Table of contents

On 30 March 2023, the House of Lords is scheduled to debate the following question for short debate:

Baroness Warwick of Undercliffe (Labour) to ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the case for providing more supported housing, given its impact on homelessness prevention, health and wellbeing.

1. Definition of supported housing

The government defines supported housing as accommodation provided alongside support, supervision or care to help people live as independently as possible in the community. Individuals using supported housing include:

  • older people
  • people with a learning disability
  • people with a physical disability
  • autistic people
  • individuals and families at risk of or who have experienced homelessness
  • people recovering from drug or alcohol dependence
  • people with experience of the criminal justice system
  • young people with a support need (such as care leavers or teenage parents)
  • people with mental ill health
  • people fleeing domestic abuse and their children

Supported housing is provided by housing associations and local council housing, as well as charities, voluntary organisations and private landlords.

There are three types of supported housing, though there can be a crossover between them. These are:

  • sheltered and extra care provision, for older people who may benefit from living in purpose-designed accommodation or those with care or support needs
  • short-term or transitional provision for those in crisis because of, for example, domestic abuse or homelessness
  • long-term provision for those with long-term physical or mental health conditions

Housing policy is devolved.

2. Paying for supported housing

Housing benefit can help supported housing residents with their rent payments if they qualify. Recipients can claim more for most supported housing than for regular accommodation. This is because the housing benefit regulations, which cap housing benefits, do not apply to “specified” supported housing. Specified housing consists of:

  • dwellings provided by a non-metropolitan county council in England, housing association, registered charity or voluntary body if they, or a body acting on their behalf, are providing “care, support or supervision” (termed exempt accommodation)
  • dwellings provided by a county council in England, housing association, registered charity or voluntary organisation if the claimant has been admitted to receive care, support or supervision connected to living in that home but the care is not provided by the landlord or on the landlord’s behalf (termed managed accommodation)
  • refuges provided by a local authority, housing association, registered charity or voluntary organisation
  • local authority hostels

Housing benefit goes towards the rent of supported housing and eligible service charges. Care and associated services are paid for by grants.

In 2017 the government ran a consultation on paying for supported housing in which it proposed changing the way supported housing is paid for. In its response, published in 2018, it said it would maintain the system of benefit payments for supported housing being provided through housing benefit.

3. Impact

Supported housing enables some people to receive help with essential personal care tasks such as washing and dressing. It can also have wider impacts on health and wellbeing, as well as social benefits.

Research commissioned by the National Housing Federation, published in March 2023, found there are benefits of supported housing:

  • Good quality supported housing has a significant positive impact on its residents’ health, wellbeing and sense of social connection.
  • Supported housing plays a critical role in reducing homelessness and relieving pressures on the social care, health, criminal justice and housing sectors—ultimately lessening demands on the public purse.
  • Short-term and transitional supported housing is playing a key role in reducing and/or preventing higher-risk forms of homelessness, such as rough sleeping.
  • Supported housing residents have complex needs: nine out of 10 have at least one health condition or disability (including substance misuse, mental ill-health, learning disability/autistic spectrum disorder and physical conditions), and half of them are experiencing more than one of these conditions.
  • Were it not for supported housing, there would be an increase in core homelessness of around 41,000 people, with a further 30,000 people at significant risk of future homelessness (the cost to the public purse of long-term homelessness has been estimated at over £40,000 per person per year).

A 2021 review of the existing evidence by the National Institute for Health and Care Research at the University of Manchester also concluded that there was evidence for positive benefits of supported housing, but that the evidence regarding residents’ characteristics and outcomes was “very fragmented and of variable quality”.

4. Existing stock

Statistics on the number of supported accommodation dwellings are not regularly collected. Research commissioned by the government in 2016 found that there were, at that time, approximately 651,500 accommodation-based supported housing units in Great Britain. The majority of these (85%) were in England, with 9% in Scotland and 6% in Wales. This was broadly in line with the profile of housing stock estimates in the different nations.

