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Specified Accomodation

Dan_Manville
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Hi all

This might be as well in the UC section but as it’s a hangover from HB days it’s just as appropriate for here.

The rules for Specified Accomodation hold that County Councils, Housing Associations, Charities and companies can provide accomodation with support; supported or sheltered accomodation, sufficient to fall back on the pre ‘96 rules and get the whole rent paid.

Why is it limited to County Councils? It doesn’t make sense to me.

TIA

HB Anorak
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Long history to this one.

The concept of “exempt accommodation” first appeared in 1996, when rent allowance (i.e. non-rebate) cases outside the regulated social sector generally became limited to the Local Reference Rent.  The only non-rebate cases with a local authority landlord were those where the claimant’s landlord was an English non-metropolitan county council.  By 1996, the whole of Scotland and Wales plus the metropolitan counties in England plus London all had single-tier local government, so HB for a tenant/licensee of any local authority department took the form of a rent rebate.  The only exception was in the English non-met counties, where HB was in the form of a rent allowance and subject to the same HB limits as private tenants.  Hence the appearance of non-met counties in the original definition of “exempt accommodation”.

Back in those days, HB in both rent rebate cases and regulated social sector cases was pretty much unlimited: no bedroom tax, no benefit cap.  So there was no need to build in any particular protection for supported accommodation in the single-tier LA sector: no local authority was going to restrict its own rents.  But fast forward 17 years and along comes the bedroom tax, benefit cap and of course UC.  Suddenly it can no longer be taken for granted that rent rebates will cover full, unrestricted rent.  The same goes for regulated social sector tenancies.  In 2014 the government gave in a little bit to lobbying and came up with the extended definition of “specified accommodation”, which includes exempt but also three new categories.  Two of these new categories cover rent rebates, which keeps them out of UC and exempts them from the benefit cap; but exempt accommodation (which also protects the claimant from the bedroom tax) still refers to non-met English counties only.

Now, ask me about exempt accommodation and unitary authorities that have appeared since 1996 in former non-met county areas.  If you thought this post was boring, wait until you see my answer to that qestion.

hbinfopeter
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I should add that all these categories, including specified, were only intended to be short-term emergency policies. I still have presentations from DWP policy staff going back years where they earnestly suggested this wouldl all be gone within a year.

Elliot Kent
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Dan Manville - 08 August 2018 12:10 PM

Hi all

This might be as well in the UC section but as it’s a hangover from HB days it’s just as appropriate for here.

The rules for Specified Accomodation hold that County Councils, Housing Associations, Charities and companies can provide accomodation with support; supported or sheltered accomodation, sufficient to fall back on the pre ‘96 rules and get the whole rent paid.

Why is it limited to County Councils? It doesn’t make sense to me.

TIA

What on earth are you up to Dan - with this and your thread last week about the 1987 regs?

:)

HB Anorak
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I think the 1987 Regs thread is probably about cruising licences.  Upper Tribunal judge has recently holed Dan below the waterline and he is looking for an emergency repair kit

Rosie W
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HB Anorak - 08 August 2018 01:37 PM

Long history to this one.

Now, ask me about exempt accommodation and unitary authorities that have appeared since 1996 in former non-met county areas.  If you thought this post was boring, wait until you see my answer to that qestion.

Working in a non-met unitary authority which only became so in 2009 I’d actually be very interested to read your answer.

Dan_Manville
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HB Anorak - 08 August 2018 04:03 PM

I think the 1987 Regs thread is probably about cruising licences.  Upper Tribunal judge has recently holed Dan below the waterline and he is looking for an emergency repair kit

Last time I needed an emergency repair kit it involved a pair of socks, some puddling clay and a couple of shovels of cement; that’s wooden boats for you.

This time it’s more serious…. Thanks all

[ Edited: 17 Aug 2018 at 11:07 pm by Dan_Manville ]
Dan_Manville
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Rosie W - 09 August 2018 09:49 AM
HB Anorak - 08 August 2018 01:37 PM

Long history to this one.

Now, ask me about exempt accommodation and unitary authorities that have appeared since 1996 in former non-met county areas.  If you thought this post was boring, wait until you see my answer to that qestion.

Working in a non-met unitary authority which only became so in 2009 I’d actually be very interested to read your answer.

As would I. Has a lacuna evolved in Specified Accomodation?

Gareth Morgan
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Dan Manville - 17 August 2018 11:05 PM

. Has a lacuna evolved in Specified Accomodation?

