodation Project is a way of helping local authorities to properly fund supported housing via Intensive Housing Management/Enhanced Housing Benefit without losing subsidy and without requiring non-registered providers to register as registered providers (housing associations).

The Exempt Accommodation Project is, of necessity, a means of tinkering with the existing system, which is based on the exempt accommodation rules. However, the UK government, having already said that supported housing will continue to be funded through the welfare system, should make the housing component of Universal Credit unrestricted for supported housing so that the true cost of supported housing can be met through a “Supported Housing Rent“. This should be payable to all supported housing providers, irrespective of their legal identity, provided they generate value[1] however, the wheels of state turn slowly so until that happens, we have the Exempt Accommodation Project.

How does the Exempt Accommodation Project work?

The Exempt Accommodation Project seeks to match non-registered supported housing providers that own or lease their properties with compatible registered providers in a more equitable way than traditional registered provider/managing agency agreements. The properties in question are then leased by the supported housing provider to the registered provider, usually on a short-term lease with break clauses. As a consequence, local authorities can fully reclaim the Enhanced Housing Benefit they pay, because a registered provider is the landlord.

  • The registered provider is paid (via the Enhanced Housing Benefit claim) for what it does, which will vary depending on what, if anything, the supported housing provider needs. This is likely to appeal to smaller, community-based registered providers for whom the additional income could be a game-changer.
  • The supported housing provider is also paid for what it does via the same Enhanced Housing Benefit claim, which will be more secure because the local authority can recover it from the DWP.
  • Maintenance can continue to be provided by the supported housing provider or subcontracted to a specialist supported housing maintenance provider, or the registered provider can do it, depending on what works best for the supported housing provider.
  • We provide the necessary leases/subleases and management agreements
  • We calculate and negotiate the revised Enhanced Housing Benefit claims.
  • It won’t cost you anything. The Exempt Accommodation Project charges a small fee to the rent for the duration of the arrangement, which is fully recoverable from Enhanced Housing Benefit in any case..

Supported housing providers and registered providers can choose who they work with and what components of the Exempt Accommodation Project structure they need.

Supported housing providers and registered providers that want to get involved will need to show that they generate value. They will need to show that they operate through recognised referral pathways and that they are legitimate providers as far as the local authorities are concerned.

The Exempt Accommodation Project is not an invitation to dubiously motivated opportunists to access Enhanced Housing Benefit. It is an opportunity for genuine supported housing providers and registered providers to operate with the financial and strategic approval of local authorities and to enable those local authorities to fully recover the Enhanced Housing Benefit they pay.

We are setting up a database of providers and registered providers in order to match one with the other. Matching may initially be done on the basis of geography; however, this may be less important than “cultural fit”. For example, some registered providers may prefer to work with non-profit supported housing providers. Others may be comfortable with private sector supported housing providers. Irrespective of legal identity supported housing providers must generate value, as must the registered providers.

It’s then up to the supported housing provider and registered provider to agree who does what and how the revenue is split. This is a discussion we can facilitate if that’s helpful. The split of roles can vary. Many supported housing providers that own or lease their property will want the registered provider to have a “light touch/arms-length” role. Others will want a greater level of registered provider involvement and the revenue would be split accordingly.

[1] Value Generation has 3 components: outcomes for people; cost benefit to the public purse & wider social and community benefit

Exempt Accommodation Project Structure

We have a management agreement template that can be adjusted to reflect the parties’ respective roles and the split of revenue.

We have lease and sublease models that can be used to enable the registered provider to take (typically) a 5–7-year leasehold interest in the supported housing providers’ properties with mutual break clauses.

We recommend a bespoke cloud-based supported housing management system (developed by a supported housing provider) that enables the registered provider to fulfil its regulatory oversight responsibilities and enables the supported housing provider to manage its housing and support roles. This costs just a few pence per day per occupied bed space and is Housing Benefit eligible.

We have links to a specialist supported housing management and maintenance provider if the supported housing provider isn’t resourced to do these things.

Management agreement relationships where the registered provider owns the property can be quite unequal. The Exempt Accommodation Project is intended for supported housing providers that own or lease their own property to work with registered providers on a more equal basis.

The Exempt Accommodation Project can also be a way of putting together registered providers and supported housing providers who want to discuss wider strategic partnerships and/or mergers.

As well as facilitating the entire structure of the of these arrangements (introductions, agreements, supported housing management system, maintenance options) we also revise the Enhanced Housing Benefit claims to take account of the (small) costs involved.

