A summary by Campbell Tickell Director, Liz Zacharias, of the Supported Housing (Regulatory Oversight) Act 2023 consultation and what it means for supported housing providers.
Overview
While the focus of government in terms of housing is the challenge of meeting the 1.5m new homes in the next 5 years target, there is also (we hope) a lot of action being taken in the background on homelessness and rough sleeping.
We know that there is an inter-departmental group working on homelessness. We also know that recent research commissioned by the MHCLG ( and carried out by Sheffield Hallam) found that we need a 33% increase in supported housing units by 2040 with a range of between 361,000 and 640,000 new units – £33bn in capital and around £2-4bn in revenue. Additionally we are expecting a new homelessness strategy with a much bigger emphasis on prevention. There has been little in the way of signals about what the strategy, the inter-departmental group or the new housing challenge will bring to supported housing.
We need a 33% increase in supported housing units by 2040 with a range of between 361,000 and 640,000 new units – £33bn in capital and around £2-4bn in revenue
We do however finally have a consultation paper about the Supported Housing (Regulatory Oversight Act) 2023. A 50-page document with 93 consultation questions and a 12 week consultation period. This means it will be autumn at the earliest before we know what the Act will be looking to implement and then further periods of preparation and consultation on some of the details of the act. Two issues put on the back burner for now are whether there is a need for and what the definition of support and supervision should be for DWP, and whether there should be a planning use class for supported housing and how this work to safeguard confidentiality for anyone likely to be living there (not to mention how to avoid creating a ‘Nimby’s’ charter with regard to any new supported housing) when still to be ironed out.
So, what are the proposals in the consultation document and what does it all mean for supported housing providers?
The first thing to note is that there is a set of guidance that will apply to England only (in recognition that Scotland and Wales have different arrangements for their supported housing) and then some changes that are proposed to apply to Great Britain as a whole.
The good stuff
Supported Housing standards
The document proposes 5 underpinning principles for a set of standards. The principles being that services should be:
- person-centred,
- respectful,
- safe and responsive,
- effective,
- well-led.
These principles align with those commonly used for care settings and the CQC standards, all of which any provider should be comfortable with.
The standards themselves appear to be a mash up between CQC standards, Ofsted Standards and then the old Supporting People Quality Assurance Framework (QAF), for anyone who remembers that far back!
There are 7 areas where standards are proposed – person-centred support, empowerment, environment, staffing and safeguarding, local needs, responsible person, statement of purpose. The consultation paper states that these standards are shaped in a way to emphasise resident’s experience and their right to be treated fairly by a caring provider. Services wishing to be licensed as Supported Housing need to demonstrate these are all in place prior to being licenced.
- Person-centred support – every individual should have a needs assessment and an outcomes focussed support plan, it should include areas such as Education, Training and Employment (ETE), ways of developing resilience and preparing for move on (for shorter term provision). The consultation paper sets out some further standards for support plans and states that it will work with the sector to provide further detail on what the needs assessment and support plan should include. My advice would be to dust off the old QAF standards and update them!
- Empowerment – People should be enabled and feel confident to make complaints, with a simple clear process for doing so, and be able to give feedback and shape their service they receive. The organisation needs to give clear information on roles and responsibilities of the organisation. This standard includes safeguarding and whistleblowing procedures.
- Environment – this standard focusses on referrals and risk management as well as on having a clean, comfortable, homely, positive, therapeutic environment with space for family/friends to visit. Alongside these requirements providers need to have response times for repairs and to comply with statutory requirements such as Decent Homes standards and the Housing health and safety rating system (HHSRS) standards.
- Staff and safeguarding – staff should have comprehensive training, should be DBS/Enhanced DBS checked, processes for managing poor performance need to be in place, as well as there being sufficient staff for the safety and effectiveness of the service. There is also a requirement to have eviction protocols in place and to have policies for anti-social behaviour.
- Local Need – there need to be local supported housing strategies that cover at most a 5 year period and that have been developed collaboratively with local authorities. These are to be used to justify the purpose and location of existing and new schemes. This is a useful development as it puts more power back in the LAs hands in terms of schemes being developed within the scope of identified needs, rather than to meet a provider’s revenue needs.