I don’t think lacunae can evolve only devolve (!) (? or redact with some bizarre suffix)

HB Anorak
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Back from holiday in two days - top of my list

HB Anorak
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Exempt accommodation and unitary authorities … here we go.

The definition these days is found in Para 4(10) of Schedule 3 to the HB&CTB; (Consequential Provisions) Regs 2006.  It is relied on both for the purpose of deciding whether the claimant is entitled to a UC housing element and for the purpose of calculating HB, in particular exempting the claimant from automatic limits such as bedroom tax and benefit cap.

The definition refers to the landlord being (inter alia) “a non-metropolitan county council in England within the meaning of section 1 of the Local Government Act 1972”.  Section 1 of the 1972 Act refers to “the non-metropolitan counties named in Part II of Schedule 1”.  Part II of Schedule 1 duly names them.  The list includes none of the new unitaries, so your first thought might be that only the original non-met counties named in that list can satisfy the definition of exempt accommodation.  But read on ...

First, the easy part.  Six of the counties in the 1972 Act are now unitary.  They have taken on the functions of their districts and the districts have ceased to exist.  These are still the same authorities referred to in the 1972 Act.  Durham, Wiltshire and Shropshire (same authority, changed its name from Salop) have lost part of their territory to new unitary authorities, but the remaining area is still administered by the same 1972 Act authority, now with additional functions acquired from the districts.  Cornwall, Northumberland and the Isle of Wight have simply acquired the functions of the districts within their unchanged geographical areas.  If these six authorities still have housing stock, they tick the landlord box for exempt accommodation in my opinion.

Slightly trickier are the authorities that either did not exist at all at the time of the 1972 Act, or did so only as district councils in a two-tier area.  For example, there was no Central Bedfordshire at all under the 1972 Act, now there is and it is a unitary council.  And Nottingham, Southampton, Plymouth were just two-bit district councils, now they are unitaries.  Each time a unitary authority is set up there is a “structural change order” which (1) creates a new county in the area of the unitary authority and (2) either abolishes (eg in Central Beds’ case) or redraws the boundary of (eg in Nottingham’s case) the original 1972 Act county.  And to accompany this redrawing of the map, there are transitional regulations:

- for pre-2008 structural change, Regulation 5 of the Local Government Changes for England Regulations 1994 (SI 1994/867) says:

(3) Any reference in a provision to a named area which is altered by the order shall, so far as is required for continuing the effect of the provision, be construed as a reference to the area as so altered.

(4) Any reference in a provision to a named abolished area shall, so far is required for continuing the effect of the provision, be construed as a reference to the transferred area.

(5) Any reference in a provision to a named abolished authority shall, so far as is required for continuing the effect of the provision, be construed as a reference to the transferee authority.

(6) Any reference in a provision to a county council shall, so far as is required for continuing the effect of the provision, be construed as including a district council to which county functions have been transferred pursuant to a structural change.

- for more recent structural change, it is Regulation 3 of the Local Government (Structural Changes) (Transitional Arrangements) (No.2) Regulations 2008:

(1) In relation to an area for which, as a result of a section 7 order, there is a district council but no county council, any reference in an enactment to a county council or a county shall, so far as is required for giving effect to the enactment, be construed as including a reference to a district council or, as the case may be, a district.

(2) In relation to an area for which, as a result of a section 7 order, there is a county council but no district councils, any reference in an enactment to a district council or a district shall, so far as is required for giving effect to the enactment, be construed as including a reference to a county council or, as the case may be, a county.

(3) A provision of an enactment in which a predecessor council or its area is mentioned by name shall have effect on and after the reorganisation date, as if, for the name of that council or its area, there were substituted the name of its related single tier council or of the area of that council or, as the case may be, the names of its related single tier councils or of the areas of those councils.

Applying those transitional rules, the list in Schedule 1 to the 1972 Act should be read as if it referred to the successor authorities to whom county functions have been transferred and this should be carried over into the definition of exempt accommodation.

The counter-argument is that this should only happen where a person is in a position where s/he would otherwise have been a tenant of a 1972 Act non-met county - those are the only circumstances in which it is “necessary”.  There is no wider loophole for the tenants in the HRA housing stock of a major city, who never would have been tenants of a 1972 Act non-met county.

I am aware of one or two authorities who have taken legal advice and satisfied themselves that they are providing exempt accommodation to anyone who is a tenant of theirs and to whom they also provide support.