MRAssociates — Glossary

The extra time and additional tasks that fall to landlords in supported accommodation. These can include:

• Tasks that any landlord would have to perform, but in supported accommodation these tasks are more frequent or more complicated
  • For example reletting void units, arranging repairs, urging tenants to keep their rent up to date
• Tasks that fall within the general meaning of “housing management” (as distinct from care, support or supervision) but which are not normally required in general needs accommodation
  • For example small maintenance tasks that are normally done by tenants in general needs accommodation

Additional housing management is also referred to as “intensive housing management”.

Where a vulnerable adult lives as a lodger in a family home and receives care, support or supervision from the householder. A fee is paid to the householder for the care, support or supervision provided but there is a private agreement between the householder and the vulnerable adult for accommodation. A charge is payable to the householder by the vulnerable adult for the accommodation and this charge is eligible for Housing Benefit subject to the usual means test.

Adult placements do not count as Specified Accommodation for Housing Benefit purposes because the landlord is a private individual rather than a not-for-profit company or organisation.

The clients placed in an adult placement service tend to be:

• People with a learning disability whose parents have died or are too old and/or infirm to care for them
• Foster children who remain as a lodger in the foster carer’s home when they reach adulthood (often referred to as “staying put”)

“Affordable rent” refers to the rent charged by a registered Housing Association in England for property acquired or developed since 2011 under new financial rules. The rent can be up to 80% of the market rent. Market rent is estimated using methodology accredited by the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors.

Other housing association properties are still let at social rents which tend to be considerably cheaper than affordable rents.

Amortisation is a form of depreciation, normally applied to intangible assets. In a supported accommodation rent breakdown it enables a landlord to recoup past outlay, most commonly on leased property: the money that was paid to acquire the lease is spread over the years of the lease for amortisation purposes.

For example if the property was acquired on a ten-year lease for a premium of £20,000 there is annual amortisation of £2,000.

The constitution or governing document of a British company. The Articles set out the rules under which the company is run including the decision making powers delegated by the company’s members to the board of directors; arrangements for issuing shares and paying dividends; and, if the company has chosen to have an asset lock, rules specifying what should happen to any remaining assets after the company’s debts are paid when it is wound up. The Articles of Association are a public document that can be downloaded from Companies House.

A block funded contract is one in which a care or support provider is commissioned to deliver a service to a class of service user over time. The service users are not specific named individuals - the commissioned care or support is available to anyone who uses the service from time to time over the period of the contract.

For example, a hostel for single homeless people has a block contract to provide support to 20 people at any one time over three years. Turnover is rapid, with service users tending to stay between three and six months: so, at the outset of the contract, no-one knows who the 20 service users will be from time to time: people will come and go and as many as 300 different individuals might pass through the service over the the three-year contract period. But the hostel has the capacity to support whoever its current cohort of 20 service users may be any time.

The alternative to a block funded contract is a “spot contract” where a service is commissioned for a specific person.

“Care” (as distinct from “support” or “supervision”) includes:

• Helping a physically disabled person to get out of bed, wash, dress, use a toilet or eat meals
• Guiding and assisting a person with a learning disability as they go about tasks that would be relatively simple for a person without such a disability: buying food, preparing food etc
• Carrying out tasks on behalf of a disabled person because they do not have the physical or mental capacity to do those things at all, not even with supervision: dealing with correspondence, arranging appointments etc

The process by which a public authority buys services from an outside body or private individual in order to discharge its responsibility to provide care, support or supervision to a vulnerable person or class of persons.

The contract between the public authority and the service provider from whom a care, support or supervision service has been commissioned. The contract will specify the activities the provider is expected to carry out and the amount of time they are expected to spend on those activities.

The commissioning agreement can be helpful when establishing whether the landlord might be called upon to provide complementary housing related support outside the scope of the commissioned service: if the landlord’s complementary role is more than minimal this is one of the ways that a Housing Benefit claim can come under the exempt accommodation rules.

A Community Interest Company is a company that is required by law to use at least 65% of its profit for some specified community benefit (such as providing housing for vulnerable people).

A company limited by guarantee is a company with no share capital: instead the members of the company pledge an amount for which they will be liable if the company is dissolved owing debts to creditors. Because there are no shares, the members cannot sell their stake in the company and they cannot receive a dividend. A company limited by guarantee is therefore a popular form of incorporation for a charity or other not-for-profit organisation.

A company limited by shares is one whose members own share capital and are entitled to receive dividends paid out of the company’s profits. A company limited by shares is not normally associated with the not-for-profit bodies providing specified accommodation.

A record of any contact by telephone or in person between a housing manager or care/support worker. Detailed contact sheets help to prove that a Housing Benefit claimant receives more than minimal support from the landlord or someone acting on the landlord’s behalf inn an exempt accommodation case.

