Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, how many investigations have been undertaken by the Regulator for Social Housing into providers of supported exempt accommodation in each of the last five years.

Whether or not accommodation is ‘exempt’ is a matter for local authority housing benefit departments. The Regulator of Social Housing regulates only those landlords that wish to register with it and who are able to meet its registration requirements (other than local authorities who own homes who are automatically registered). This includes being able to demonstrate that it is a provider of homes at rents below market levels. Not all providers of exempt accommodation provide sub-market rent.

Exempt accommodation is often delivered through providers entering into lease-based agreements with private landlords or property owners. The regulator issued a report in 2019 setting out its concerns about this type of “lease-based” supported housing and has subjected providers using this business model to increased scrutiny to obtain assurance about their compliance with regulatory standards.

There are 13 lease-based providers of supported housing that currently have either non-compliant regulatory judgements or notices.

The Government is committed to taking action to ensure vulnerable people have safe, good quality homes and that standards are improved in the minority of cases where they fall below our expectations. In October, we published our National Statement of Expectations for supported housing, which sets out recommended accommodation standards, and highlights examples of best practice in the sector. We have also provided £3.1 million of funding to five local authority areas, to test approaches to improving quality and oversight in supported housing in a targeted, proportionate way.