- Responsible person – each service will have to identify and designate an accountable individual who meets the fit and proper person test and is responsible for ensuring the service delivers on all requirements.
- The statement of purpose – each service will need to have a clear statement of purpose setting out the service’s aims and outcomes it aims to deliver – this must be reviewed and revised annually.
All good providers should be able to demonstrate compliance with these standards – they are what one would expect to find in any well-run supported housing service. I guess that is the point! Ensuring that organisations that purport to provide supported housing are actually supporting people well and providing a good environment for people to thrive in.
The Licensing regime
This is the most interesting and new aspect of the proposed regime for supported housing.
All local authorities will be designated as licensing authorities and there is a proposal that entitlement to Housing Benefit (HB) will be linked to the licensing of the dwelling as supported housing. There will be a national licensing framework, but each local authority will operate its own local scheme.
There will be exemptions from the licensing regime for CAS2 and Ofsted regulated provision for 16/17-year-olds. Licensing will be held at a scheme level so all individual schemes need to be individually licensed and the license will need to be renewed every 5 years. The licensee will need to be the landlord – NOT the support provider, the licensee can be an organisation, but each organisation will also need to nominate a named responsible officer. As stated:
“The government proposes to define a supported housing ‘scheme’ as a building or, a part of a building or a group of buildings with a single postal address, comprised of one or more units, where at least one of those units is supported housing. A unit is defined as a dwelling such as a bedspace, apartment, house, room in a shared house, or other building occupied as a place of residence.”
Licensing will be required for the following schemes:
- extra Care housing for older people (also known as housing with care or assisted living)
- supported living housing for people with a learning disability and/or autistic people
- supported housing for people with mental ill health
- supported housing for people with a physical disability
- supported housing for young people leaving care or who are at risk of homelessness
- supported housing (including hostels) for people experiencing or at risk of homelessness
- supported housing for people with drug and alcohol dependency needs
- supported housing for people with multiple complex needs
- domestic abuse refuges and safe accommodation with support
The consultation document states that:
“In situations where the support provider is not the licensee, the licensee will need to work with the support providers to ensure they meet the National Supported Housing Standards, while the licensee will be responsible for meeting all other licensing conditions.”
The licensee will need to meet the fit and proper person test. The main licensing conditions that have to be met (in addition to meeting the Supported Housing Standards) are that the scheme meets the accommodation standards, it is suitable for supported housing, that there are needs assessment processes in place and that it meets the conditions relevant to care support and supervision. Some services e.g. if commissioned by the council will be deemed to comply with the standards and are unlikely to require inspection prior to licensing.
There are no new quality standards proposed for the bricks and mortar accommodation. Authorities will be able to refuse to license accommodation where there are category 1 hazards under HHSRS and the government is seeking views on whether CQC services rated as inadequate should also be barred from licensing.
Authorities will also be able to take enforcement where standards are not met. This could include a fine of up to £30k if there is no improvement and compliance after an improvement notice has been served.
While there will be new burdens funding given to local authorities, it is intended that a licence fee (level or any rules around this is yet to be set) will contribute towards on going running costs of the scheme.
Local authorities will have discretion to inspect – but must do it at least one in a 5-year licensing period.
A transition period is proposed but there will be a cut off date in the legislation by which existing supported housing should have applied for a licence. HB will continue to be paid throughout this period and until a license is granted (or refused). Any scheme claiming HB after the cut off date for applications that has not applied for a license will be breaking the law.
The main proposal is that eligibility for HB for supported housing will be dependent on licensing. So only residents of licensed premises will be eligible for supported housing levels of HB ie exempt from the LHA rate etc.
The maybe not so good stuff
Planning Use Class
The consultation document asks for views about whether there should be a supported housing use class – particularly where existing dwellings are being converted to supported housing. In my view I think this is a good idea however it needs to be thought out and implemented in a way that does not create an opportunity for ‘Nimbyism’.
