Seventy-Seventh Report - Supported housing

Select Committee
Public Accounts Committee HC 1330 10 November 2023
Report Status Government responded
Conclusions & Recommendations 26 items (2 recs)
Source View on Parliament website
Government Response (AI assessment · 26 of 26 classified)
Accepted 21
Deferred 1
Rejected 4
Government response
Treasury minutes: Government response to the Committee of Public Accounts on the Seventy-seventh report from Session 2022-23 · published 14 Feb 2024
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Recommendations & Conclusions

4 results
6 Conclusion Rejected
Implement solutions to reduce housing benefit subsidy loss experienced by local authorities.
Conclusion
Some local authorities face increasing gaps in their budgets because of the way DWP Housing Benefit regulations work. Local authorities pay housing benefit directly to providers and ‘subsidy loss’ is the gap between how much rent a housing provider charges … Read more
Government Response Summary
The government explicitly disagrees with including subsidy loss in the Supported Housing Act consultation because it is outside the Act's scope, though they expect stakeholders to raise the issue and will monitor contributing factors.
HM Treasury
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24 Conclusion Rejected
Local authorities face increasing funding gaps for supported housing due to DWP regulations
Conclusion
The NAO investigation found that some local authorities face increasing gaps in funding for supported housing because of the way the DWP’s Housing Benefit regulations work. “Subsidy loss” is the gap in funding between how much rent a housing provider … Read more
Government Response Summary
The government disagrees with any implied recommendation to directly address subsidy loss. While DWP will consider feedback from LAs and monitor the issue, it has no plans to explicitly address subsidy loss in the upcoming Act or consultation.
HM Treasury
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25 Conclusion Rejected
Scale of supported housing subsidy loss is increasing significantly for local authorities
Conclusion
The scale of subsidy loss varies between local authorities and some local authorities experience a high subsidy loss. The amount of subsidy loss is increasing overall with local authorities in England experiencing a subsidy loss of £108 million (in cash … Read more
Government Response Summary
The government disagrees with any implied recommendation to directly address subsidy loss. While DWP will consider feedback from LAs and monitor the issue, it has no plans to explicitly address subsidy loss in the upcoming Act or consultation.
HM Treasury
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26 Conclusion Rejected
New Act and current measures will not sufficiently address supported housing subsidy loss
Conclusion
Successful bids from local authorities for the Supported Housing Improvement Programme have included work to reduce subsidy loss in local areas. DWP told us that local authorities can reduce subsidy loss by scrutinising Housing Benefit claims more by overseeing providers … Read more
Government Response Summary
The government disagrees with any implied recommendation to directly address subsidy loss. While DWP will consider feedback from LAs and monitor the issue, it has no plans to explicitly address subsidy loss in the upcoming Act or consultation.
HM Treasury
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