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Select Committee · Public Accounts Committee

Supported housing

Status: Closed Opened: 24 May 2023 Closed: 14 Feb 2024 2 recommendations 24 conclusions 1 report

Supported housing is accommodation that is provided alongside support, supervision or care to help people with specific needs to live as independently as possible in the community. This includes, for example, older people, people with a learning disability, people with a physical disability, people at risk of or who have experienced homelessness, or people recovering …

Clear

Reports

1 report
Title HC No. Published Items Response
Seventy-Seventh Report - Supported housing HC 1330 10 Nov 2023 26 Responded

Recommendations & Conclusions

4 items
6 Conclusion Seventy-Seventh Report - Supported hous… Rejected

Implement solutions to reduce housing benefit subsidy loss experienced by local authorities.

Some local authorities face increasing gaps in their budgets because of the way DWP Housing Benefit regulations work. Local authorities pay housing benefit directly to providers and ‘subsidy loss’ is the gap between how much rent a housing provider charges to a local authority and how much of it the …

Government response. The government explicitly disagrees with including subsidy loss in the Supported Housing Act consultation because it is outside the Act's scope, though they expect stakeholders to raise the issue and will monitor contributing factors.
HM Treasury
24 Conclusion Seventy-Seventh Report - Supported hous… Rejected

Local authorities face increasing funding gaps for supported housing due to DWP regulations

The NAO investigation found that some local authorities face increasing gaps in funding for supported housing because of the way the DWP’s Housing Benefit regulations work. “Subsidy loss” is the gap in funding between how much rent a housing provider charges to a local authority and how much of it …

Government response. The government disagrees with any implied recommendation to directly address subsidy loss. While DWP will consider feedback from LAs and monitor the issue, it has no plans to explicitly address subsidy loss in the upcoming Act or consultation.
HM Treasury
25 Conclusion Seventy-Seventh Report - Supported hous… Rejected

Scale of supported housing subsidy loss is increasing significantly for local authorities

The scale of subsidy loss varies between local authorities and some local authorities experience a high subsidy loss. The amount of subsidy loss is increasing overall with local authorities in England experiencing a subsidy loss of £108 million (in cash terms) in 2021–22 compared with £53.8 million in 2017–18.49 The …

Government response. The government disagrees with any implied recommendation to directly address subsidy loss. While DWP will consider feedback from LAs and monitor the issue, it has no plans to explicitly address subsidy loss in the upcoming Act or consultation.
HM Treasury
26 Conclusion Seventy-Seventh Report - Supported hous… Rejected

New Act and current measures will not sufficiently address supported housing subsidy loss

Successful bids from local authorities for the Supported Housing Improvement Programme have included work to reduce subsidy loss in local areas. DWP told us that local authorities can reduce subsidy loss by scrutinising Housing Benefit claims more by overseeing providers and asking for breakdowns of bills that come through on …

Government response. The government disagrees with any implied recommendation to directly address subsidy loss. While DWP will consider feedback from LAs and monitor the issue, it has no plans to explicitly address subsidy loss in the upcoming Act or consultation.
HM Treasury

Oral evidence sessions

1 session
Date Witnesses
21 Jun 2023 Emran Mian · Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, Peter Schofield CB · Department for Work and Pensions, Sarah Healey · Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, Vikki Knight · Department of Work and Pensions View ↗

Correspondence

2 letters
DateDirectionTitle
10 Jan 2024 — Correspondence from Sarah Healey CB CVO, Permanent Secretary, Department for Le…
11 Jul 2023 — Correspondence from Sarah Healey CB CV, Permanent Secretary, Department for Lev…