I have attended, as a commissioner, many a torrid neighbourhood meeting where local residents are vehemently against a scheme for people with mental health issues or offenders or homeless people being developed in their street or neighbourhood. For the most part this is because of fears around anti-social behaviour and falling property values. We do not want to create a situation where the proposed client groups are exposed to the wider public’s anger or details provided to those who would want to target vulnerable individuals (through cuckooing for example).
Length of consultation and implementation process
The consultation paper says that further guidance on the licensing process and regime will be provided after the consultation period has concluded and all responses have been analysed – so really not until Autumn 2025 at the earliest. The main issue with the proposals is the amount of time it will take to introduce them and the uncertainties of a long intervening period.
Impact on Registered Provider and Managing Agent relationships
There will be an impact on registered provider (RP) and agency relations, where the landlord will need to apply for the license and ensure that all the National Supported Housing Standards are met by the support provider. This is, in truth, already the case but the introduction of licensing creates more of an imperative for landlords to ensure that standards are being met. It also means that landlords themselves really need to ensure that the environment standards – i.e., the day-to-day and emergency repairs are carried out in a timely way, if the licensing conditions are to be met.
To define or not to define
The consultation document says that HB cannot pay for care support or supervision – even though it has set out a load of standards around this in the earlier parts of the document and the act itself was put together to tackle these issues! Interestingly the paper states:
“We note that in the future Housing Benefit could be replaced with another type of housing support, however, this section consults on Housing Benefit as it currently stands.”
A hint at a proper funding system for support perhaps?
The paper asks for views on whether a definition of care support and supervision is needed for specified accommodation. The document recognises that care is already defined by the Health and Care Act 2008 and Regulations 2014 in England (and there are different regulations in Scotland and Wales).
It is then proposed that supervision is part of support and therefore there is really only a need to define support and that this could be through a requirement in HB regs that support is provided in line with the National Supported Housing Standards and particularly the ‘person-centred’ standard.
So should there be a threshold in HB regulations for the amount support provided? This is a tricky one as it is clear that some schemes will shape shift to ensure they provide that level of support to be able to qualify – but what about individual needs, flexibility of support, client progression towards greater independence (to ensure resilience and ability to move on – one of the other standards)?
Wherever the threshold is placed there will be loopholes to be exploited or services will be developed to fit the threshold irrespective of the need to be person-centred and flexible. It is a conundrum and it also further undermines the legal determination that HB should not pay for support which was established back in 1999. However, perhaps it will clarify that up to X number of hours is eligible for HB – more hours than that and the service needs to be commissioned and/or paid for out of other budgets whether care or a (hopefully) new support budget.
One good thing that may come out of such an approach may be that a reasonable threshold of support could be enshrined that could support more people in supported housing moving into work – by lowering the rent and service charge levels to an extend that would make work a realist possibility.
And finally
It will take time to digest the detail and work out the implications of the proposal. The timeline for implementation is the main issue we foresee, as it may take at least two years to see any change.
It will mean work for local authorities in setting up licensing regimes and any inspection regimes that would need to accompany it. It means local authorities need to really look at their supported housing needs and develop strategies for meeting them and managing – sometimes out of control – markets for providing supported housing.
It could mean another growth spurt in exempt and specified supported housing provision – for example LAs struggling with supporting families and individuals in TA could look to register it as supported housing – if it meets the standards why not?
It also means that providers need to gear up to be able to demonstrate they do meet the standards. Something that good providers should already be doing and the not so good providers will have to chose whether they want to provide good quality supported housing services OR whether it is time to leave the field of play to those that do.
To discuss any issues raised in this article, email: Liz.Zacharias@campbelltickell.com
Further reading:
- Consultation: Supported Housing (Regulatory Oversight) Act 2023
- Research and analysis: Supported Housing Review 2023
- Origins of the legislation, the LUHC Select Committee report from October 2022: Exempt housing and support services are a ‘complete mess’, says Committee – Committees – UK Parliament.
- Exempt accommodation: UK crime gangs rake in millions through supported housing, say police | Housing | The Guardian.