This idea generates huge value for local authorities, registered providers, supported housing providers and for residents of supported housing.

Getting Involved

Please get in touch if:

  • You’re a supported housing provider that needs secure Enhanced Housing Benefit revenue and eligibility to be included on local authority framework agreements, or you’ve been told to register as a registered provider
  • A registered provider that needs additional income or is interested in partnerships or mergers with supported housing providers
  • A local authority that’s looking to manage the local supported housing market in such a way as to generate value without loss of Housing Benefit subsidy

We already have a growing list of supported housing providers and registered providers on the Exempt Accommodation Project database. Please become part of this.

Michael Patterson

June 2021

Categories
Finance & Funding

Intensive Housing Management & Enhanced Housing Benefit

supported housing finance
claiming enhanced housing benefit for supported housding

A List of Routinely Eligible Intensive Housing Management Tasks & Functions

Updated October 2022

Please be mindful that just because a task, activity or function is listed here it doesn’t necessarily mean that a local authority Revenues & Benefits Team will agree to fund it, or even agree that it’s eligible in principle. Different authorities take different views, but what I have listed below are things that are routinely accepted as eligible.

Enhanced Housing Benefit for Intensive Housing Management is a complex area. It’s based on regulation and case law and is subject to change. Landlords seeking Enhanced Housing Benefit to fund Intensive Housing Management services must comply with the Exempt Accommodation rules. The amounts claimed should reflect the reasonable costs of providing eligible services to people who have been genuinely assessed as needing Intensive Housing Management.

Claims for Enhanced Housing Benefit are rightly subject to scrutiny by local authorities, and the level of scrutiny is increasing as a consequence of abuses of the system by some unscrupulous individuals and organisations. The National Statement of Expectation for Supported Housing (England only) encourages local authorities and their strategic partners to ‘manage the supported housing market’. In practical terms this involves ensuring the quality of supported housing providers and controlling Enhanced Housing Benefit costs.

In May 2022 the DWP published “Housing Benefit Guidance for Supported Housing Claims“. This guidance has led to increased levels of srutiny of enhanced Housing Benefit claims and a stricter interpretation of eligibility, such that the emphasis is very much on property-specific tasks and functions.

This revised guidance also needs to be seen in the context of the UKUT hearing Allerdale BC v JD, the summary of which states: “What constitutes “general counselling or..any other support services” within paragraph 1(f) of schedule 1 to the HB Regulations 2006 must be assessed with regard to the legislative history of that provision. There is no automatic linkage between schedule 1(f) and the definition of “exempt accommodation” in the HB and CTB (Consequential Provisions) Regulations 2006.”

If you are seeking Enhanced Housing Benefit for Intensive Housing Management you should be an existing, qualifying supported housing provider. If you are a new supported housing provider you should have established referral pathways and be acting with the specific approval of commissioners.

You might be an excellent supported housing provider that provides excellent services to people with additional needs. This doesn’t guarantee that a local authority will agree to pay you Enhanced Housing Benefit, but we can help you in the construction, submission and negotiation of claims.

Context

Intensive Housing Management that is routinely eligible for Enhanced Housing Benefit is split into two broad areas and includes both staff and non-staff costs:

  • General needs housing management and maintenance functions that are more intensively provided as a consequence of the additional needs of supported housing residents
  • Additional or intensive housing management and maintenance functions and tasks that would not be provided in general needs accommodation where no additional needs exist. Such tasks and functions include but are not limited to:

Intensive Housing Management List

  • The provision of an alarm (even though alarms are not HB eligible) or the Housing Proactive system (which is HB eligible. Please ask us about this)
  • Controlling access to the premises (concierge type services)
  • Ensuring rent is paid regularly and on time.
  • Explaining the occupancy agreement and assisting people to abide by it.
  • Organising inspections of property and arranging for any repairs or improvements to be carried out, including the replacement of furniture.
  • The additional costs of property maintenance and repair, aids and adaptations, housing services, furniture, fittings and equipment
  • Ensuring that people are aware of their rights under their occupancy agreement.
  • Offering advice and guidance on keeping property to a reasonable standard of hygiene.
  • Signposting people to other support providers as required (though this is increasingly seen by some LAs as “support”).
  • Liaising with all relevant agencies, both statutory and voluntary, on the tenant’s behalf to the extent that it concerns their ability to maintain/develop independence in relation to their housing.
  • Assisting people to reduce rent arrears.
  • Dealing with nuisance issues.
  • Ensuring that people know how to use equipment safely.
  • Providing people with advice and facilitating a move to alternative accommodation as required.
  • Assisting people to claim the housing component of Universal Credit and other welfare benefits related to their supported housing.
  • Helping to keep people safe by monitoring visitors, including contractors and professionals, and by carrying out health and safety and risk assessments of property.
  • Internet access within sheltered and supported housing.
  • PPE.

