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Civil servant quizzed over supported housing funding rationale
The government plans to use Local Housing Allowance (LHA) rates as a measure for capping benefit in supported housing because they are “already there”, a senior civil servant has admitted.
Housing associations, councils and charities have strongly opposed plans to cap housing benefit for supported and sheltered housing tenants at LHA rates from 2019.
At the National Housing Federation’s finance conference in Liverpool yesterday, Darrell Smith, housing policy manager at the Department for Work and Pensions, was asked why LHA rates are being used for setting benefits in supported housing at all.
He said: “The one advantage of [LHA rates] is that they are already there, so it doesn’t cost the government anything to set it up. I know that isn’t a great answer, but that’s all I have got.”
Mr Smith also said the government recognised there is a strong case for a separate settlement for sheltered housing – independent living units with adaptations and usually external support.
He said: “There is a strong argument [for a seperate settlement] – ministers have listened to what the sector has said, but from our perspective it’s about trying to get it to work within the current model.”
These rates, which are set either according to the lowest 30% of local market rents or the existing LHA, whichever is lower, are well below the cost of providing supported housing in most cases, and the government plans to give councils top-up funding to address the deficit.
READ MORE ABOUT SUPPORTED HOUSING FUNDING:
‘LHA cap’ will apply to existing supported housing tenants
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Mr Smith also assured delegates that the ringfence surrounding the top-up funding provided to councils will be “cast iron”.
However, John Wade, director of strategy at Bromford, warned this did not provide the sector with enough certainty over future funding.
He said his organisation had lost its entire 80-strong supported housing team in Staffordshire in two years after it was forced to close schemes when the council lifted its previous ringfence on Supported People funding.
Housing associations currently have thousands of units of planned development on hold as they await more certainty over the future funding deal.
Mr Smith said the amount of top-up funding given to councils would be calculated by looking at housing benefit spend as of April 2019 per local authority, and making a straight calculation based on the difference from LHA rates.
