Supported housing and benefits system: Housing Support Group meeting 28 June

The next meeting of the SFHA’s Housing Support Group will include a discussion on the LHA cap and supported housing with officials from the Scottish Government.

The General Election put a halt to further announcements about supported housing and the planned cap on housing related benefit through the Local Housing Allowance (often referred to as the LHA cap) alongside the introduction of a new ‘top up’ fund.  

The joint Communities and Local Government Committee and the Work and Pensions Committee have, however, reported back on their findings after conducting an inquiry into the future of supported housing in the light of plans to introduce the LHA cap.
 
Significantly, though not surprisingly, the two committees found that the LHA does not offer a suitable way of setting benefit levels for supported housing. Instead, the report includes a recommendation that there should be a Supported Housing Allowance that better reflects the actual costs of supported housing through a series of bands. This would mean that fewer services would need to apply for a local discretionary ‘top up’ fund.

The timescale for the changes (April 2019) is of concern, and the report urges the UK Government to push this back to ensure that adequate measures can be put in place to protect vulnerable people. In Scotland, we face an additional time pressure as further arrangements will need to be decided upon once the UK Government has confirmed the framework of the new system, e.g. arrangements to distribute any devolved funding in Scotland.

At a meeting with the Scottish Government at the end of January, the SFHA members set out their concerns about the LHA cap, including the impact that the uncertainty is having on plans for new services or the reconfiguration of existing services as well as examples of services which cost more than the LHA rate but which reduce local authority spending on inadequate temporary accommodation.  

There was general agreement that the naming of the proposed ‘top up fund’ is misleading.  In some cases, the shortfall resulting from the LHA cap would be enough to jeopardise the continuation of the service and could result in vulnerable tenants being left with little option but to move to less suitable accommodation. Central to members’ concerns is the fear that changes to the benefits system will lead to worsening outcomes for potential and existing tenants.

The meeting will take place on Wednesday 28 June at the SFHA Office, Glasgow, from 10.30am–12.30pm.  If you would like to attend, please send an email to Yvette Burgess at yburgess@sfha.co.uk