About the consultation
The consultation launched by the Government on the Supported Housing (Regulatory Oversight) Act, closed on 15 May 2025.
The consultation sought views on how the Government will implement the Act, how to inform the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) to work on licensing schemes to claim housing benefit in England, and how to define care, support and supervision in housing benefit regulations.
At SJOG we deliver support to people who claim housing benefits across our homelessness and housing management services. We are aware that the implementation of this legislation will have a significant impact on the way services are run.
Melanie Smith, SJOG’s National Housing Manager explains: ‘All supported housing residents deserve a good quality home and services, therefore the changes proposed by the Act are welcomed. There are areas however that require more clarity and strategic approaches on how the operating environment is going to support housing providers. For example, in its current form, it is difficult to assess potential costs of implementation and running a licence scheme, or how this will be operated by local authorities. Similarly, the Act aims to introduce new regulatory criteria for ‘support, supervision and care’ for those in receipt of housing benefits. While it is suggested that ‘care’ will follow the definition as prescribed by the CQC in England, it remains unclear what ‘support’ and ‘supervision’ should look like for the housing providers.
By working together with the sector, we believe that we can collectively address these concerns. Therefore, we contributed to joint consultations coordinated by Homeless Link and Supported Housing People (SHP).
The consultations were divided in 3 sections:
1. National Supported Housing Standards and Principles: identified as person-centred support, empowerment, environment, staff and safeguarding, local need, responsible person, statement of purpose.
Some gaps in definitions were highlighted, including: the importance of confidentiality and data protection, the privacy around ‘description of location’ where this could pose safety risks, or the reformulation of ‘complaints procedure’ to ‘comments, compliments and complaints procedure’. This implies that ‘local needs’ standards should be flexible and relevant for addressing complex local needs and that where there are residents who are deemed to ‘lack capacity’ under the MCA 2005, supported housing providers should be able to demonstrate how they support and facilitate people to make their voices heard and have their choices realised. In this direction, every effort should be also made to accommodate the way people make decisions and choices, which may be very different from what we are used to.
2. The Licensing Scheme
The implementation of a licensing scheme administered by local authorities (LA) has been advanced by the Act. The consultations bring to the Government’s attention: clarity over exemptions; how will it be implemented through LAs; how it should interact with other licensing schemes (e.g. houses of multiple occupation) and regulations (e.g. Ofsted and CQC); how it will be enforced and what will happen if a service fails to gain a licence; what support providers will need to become licensed; who the ‘licensee’ would be in models where the landlord is not the same as the support provider.
SJOG supported the idea of licensing as a service rather than as a scheme, including the adoption of one licence requirement for any LA area. In fact, while we support the idea of upholding standards in supported accommodation, we are concerned that requiring a separate licence for each individual scheme (e.g. each building or address) would imply excessive administrative and financial burdens, especially for providers operating multiple sites. Therefore, a licensing model based on projects or services, would better reflect the operational realities of providers and would promote consistency across regions, as it would ensure the focus on quality oversight without deterring provision for people with complex needs.
Moreover, we also suggested that a licensing scheme should be a passport for local authorities to be able to claim 100% of the subsidy back from central government. At present, LAs can only claim 100% of the subsidy back where it is a registered provider (this includes all accommodation provided by LAs, county councils, housing associations, registered charities or voluntary bodies that are providing ‘care, support or supervision’ to the resident in receipt of housing benefits), but it should be extended to any organisation or private landlord who is licenced as it shows that it is well run and provides quality accommodation.
3. Proposed Housing Benefit Changes
This section aimed to explore the implications of housing benefit payments in relation to the new licensed scheme. Through the consultations, it was highlighted that although the Act claims how resident should be ‘signposted or referred to specialist services where necessary’, it isn’t clear to what extend housing benefit will fund the support provided. In fact, it is important to better define what the criteria of ‘care, support and supervision’ should look like for those in receipt of housing benefits, in order for services to by eligible to the scheme. In other words, funding should be able to cover all costs involved in complying with such requirements of care.
Additionally, as each housing benefit claim will need to be assessed individually, it is important to consider a person-centred approach that should not delay claims, as sometimes the amount of information being requested takes time to be collected and provided.
Conclusion
To conclude, we believe the new regulation has the potential to set up the right environment for more decent and safe accommodations, but it may also create significant financial and administrative burdens for organisations that are already underfunded, and would require additional resources to be able to implement the scheme.
By Ioana Brezeanu, Senior Policy and Research Officer and Melanie Smith, National Housing Manager
For a full read of the Homeless Link submission, please check : https://homelesslink-1b54.kxcdn.com/media/documents/Full_SARO_Act_consultation_response.pdf