If you do any or all of the above in sheltered and/or supported housing on a “more than minimal” basis and you are an eligible provider (see paragraphs 2 and 6 above) then you should be eligible to claim Enhanced Housing Benefit

If you are a local authority approved supported housing provider and you want advice and assistance in claiming Enhanced Housing Benefit please get in touch.

Categories
Finance & Funding

Claiming Enhanced Housing Benefit for Intensive Housing Management

Intensive Housing Management

Context

I was recently rereading a Briefing on enhanced Housing Benefit and Intensive Housing Management (also known as enhanced housing management and/or additional housing management), that I wrote in 2010. I was struck by how relevant and important the information in that Briefing remains today.

Enhanced Housing Benefit is payable to providers of most types of supported and sheltered housing, provided they comply with the Exempt Accommodation rules. If you’re not sure whether your organisation qualifies please ask.

Please be aware that we do not non-local authority approved supported housing providers to claim Enhanced Housing Benefit for reasons set out in Thea Raisbeck’s “Exempt From Responsibility?” report. By “local authority approved” I mean supported housing providers that have commissioner consent to operate. Referrals from Homelessness/Housing Options Teams do not constitute commissioner consent in this context.

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 housing residents have additional housing needs and supported housing itself has additional maintenance and services costs.

What Are Enhanced Housing Benefit & Intensive Housing Management?

There is no definitive list of Intensive Housing Management tasks (but see my blog post here). We have developed one based on the notion that Housing Benefit will fund tasks which are part and parcel of adequate accommodation, bearing in mind the needs of the residents, and provided these tasks are not funded elsewhere.

Many of these tasks routinely constitute much of a Support Worker or a Scheme Manager’s job description. Housing management functions such as lettings, assistance with claiming Housing Benefit to ensure that rent and service charges are paid, controlling access and facilitating and monitoring site visits from contractors and other visitors/professionals, arranging aids and adaptations, health and safety and risk assessments of property, management, administration, delivery and facilitation of housing services provided, the additional maintenance and services costs……I could go on.

If you are a non-profit provider of accommodation and support and the Intensive Housing Management tasks you perform aren’t funded by another revenue stream, then it can be funded by Housing Benefit. Even better, if you’re a registered provider of social housing (RP) and you provide supported or sheltered accommodation, in which you charge Intensive Housing Management as an eligible service charge, the local authority receives full reimbursement from the DWP in subsidy recovery. This means you’re actually bringing in money to the local area.

This subsidy top-up doesn’t fully apply where non-RPs go down this route. 40% of the difference between what you claim and the Rent Officer determination, which will be similar to the relevant Local Housing Allowance, goes onto the Council Tax bill or is picked up within another local authority budget, such as Adult Social Care. In order to provide a solution to subsidy loss to local authorities I set up the Exempt Accommodation Project in June 2021.

Why You Should Consider Enhanced Housing Benefit & Intensive Housing Management

It’s a very attractive proposition for RPs and other non-profit accommodation-based support providers for a variety of reasons.

You get full cost recovery on your housing costs which have often been underfunded for years. OK, RPs have an issue with compliance with the Regulator for Social Housing’s Rent Standard (unless it’s “Specialised Supported Housing”). But that isn’t a problem: Intensive Housing Management costs can be treated as service charge items. You can re-allocate costs and budget headings from rent to housing services where feasible in supported and sheltered housing arrangements.

This enables you to invest in the properties in which people with additional needs live: the physical environment, services and staff. Your support costs can be cheaper because you’ve remodelled your service delivery structure and/or taken some costs out and allocated them (where eligible) to Intensive Housing Management, funded through Housing Benefit. This matters when you bid for support/care contracts because your unit cost for support will be lower without actually reducing your revenue – you’ve just spread the cost.

The Current & Future of Enhanced Housing Benefit & Intensive Housing Management

Having worked with Enhanced Housing Benefit since 2005 you get used to hearing people say, “but it has to end sometime”. Well it hasn’t yet and one of its distinguishing features is its longevity and the fact that case law precedent has established that Intensive Housing Management is eligible for Housing Benefit, having regard to the nature of the accommodation type and personal circumstances of the tenant group.