This research also found that housing associations provided 76% of supported homes in England. Local authorities provided 14%, registered charities and voluntary organisations 6% and other providers 4%.

5. Funding and building

5.1 Affordable homes programme and building targets

The government provides grant funding for new supported housing through the affordable homes programme. The latest round of funding for the programme runs from 2021 to 2026. The Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) has made £7.39bn of grants available for affordable homes outside London in the current round; this is administered by Homes England. Funding for affordable homes in London is administered by the Greater London Authority (GLA); the affordable homes for Londoners programme has £4bn of grant funding available for 2021 to 2026.

DLUHC has tasked Homes England with overseeing between 122,000 and 130,000 new affordable homes and set the GLA a target of 35,000. Within both of these, 10% are to be supported housing. Homes England told the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee’s 2022 inquiry into the programme that as at September 2022 it had made approximately 8,500 supported home allocations, with 3,700 still to be allocated to achieve the target. Peter Denton, the CEO of Homes England, said there was a “decent chance” Homes England would come close to, if not achieve, that target. However, DLUHC has said it does not expect to meet its supported homes target overall because the GLA has so far allocated funding for only 325 new supported homes out of a target of 3,500.

The committee said DLUHC should include in its calculations savings the programme could make to the taxpayer through the affordable homes target. It argued the department “urgently” needed to understand and quantify the savings that building more supported homes could make to local and central government spend on adult social care and that it “should work harder” with the Department of Health and Social Care to overcome barriers to delivery.

5.2 Barriers to building more supported housing

London Councils, which represents London’s 32 boroughs and the City of London, has argued that costs and insufficient funding are a significant reason London has not delivered enough affordable homes, including supported housing, to meet its target. In evidence to the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee, London Councils said that while affordable home scheme grant rates in London had risen to £100,000 per unit, total scheme costs in the capital were nearly £400,000 per unit on average in 2020. Therefore, grants constituted only around 25% of total scheme costs. In addition, inflation has meant that building costs have risen further since 2020. London Councils argued that the viability of development programmes would be damaged without an increase in grant rate.

G15, a group of housing associations, also argued that affordable homes grant rates should be reviewed. It highlighted that the proportion of total build costs covered by government capital grant subsidy was low by historical standards. It said that its members had adapted to this by increasing borrowing on private markets, drawing on reserves and generating cross-subsidy from other sales. It said there were, however, “inherent limits to the degree to which the supply of affordable housing can be funded through these mechanisms”. It also highlighted the impact of inflation on building costs and the potential impact of a “likely less-than-expected” rise in housing association rents in 2023/24.

Both London Councils and G15 called for more flexible and longer-term grant schemes to support the development of bigger and more complex sites.

6. Quality

6.1 National statement of expectations

In the government’s response to its 2017 consultation on paying for supported housing, published in 2018, it said it would work to improve quality in the sector:

We are determined that oversight of quality and value for money must be achieved across the supported housing sector. Ensuring quality accommodation for vulnerable people whilst spending taxpayers’ money correctly is a priority for government. We recognise the level of commitment and high standards demonstrated by most providers in this sector, but we need to ensure standards across the whole sector. We will continue to work with providers, local authorities, membership bodies and resident representatives over the coming months to put together a sound and robust oversight regime.

The government published a national statement of expectations for the supported housing sector in October 2020. The statement sets out guidelines on “what good looks like” in supported housing. It also sets out best practice examples for achieving expectations, including assessing local need and planning effectively to meet demand and delivering good quality and good value accommodation. This guidance covers the accommodation aspect of supported housing and does not include the support element.

6.2 Pilots

Also in October 2020, the government launched pilots in five local authorities. The pilots made £5.4mn available to test ways to raise standards of accommodation and support and improve local authority oversight of the local supported housing market. As part of the pilot, all five local authorities undertook four activities:

  • property inspections and enforcement of property standards
  • reviews of support provided to residents
  • enhanced scrutiny of new and existing housing benefit claims
  • strategic planning to better understand the local market

They then supplemented these with other activities depending on their local context, such as developing and launching local quality standards for supported housing, working with specific cohorts such as young people and victims of domestic abuse, addressing anti-social behaviour and trialling ways of managing new provision.

