Vulnerable people unprotected against "unscrupulous” providers of supported housing: MPs

The influential Public Accounts Committee (PAC) has warned that vulnerable people are being increasingly provided with poor-quality supported housing.

In a report published on 10 November 2023, the committee said there was a lack of protections for vulnerable people in supported housing. It added that it had found a sector “riddled with long-standing challenges, with Government’s actions to improve matters falling woefully short”.

The PAC said recent demand had outstripped supply, leaving people with additional needs, including care leavers, and people with disabilities, mental health issues or addiction without much-needed homes or support.

Exempt accommodation – an expanding sub-sector of short-term supported housing that can be of poor quality – has little regulation or oversight, leaving it open to unscrupulous providers, the report added.

The committee claimed that the Government was hampered in its efforts to improve the “challenge-riddled” housing sector due to a lack of reliable data, making it unable to assess or resolve problems with it.

“The Government’s future understanding relies on new duties imposed on councils to provide annual data, but some of this new work has no timetable for completion, and other parts are non-mandatory. This means there is a risk that government’s picture of supported housing will remain inconsistent and incomplete for some time,” the report said.

The PAC also claimed progress was poor on developing more supported housing, with only half of the Government’s target of 10% within the new affordable homes programme currently forecast to be achieved by 2026.

The committee added that while recent legislation aimed to bring in important reforms, councils under severe financial pressure might struggle to take on these new duties under the law.

The PAC also expressed disappointment that fraud was going largely unaddressed in supported housing. “Many councils do not have the resources to check individual housing benefit claims for fraud, meaning the Government is unable to identify how many housing benefit claims for supported housing are fraudulent.”

Dame Meg Hillier MP, Chair of the Public Accounts Committee, said: “Well-run supported housing could not be a more essential resource for some of the most vulnerable in our society. The sector is in desperate need of root-and-branch reform – wide open to fraud and the predations of unscrupulous landlords, and badly letting down the people who need it most. But our report finds a Government unprepared to even assess the problem, let alone address it.

“Without firm data on the problems with supported housing, the Government will be able only to continue to agree with our Committee that the sector is not working as it should. It is welcome to see legislation now passed aimed at tackling part of the issue relating to exempt accommodation, but we are concerned that Whitehall will be leaning on an under-resourced local government to achieve change.”

Lottie Winson