Over time the Enhanced Housing Benefit pot has grown. Initially, this was directly in response to the retrenchment of “Supporting People”. We advised providers (and not a few local authorities) on reallocating the eligible proportion of their Supporting People revenue loss into Enhanced Housing Benefit. Over time this has become a well-worn path, supported as it is by regulation and case law.

Commissioners/funders will routinely ask supported housing providers looking for funding “have you reallocated your eligible costs into Enhanced Housing Benefit?” because it makes absolutely no sense not to do so.

Providers might want to consider revising service delivery models if this adds value to the lives of people with additional needs. For example, we are often told “well we would provide more services because people need them, but we don’t have the funding”. One of the things we do is to review service models and staff job descriptions in order to introduce Housing Benefit-eligible services such as concierge, access control or night security, for example.

If you’re a qualifying supported or sheltered housing provider (i.e. most social/non-profit providers of supported housing) and you haven’t gone down this route, or you haven’t done so for a while, you really should think about it and get in touch.

Even with the introduction of Universal Credit Enhanced Housing Benefit remains payable in respect of supported housing tenants. This is despite the fact that Housing Benefit was one of the benefits absorbed by Universal Credit and would not otherwise exist. When someone claims Universal Credit, the online application asks the claimant whether they live in supported housing. If they answer “yes” to that question the housing component of their Universal Credit is administered by the LA on an uncapped basis under the Exempt Accommodation rules. This also gives supported housing residents protection from the Benefit Cap, and in some cases from the Spare Room Subsidy/Bedroom Tax.

The “but it has to end sometime” mantra is true of course; it’s just been overly pessimistic for years. It’s likely that the time for change will come when the UK Government finally decides on the funding model for supported housing (in England). Specifically, whether a  transitional arrangement of paying Enhanced Housing Benefit for supported housing via Universal Credit be formalised as a permanent arrangement. The UK Government did eventually commit to keeping the funding of supported housing within the welfare system after all.

Health and social care are devolved functions within the UK, and supported housing would be were it not for the fact that a proportion of its funding, in the form of (Enhanced) Housing Benefit, remains non-devolved. If the UK Government takes a sensible view of supported housing, and not just its funding, it’ll see it as an integrated part of the health and social care system in England going forward. At the point of change, whatever and whenever that is, it may be that Enhanced Housing Benefit will become a component of Universal Credit.

What happens in NI, Scotland and Wales depends on whether those nations have a fully devolved welfare system (easy to see in Scotland) and whether they choose to (part) fund supported housing from within it or choose to put the funding within health and social care commissioning structures.

Why You Should Think About It

Our message is that you should consider now whether you’re properly recovering the costs of providing the supported housing services that your residents need, or whether you should consider reviewing your service delivery model to enhance revenue recovery. Not just the costs of human (staff) services, but the additional costs you incur in maintaining and servicing your supported and sheltered housing.

Supported housing providers are rightly asked to demonstrate the value that they deliver. They should be equally concerned to identify the costs they incur in delivering that value.

The best way to do so is to ask us to audit what you do and to calculate what it that translates into as a full-cost recovery rent structure. If the amounts are more than you currently charge, then please let us negotiate with Housing Benefit colleagues on your behalf to redress the imbalance.

The good news is that it won’t cost you anything if we find that you can’t claim Enhanced Housing Benefit. If we find that you can, and we successfully negotiate an increase, then you pay a small fee (charged to HB) per tenant per week. You only pay this when you’re in receipt of the increased revenue and you pay it over a 12-month period to aid cash flow. If we don’t get you an increase, you don’t pay us anything at all. Contact us.

There is an evident danger in not demonstrating your true costs, or revisiting your service delivery model, whether to appear “reasonable/competitive” to funders or for some other reason.

That danger may manifest itself if we have a funding system change at the point of which supported housing providers’ costs are frozen. If you haven’t optimised your rent and services charges income, the new system may assume you can make do with what you have.

Michael Patterson has worked on Enhanced Housing Benefit, Intensive Housing Management and other things since 2005. Michael writes, publishes and speaks on supported housing and related matters and provides strategic advice a range of supported housing providers and revenue and capital funders.

If you’re interested in Enhanced Housing Benefit please get in touch.

Categories
Policy

Exempt Accommodation, Specified Accommodation & Intensive Housing Management

5 colourful houses of varying sizes
Exempt accommodation & intensive housing management

Introduction

This was written in 2015 & remains relevant today.

The purpose of this Briefing is: 

  • 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

In recent months there has been much discussion about Exempt Accommodation and Specified Accommodation and a great deal of confusion about the difference between “Exempt” and “Specified” Accommodation.