The evaluation of the pilots acknowledged its assessment of effectiveness was limited by lack of comparison groups. However, looking at before and after data for the local authorities involved, the evaluation found the effects included:

  • improved quality of resident support, making support more tailored and sufficient for residents
  • a reduced number of illegitimate or unreasonable housing benefit claims paid out
  • preventing £6.2mn being paid in error
  • improved quality and standards of accommodation through investment in property inspections and enforcement activities to identify and resolve property hazards
  • improved understanding of the local market
  • improved ability to intervene in new provision and prevent providers from establishing new and unnecessary schemes

Following on from the pilots, in March 2022 the government announced it would launch a new supported housing improvement programme. This programme makes £20mn available from 2022 to 2025 for local authorities to implement good practice learned from the pilots.

6.3 Reforms

The government also announced in March 2022 a package of measures to improve quality in supported housing:

  • minimum standards for the support provided to residents to ensure residents receive the good quality support they expect and deserve in order to live as independently as possible and achieve their personal goals
  • new powers for local authorities in England to better manage their local supported housing market and ensure that rogue landlords cannot exploit the system to the detriment of vulnerable residents and at the expense of taxpayers
  • changes to housing benefit regulations to seek to define care, support and supervision to improve quality and value for money across all specified supported housing provision

In June 2022, Bob Blackman (Conservative MP for Harrow East) introduced the Supported Housing (Regulatory Oversight) Bill, a private member’s bill seeking to improve the quality of some supported housing, particularly short-term accommodation with support services that have not been commissioned by the local authority. The bill would:

  • require local authorities in England to review supported housing in their areas and develop strategies
  • provide for the creation of a national expert advisory panel to advise on matters related to supported housing
  • give the secretary of state power to introduce national support standards
  • give local authorities power to create local licensing schemes for exempt accommodation
  • give the secretary of state an option to introduce a new planning use class for exempt accommodation.

The government has said it supports the bill. The bill passed all its House of Commons stages on 3 March 2023 and its second reading in the House of Lords is scheduled to take place on 21 April 2023.

For a summary of the House of Commons stages of the bill see the House of Commons Library briefing ‘The Supported Housing (Regulated Oversight) Bill 2022–23: Progress of the bill’ (19 March 2023).

6.4 House of Commons Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Committee inquiry

In October 2022 the House of Commons Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Committee published a report that was highly critical of the current system for exempt accommodation. The committee said:

This committee and its predecessors have held dozens of inquiries into a wide range of issues over the years which have highlighted important and urgent issues. Therefore, it was surprising to have undertaken a piece of work that has shocked and alarmed us as much as this inquiry has. In short, we would describe the system of exempt accommodation as a complete mess. There are many good providers, but in the worst instances the system involves the exploitation of vulnerable people who should be receiving support, while unscrupulous providers make excessive profits by capitalising on loopholes. This gold-rush is all paid for by taxpayers through housing benefit.

The committee said that poor quality accommodation was harmful to residents and local communities. It highlighted that two years after the government published its national statement of expectations, there were still landlords providing unacceptably poor housing.

The committee made recommendations to the government, including that it should:

  • introduce compulsory national minimum standards for exempt accommodation, including on referrals, care and support, and quality of housing
  • give local councils the powers and resources to enforce these standards
  • require all exempt accommodation providers to be registered
  • create a national oversight committee to join up existing regulators and mend the current ‘patchwork regulation’, which has too many holes
  • ensure the providers of exempt accommodation for survivors of domestic abuse have recognised expertise to provide specialist support and a safe environment
  • review the system of exempt housing benefit claims and clamp down on the exploitation of the lease-based exempt accommodation model for profit

7. Read more

Cover image by Emphyrio on Pixabay.