Big Changes To Housing Benefit In The Pipeline
In last autumn’s Comprehensive Spending Review, the Government outlined plans to extend Local Housing Allowance to social landlords. Local Housing Allowance (LHA) is the method by which local authorities identify how much housing benefit a claimant is entitled to. At the moment social housing providers are excluded from LHA.
In a briefing published by Homeless Link and Sitra, there are three key things that have been confirmed so far:
- The new rules will apply to affected individuals who sign their tenancy from April 2016 onwards, although the LHA rate of Housing Benefit entitlement will not apply until 2018.
- Supported housing will be covered by the new rules.
- The Government has said they are committed to protecting supported housing, but how they intend to do that is not yet known.
However, this lack of detail means it is difficult to know how this will impact on the supported housing sector. Some of the questions to be considered include:
- How does ‘social landlord’ defined in the comprehensive spending review indicate anything that is not private?
- What definition of ‘supported housing’ will attract a level of protection?
- How will the research on supported housing funding, currently being conducted by Ipsos Mori, impact on these proposals?
- How will any additional discretionary housing payment allocation be calculated and will any additional funding be ring-fenced for supported housing, or included in the overall allocation for the authority to determine its own priorities?
- Will any extension recognise the particular challenges applying to under 35s who are covered by the Shared Accommodation Rate?
There has been concern amongst providers that the main model of Universal Credit (UC) would not work for much of supported housing. The reasons for this include direct payment to tenants alongside the monthly assessment and payment model.
As UC rolls-out, welfare minister Lord Freud has expressed a desire to find a “localised” solution to the funding of supported housing, so this announcement should be seen in that context. Ministers are still working out the best approach to funding the cost of accommodation in supported housing in the context of Housing Benefit being phased-out.
There are numerous concerns on the viability of supported housing following this change and Homeless Link will be raising these in discussions with Government; in particular, whether discretionary housing benefit can realistically be seen as a way of exempting supported housing.
Sitra and Homeless Link will be working with members to pull together evidence on the overall impact on the sector and will continue to lobby Government for the proposals to be amended and the disproportionate impact on supported housing to be recognised.
If you have any questions in relation to this matter, please email: burcub@sitra.org or paul.anderson@homelesslink.org.uk.
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