The purpose of this briefing is to define what these definitions really mean and to make the very important point that most supported and sheltered housing, hostels and refuges currently being defined as “Specified Accommodation” but not “Exempt Accommodation” are actually Exempt Accommodation. This is very important for providers and local authorities from a financial point of view and to tenants/licensees from a Welfare Reform protection perspective.

As you may know the UK Government had said in 2012 that tenants in Exempt Accommodation would have the housing component of their Universal Credit administered outside of Universal Credit according to the Exempt Accommodation rules and would be protected from elements of the Welfare Reform Act (described below). Lord Freud, the UK Government Welfare Reform Minister, also subsequently said (September 2012) that there are some supported and sheltered housing services that “don’t meet the precise definition of Exempt Accommodation”. Such schemes, it is argued, might include agency-managed services and services providing “insufficient care, support and supervision”. We believe very strongly that, in the vast majority of cases, agency-managed schemes may well be Exempt Accommodation, and certainly can be established as Exempt Accommodation with some minor adjustments to the documentary arrangements in place.

The DWP then proceeded, in consultation with parts of the sector, to devise a widened definition that would capture both Exempt Accommodation and also those schemes that it claimed “don’t meet the precise definition of Exempt Accommodation”. This widened definition is known as “Specified Accommodation”.

So What Is Specified Accommodation?

There are 4 categories of “Specified Accommodation” as follows:

Category 1: Exempt Accommodation.

The term “Exempt Accommodation” came into being in 1995 as a means of identifying types of accommodation that were exempt from what was known at the time as “Local Reference Rents”, which capped the amounts of rent that private landlords could charge.

For an Exempt Accommodation scenario to exist ALL of the following 4 criteria must be fulfilled:

  • The landlord must be a non-metropolitan county council; voluntary organisation, charity or Registered Provider (housing association)
  • The landlord must have legal interest in the properties concerned (ownership or lease)
  • The tenants concerned must need “care, support & supervision” (in case law terms this means “more than normal property management functions)
  • The additional services to meet those needs (“Additional/Intensive Housing Management”) must be provided by the landlord or an agent on its behalf

Exempt Accommodation:

  • Entitles a social landlord to recover the costs of providing additional services to tenants/residents with additional needs via Housing Benefit.
  • Enables local authorities to fund enhanced levels of Housing Benefit, subject to a properly evidenced claim which shows that the money claimed equates to the cost of eligible additional services provided.
  • Enables local authorities to reclaim the money from the DWP via their Subsidy Claim. 100% where a Registered Provider (Housing Association) is involved but less where one is not.

Exempt Accommodation protects tenants from Welfare Reform Act provisions such as:

  • Spare Room Subsidy (“Bedroom Tax”)
  • Benefit Cap
  • Direct payment of rent

Exempt Accommodation applies, subject to the 4 qualifying criteria above, to:

  • Most supported Housing
  • Most sheltered Housing
  • General Needs Housing where the tenant has additional needs (Tenancy Sustainment)

Category 2: Supported housing where a third party (not the landlord) provides the “care, support & supervision”

Typically this would include agency-managed supported housing and schemes where tenants have personal budgets and purchase care packages from a third party provider.

As a consequence of this definition and some of the advice that has been provided within the sector, many providers have assumed that agency-managed schemes and accommodation within which tenants use personal budgets to buy care packages from third parties are not Exempt Accommodation. However, this assumption is very often incorrect.

We have to ask ourselves the question “what is care, support and supervision”? The case law definition (see Bristol City Council vs. AW [2009] and CSH/250/2104) is “more than normal property management functions”. So where a tenant has additional needs that require additional/intensive housing management and the landlord or an agent on its behalf provides the additional/intensive housing management, it is Exempt Accommodation, not Specified Accommodation category 2.

When we think about, it in most of the schemes wrongly classified as Specified Accommodation category 2, the landlord and/or the agent on its behalf provide Housing Benefit eligible additional/intensive housing management services in addition to and irrespective of any Housing Benefit ineligible care and support services that might also be provided. The fact that these additional/intensive housing management services are provided by the landlord or by an agent on the landlord’s behalf means that the scheme/service is Exempt Accommodation.

