Seminar 2: 9th November 2017
View a PDF of the presentation here (PDF - 1.19MB)
In one of our most successful HCRN seminars to date 30 people came together from a variety of backgrounds to hear Thea Raisbeck coin the term ‘generation exempt’ to describe a largely hidden social problem that is affecting thousands of homeless people in Birmingham. Participants brought both passion and expertise to contribute to a constructive debate about potential solutions. On this page you can download Thea’s presentation, view the feedback, read a review by David Mullins and tell us your own views on ‘generation exempt’ and how it can be reformed.
Seminar Feedback
The seminar clearly inspired participants as social media was afire in the days after the event:
This Linkedin post drew over 1,100 views and 21 likes.
Individual comments included:
Mary Latham (National Landlords Association) ‘After a week which has felt like a battle field I attended a presentation by Thea Raisbeck which gave me hope for the thousands of people who we allow ourselves to pretend we are caring for . Throwing money at a bad situation isn’t the answer’
Jessica Duncan (Student) ‘thought it was brilliant, definitely an interesting opportunity for research. It made me miss doing front line work!’
Matthew Smith (Private Housing Team, Birmingham City Council) ‘I honestly thought it was both a brilliant, informative and powerful presentation ..on this quite emotive subject….. I can put my hand on my heart and say this top of any agenda in discussion with my colleagues in the PRS team’.
Nasheima Sheikh (Assistant Chief Executive, Birmingham & Solihull Women's Aid) ‘Very good seminar. Please pass on my thanks to Thea and David for organising this.’
(Dominic Bradley, Spring Housing) ‘heard it was a great session! Sad I missed it but very timely! Thanks Thea and David for highlighting the issues’
Further Feedback Welcome
We would like to hear your views about ‘generation exempt’ and potential solutions and further research and policy development needed. Please send your comments about the presentation and the issues it raises for you to T.Raisbeck@bham.ac.uk.
‘Generation Exempt’ – Review by David Mullins
In our second HCRN seminar of 2017/18 Thea Raisbeck opened a window on the largely hidden and ‘Alice in Wonderland’ world of the Exempt Accommodation Sector in Birmingham. She called this strange and hidden world ‘Generation Exempt’.
Her well informed analysis gave us a clear picture of the role of housing benefit regulations over a long period in creating this field exempted from Local Reference Rents, Local Housing Allowance Rates, the bedroom tax, universal credit housing element and the benefit cap. Single room accommodation in Birmingham that is ‘exempted’ can command rents of over £200 a week compared to the LHA single room rate of £57.34. In the first twist worthy of Humpty Dumpty’s dictum in Alice in Wonderland that ‘when I use a word it means just what I choose it to mean’ we learned that while these provisions suggest welcome recognition of the higher costs of providing and managing supported accommodation there is unfortunately virtually no relationship between the payments landlords can claim and the extent and quality of support they actually provide.
Thea went on to show how the expansion of this sector to include around 5-6000 people in Birmingham has focused almost exclusively the most vulnerable citizens with no other housing options who are encouraged to enter by no deposits, no fees, shorter waits and less scrutiny of their previous tenancy history. She estimated that this sector provides at least three times as many bedspaces as the supported social housing sector. Unfortunately it has also been a magnet for less scrupulous housing providers who now form complex sub-contracted network involving ‘registered providers’ and individual property owners. Fortunately there are also some good providers who can provide support for much needed reforms.
Expansion has been actively fostered by local commissioning practices, which have tended to divert people with the most complex needs from traditional social supported housing into this largely unregulated sector. Furthermore the local housing benefit department has been incentivised to drive providers into the registered provider (RP) sector since accommodation under RPs is eligible for 100% central government subsidy of local housing benefit expenditure compared to 60% for non –RPs. Again this would be a good thing if RP status meant that providers were subject to the full gamut of Homes and Communities Agency (HCA) regulation especially if this included an actively monitored consumer standard , but unfortunately in the second Alice in Wonderland twist neither is currently the case.
So what is to be done? The most vulnerable are in the poorest quality but most expensive accommodation supported by Central government subsidy . In a third Alice in Wonderland twist exempt accommodation under RPs is also exempt from Houses in Multiple Occupation (HMO regulation) since it is incorrectly assumed that HCA regulation guarantees good accommodation and management standards. This means that some of the poorest accommodation in the city is largely beyond the reach of the underfunded local authority private sector housing team.
Fortunately the later part of the seminar took a turn from problems to opportunities and shone a light on what could be done to make an insane world slightly saner. Thea highlighted the need to put the residents of this accommodation at the centre of plans to reform the system. There should be a collective voice for residents of non-commissioned provision in the same way that Supporting People attempts to give voice to users of commissioned services. Two seminar participants, Lee and Mark, introduced their idea for an APP they call Homeless Rooms Birmingham ‘a kind of Right Move for sofa surfers’ that could start a move towards greater consumer power.
It became apparent from the impassioned discussion at the seminar that there is a wide range of stakeholders who want to move us out of this Alice in Wonderland world. These include private landlord bodies, social housing RPs, private providers seeking RP status, women’s refugees, private sector and strategy team members from Birmingham and Sandwell councils and students and advice agencies committed to giving users voice in the path to reform . Moreover the recently announced Government plans to reform supported housing funding by 2020 are expected to lead to devolved funding to local authorities like Birmingham. This could provide the platform for a less Alice in Wonderland world where funding could be linked to outcomes, providers could be incentivised for service improvement and users could be empowered to make their experiences count in system reforms. However experience tells us that these positive outcomes are unlikely to arise without good quality research and policy development with the interests of residents at its heart. There should be greater transparency to make it clear who the providers are and better information accessible to users along the lines of Homeless Rooms. There should be greater pressure on providers to drive up standards including better resourced regulation from which this sector should no longer be exempt.
Rashid Ikram from Birmingham City Council provided a well-informed and positive response to the presentation and updated attendees on the recent DCLG/DWP Policy Statement and Consultation on Funding Supported Housing (consultation deadline 23/1/2018) which includes proposals for short term supported housing that will set the stage for the latest episode of Alice and Humpty’s adventure in Birmingham’s secret world of exempt accommodation.