Such additional or intensive housing management services include, but are not limited to:

  • General needs housing management functions that are more intensively provided as a consequence of the additional needs of tenants
  • Additional or intensive housing management functions and tasks that would not be provided in general needs accommodation where no additional needs exist. Such tasks and functions include but are not limited to:
  • The provision of an alarm (even though alarms are not HB eligible) or the Housing Proactive system (which is HB eligible and is also entirely free to providers and tenants who are HB eligible)
  • Controlling access to the premises (concierge type services)
  • Ensuring rent is paid regularly and on time.
  • Explaining the occupancy agreement and assisting people to abide by it.
  • Organising inspections of property and arranging for any repairs or improvements to be carried out, including the replacement of furniture.
  • Ensuring that people are aware of their rights under their occupancy agreement.
  • Offering advice and guidance on keeping property to a reasonable standard of hygiene.
  • Assisting people to access other support providers as required.
  • Liaising with all relevant agencies, both statutory and voluntary, on the tenant’s behalf.
  • Assisting people to reduce rent arrears.
  • Dealing with nuisance issues.
  • Ensuring that people know how to use equipment safely.
  • Providing people with advice and facilitating a move to alternative accommodation as required.
  • Assisting people to claim Housing Benefit and other welfare benefits.
  • Helping to keep people safe by monitoring visitors, including contractors and professionals, and by carrying out health and safety and risk assessments of property.

Please see Appendix 1 for the technical definition of what constitutes an HB eligible service charge where people have additional needs. This is very useful where you are told “there’s no such thing as “Intensive Housing Management”, which of course misses the point by focusing on an informal phrase that describes services that people with additional needs might require in connection with the provision of adequate accommodation.

Category 3: refuge provision

Refuges for people subject to domestic violence and abuse are in an identical situation to Category 2 Specified Accommodation (above), which is that in the significant majority of cases they are Exempt Accommodation and not Specified Accommodation category 3.

The fact that people in refuge accommodation don’t also need to be in receipt of “care, support or supervision” by way of 3rd party funding is immaterial in this context as they will almost inevitably be in receipt of “more than normal housing management functions” anyway and therefore fulfill the case law definition of “care, support and supervision” for the purposes of Exempt Accommodation compliance.

Category 4: local authority hostels

Support Solutions UK has recently undertaken a lot of work with local authorities that have their own direct provision. Most local authorities are registered as registered social landlords with the appropriate regulatory bodies depending on which UK nation they are located in.

The fact of being a registered social landlord (and assuming compliance with the other 3 of the 4 Exempt Accommodation criteria, which is likely in the case of hostels and other accommodation for people with additional needs) means that local authority hostels are exempt Accommodation, not Category 4 Specified Accommodation.

Specified Accommodation categories 2, 3 and 4 means:

  • Protection from Benefit Cap & direct payment of rent but NOT Spare Room Subsidy (unlike Exempt Accommodation, which protects tenants/licensees from Spare Room Subsidy).
  • No guarantee of enhanced Housing Benefit if the rents are deemed “unreasonably high” as the local authority may refer the rent to the Rent Officer (unlike Exempt Accommodation, with which the local authority has to have regard for the costs of suitable accommodation elsewhere on a like for like basis if considering a restriction on rent or service charge)
  • Rent levels restricted to Local Housing Allowance where no Registered Provider is involved

If it is the case, as we strongly believe, that services that really are Exempt Accommodation (or “Specified Accommodation Category 1”) are being misdefined as Specified Accommodation Categories 2, 3 or 4 then we are guilty of failing to challenge an incorrect view of services that “don’t meet the precise definition of Exempt Accommodation” and consequently restricting Welfare Reform Act protection from tenants with additional needs and we are guilty of foregoing the opportunity to properly fund services for tenants with additional needs.

The Future for Enhanced Housing Benefit

I have worked since 2005 to assist organisations to allocate Additional/Intensive Housing Management costs into Housing Benefit where it is right and proper to do so. Most commonly this occurs where provider organisations have lost revenue from Supporting People but also where providers have not recovered their full eligible costs from Housing Benefit, irrespective of whether they receive Supporting People funding.

When I first introduced this idea with Support Solutions and reintroduced the concept of “Intensive Housing Management” it was treated by some with opposition and suspicion but has now become the default position for local authorities and providers, especially where Supporting People funding is being reduced or withdrawn. We were told that it wouldn’t survive the Welfare Reform Act but, on the contrary, Exempt Accommodation and Additional/Intensive Housing Management has become the gateway to proper levels of funding for services for people with additional needs and provides protection for such people from elements of the Welfare Reform Act such as:

  • Spare Room Subsidy (“Bedroom Tax”)
  • Benefit Cap
  • Direct payment of rent

Enhanced Housing Benefit applies to supported and sheltered housing and to general needs social accommodation where tenants have additional needs (Tenancy Sustainment services). But we have to ask the question, as many do, “how long will it last”?

When Lord Freud said in September 2012 that there are services that “don’t meet the precise definition of Exempt Accommodation” as a precursor to the introduction of Specified Accommodation, he also suggested that funding for Exempt Accommodation would be “localised” at some point in future.

We believe that this is likely to happen at some point in future so it is important for providers who are entitled to claim Enhanced Housing Benefit for Additional/Intensive Housing Management services to do so. It is also important for local authorities to agree well-founded and reasonable claims, as these are likely to contribute to local authority legacy funding going forward. To the extent that local authorities discourage such claims is the extent to which they may well limit the size of their own funding pot at the point at which the Exempt Accommodation budget is devolved. The UK Government might consider devolving Exempt Accommodation funding in the same way that it devolved Council Tax funding to local authorities (i.e. by taking the amount each local authority had claimed from the UK Government by way of Council Tax Benefit subsidy in the financial year 2012-13, deducting 10% and then devolving it to local authorities from April 2013).

There is a General Election looming of course, so things may change; however, our belief is that funding for Exempt Accommodation will be devolved to local authorities in England, which doesn’t have its own Government, and possibly to national Governments in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales.

We know that the DCLG & DWP have commissioned a review of the scale, shape and cost of the supported housing sector. We hope that it also considers its value! This review has yet to report and the forthcoming General Election will doubtless impact on the timing of its publication and possibly its outcomes. We will keep you posted as to developments when we are made aware of them.

Whatever the nature of any change please consider your organisation’s position, whether you’re a provider of services or a local authority Housing Benefit or commissioning colleague. Providers, both statutory and non-statutory, should ensure that they have reviewed their Housing Benefit revenue and their rent structures to ensure that their claims match the costs of the Additional/Intensive Housing Management services they provide to people with additional needs in supported, sheltered, hostel, refuge and general needs accommodation. I will help you do this and negotiate your claims for you on very, very favourable commercial terms as I always have (i.e. if we don’t successfully increase your housing revenue, you don’t pay us). Local authorities should also consider their strategic positions in relation to the payment of enhanced Housing Benefit for well-founded and reasonable claims and their ability to reclaim through subsidy what they pay by way of Enhanced Housing Benefit; again, I will be pleased to assist in this.

If and when funding for Exempt Accommodation is devolved it is likely to become a cash-limited pot, which may then be paid according to a limited set of eligible tasks. We believe that this is the wrong approach but inevitable whilst government at both central and local level prioritises cost over value and persists with separate funding pots for different types of additional needs (e.g. intensive housing management, support, social care, personal care etc.).

Appendix 1

“There is no exhaustive list of what can be defined as an eligible service charge. To be an eligible charge for HB purposes the charge must be connected with the provision of adequate accommodation having regard to the personal needs of that tenant group. Authority for this can be found in the DWP Adjudication Circular A22/2008, which was published in December 2008. Page 18 within Appendix A of that circular states that ‘The Commissioner’s decision in CIS 1460/1995 is authority for the proposition that the individual needs of the residents are relevant to the question of what is adequate accommodation. Arguably the special needs and problems of the residents of the home cannot be ignored in relation to paragraph 1(g)’ Paragraph 1(g) of Schedule 1 is of the Housing Benefit Regulations and relates to the service being connected to the provision of adequate accommodation. This is therefore suggesting that a service can be eligible having regard to a resident’s personal circumstances. The general population within supported housing are vulnerable people all in receipt of care and support and thus encompass a specific set of needs therefore the provision of an intensive housing management service is probably essential to the general tenant population of this specific type of accommodation.

Supported Housing is provided to primarily tenants who are disadvantaged with a wide range of complex and changing needs. There are a significant proportion of tenants whose high support needs, poor housing management awareness and lack of practical skills, mean that there is a requirement for a much more enhanced housing management provision to ensure that the tenants can sustain their tenancy whilst at the same time ensure that the landlord is providing reasonable and adequate accommodation for all tenants”

Please contact Michael Patterson if you’d like help with Exempt Accommodation, Specified Accommodation and enhanced Housing Benefit.

Please feel free to share this Briefing with whomsoever might find it interesting and please share it on social media.

© Please acknowledge the author as Michael Patterson when reproduced in whole or in part (Creative Commons licence applies).

Michael Patterson

March 2015

Categories
Finance & Funding

Funding Intensive Housing Management

supporting supported housing
What is Intensive Housing Management & how is it funded?

Many of you will know what “Intensive Housing Management” is. It’s a term that the old Housing Corporation in England used to describe the additional housing management services that people in supported housing often need. Intensive Housing Management services were funded by the Housing Corporation through a revenue grant known (latterly) as SHMG (Supported Housing Management Grant) some of which was often paid on by RSLs to their specialist agency partners that typically manage the RSL’s supported housing.

The set of prescribed intensive housing management services was defined in hardcopy in the Housing Corporation’s “Guide to Supported Housing”, before the age of the Internet. There is a similar list you can gain access to online here: in Scottish statutory instruments 2002 number 444 with its list of “Prescribed Housing Support Services” in Regulation 3.

The revenue funding streams for intensive housing management were put into the Supporting People pot in 2003, to help fund what became known as “Housing Related Support”. And that, you might think, was the end of that.

Except that it wasn’t. Supporting People begin to retrench very quickly. In 2005 Michael Patterson and Danny Key teamed up to identify and promote a regulatory means of mitigating providers’ losses of Supporting People revenue, by claiming the cost of eligible Intensive Housing Management tasks from Housing Benefit. This involves the use of the Exempt Accommodation route to enhanced levels of Housing Benefit. 

Over time this led to a substantial number of eligible providers (housing associations and voluntary agencies namely) being able to claim enhanced levels of Housing Benefit for the costs of the eligible housing management tasks Supporting People no longer funded.

Michael Patterson renamed these eligible housing management tasks as “Intensive Housing Management”, a term which has returned to the language of supported housing, bringing with it a substantial pot of revenue known as enhanced Housing Benefit, which continues to exist to this day.

We are cautious who we work with, especially given the large numbers of new, unregulated supported housing services being set up. As someone with a values base I commend the “Exempt From Responsibility?” report written by Thea Raisbeck in November 2019 for Spring/Commonweal Housing, which identifies problems over the lack of regulation of supported housing, and the oversight of the system through which some landlords claimed enhanced Housing Benefit. To put it more bluntly: some unregulated supported housing providers are claiming Housing Benefit but apparently not providing adequate housing or intensive housing management services.

Not all supported housing providers are eligible for intensive housing management funding, but most social supported housing providers are. Rather than go through the criteria for Exempt Accommodation compliance here (but watch this space) just ask yourself these questions:

  • Are you a genuinely social organisation? (For the purposes of enhanced Housing Benefit this means nonprofit)
  • Do you generate value?
    • Outcomes for people
    • Cost-benefit
    • Wider social benefit (Community Sustainment)
  • Do you own or manage supported housing?.

If you can say yes to the above questions you’re likely to be eligible to claim Intensive Housing Management and Maintenance funding. It’s a complex process that requires you (or me on your behalf on a ‘no increase, no fee’ basis) to audit your supported housing and provide a properly optimised rent structure that can be used to support an enhanced Housing Benefit claim.

If you represent a social supported housing provider and you’d like to discuss claiming enhanced Housing Benefit, please contact me.

It’s also important to consider the likely future funding of Intensive Housing Management and Maintenance, and supported housing in general for that matter. I’ll keep the wider context for a future blog post/briefing but what about the Intensive Housing Management components of supported housing revenue, currently paid as enhanced Housing Benefit?

We should bear in mind both the implementation of Universal Credit and the UK Government’s (stalled) “future funding of supported housing” policy agenda.

Universal Credit allows supported housing claimants to have the housing component of their Universal Credit paid by local Housing Benefit teams as enhanced Housing Benefit. The future funding of supported housing policy agenda originally intended to pass supported housing revenue, of which Intensive Housing Management funding is a substantial part, to local authorities but that idea was parked.

Nothing much has happened on the supported housing policy agenda due to the UK Government’s preoccupation with Brexit and the current Covid 19 pandemic. But the UK Government is working on a Social Care Bill, and they would be remiss to omit supported housing from it.

It seems opportune therefore to remind the UK Government and the wider sector that Intensive Housing Management funding needs to stay exactly where it is now – as a flexible component of Universal Credit.

Going back to the “Exempt From Responsibility?” report, and my own briefings going back some years, it’s not just about the future funding of supported housing, important though that is. It’s also about supported housing regulation, it’s about how we define supported housing and it’s about what values base we apply to supported housing.

I’ll be publishing more blog posts and briefings in future you can see and follow my blog site (supportedhousing.blog) Please also follow me on Twitter at @MPattersonLtd