Good quality contact sheets should record:

• The date and time of the contact
• The place where the contact happened and the form it took (meeting, phone call etc)
• The duration of the contact
• The names of the service user/tenant and the employee involved
• Whether this was planned contact (eg regular meeting)
• The content of the conversation
• Any follow-up action taken as a result of the contact

The part of a charge for accommodation that relates purely to the provision of the room/flat/house rather than the provision of services in the accommodation. The landlord typically uses the core rent to meet the following costs:

• Mortgage payments
• Lease charges to a superior landlord
• HMO Council Tax
• Building insurance
• Normal management and maintenance (as distinct from additional management, for which a service charge is usually made)

In some parts of England there is still two-tier local government:

• The county council provides services including education and social care
• Two or more district councils provide services including housing and Housing Benefit

Accommodation provided by a county council (eg as part of its social care function) can count as specified accommodation for Housing Benefit purposes.

People who have not paid enough contributions to qualify for contribution based Jobseekers Allowance (JSA) or Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) and who do not satisfy the conditions for means-tested JSA or ESA sometimes still go through the motions of making a claim and complying with the other conditions of entitlement (such as seeking work or submitting medical certificates). They do this to protect their contribution record for future claims to State Retirement Pension, ESA and JSA. The claimant continues to be credited with contributions even though she is not currently working. Even though the claimant does not actually receive any ESA or JSA, s/he is said to have “credits only” entitlement.

Occasionally “credits only” entitlement can satisfy conditions in other benefits - especially credits only ESA. A Housing Benefit claimant on credits only ESA has the same advantages as someone actually being paid ESA including:

• A more generous means-test calculation
• Full time students are able to claim HB after being on credits only ESA for 28 weeks
• In exempt accommodation the claimant has greater protection from the possibility of their rent being restricted

This is the date on which a local authority or the Department for Work and Pensions makes a decision about a benefit claim. If the claimant disagrees with the decision and appeals to a Tribunal, the Tribunal can only take into account circumstances that already existed on the date of the decision: the Tribunal cannot take account of any more recent changes of circumstance. Benefit decision makers often refer to this as circumstances “down to” the date of the decision.

Something so trivial it makes no difference or hardly any difference. From the Latin legal maxim: de minimis non curat lex (the law is not concerned with trivia).

In the field of specified accommodation, many appeals turn on whether the support provided by a landlord to a Housing Benefit claimant is more than minimal: if the support is de minimis it is not sufficient to bring the case under the more generous rules.

In accounting, this represents the notional setting aside of money to replace a tangible asset in the future (such as a vehicle or piece of machinery). In a Housing Benefit rent breakdown depreciation is most commonly applied to furniture and white goods.

When the people who run an organisation that appears to be a not-for-profit body abuse their position to make unreasonable commercial gains for themselves or for people/companies closely associated with them.

Personal care provided as a stand-alone service, not connected to accommodation. For example, when a homeowner receives visits at home from a carer to help with washing, dressing or preparing a meal, this is domiciliary care.

The Department for Work and Pensions: the government department responsible for social security benefits (including means tested, contribution based and other benefits) and support with job seeking.

Often wrongly referred to as the Department of Work and Pensions, or the Department of/for Works and Pensions.

DWP operates locally through its network of Jobcentres.

This is the date from which a benefit decision takes effect. It is not usually the same as the date on which the decision is made (“date of decision”). The reasons why these dates are different include:

• If there is a delay making a decision on a claim, the claimant is awarded benefit from the date of the claim, not from the date of the decision
• If a change of circumstance only comes to the attention of the benefit decision maker some time after it happened, benefit might be adjusted back to the date when the change occurred (especially if the change is disadvantageous)
• Sometimes a claim can be backdated so that the claimant receives benefit from a date earlier than the one on which the claim is made

In the context of a benefit claim, eligibility criteria are the basic conditions of entitlement that are used to determine quickly whether the claimant is the kind of person who might be entitled to this benefit, for example:

• The person’s age
• Whether they have any children
• Whether they have capital above a certain amount

In Housing Benefit the eligibility criteria are that the claimant is liable to make payments for a dwelling that s/he occupies as his/her home, subject to a means test. If the conditions of eligibility and/or occupation are not met there is no point considering the detailed provisions of the means test.

Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) is a benefit for people under state pension credit age¹ who have “limited capability for work” (LCW). LCW means officially recognised by the Department for Work and Pensions as being unable to work due to illness, injury or disability. ESA is paid at a higher rate for people who are temporarily or permanently unable even to prepare for work - they are not expected to retrain or address obstacles that are hindering their access to the job market. These people are referred to as being in the “support group”. ESA is paid at a lower rate for people who are expected to be able to work in the foreseeable future and are capable of preparing for work in the short term: then the claimant is referred to as being in the “work related activity group”.

It is possible to qualify for ESA by paying National Insurance Contributions (when it is known as “contribution based ESA”, or “ESA(c)”) or by satisfying a means-test (in which case it is known as “income-related ESA” or “ESA(ir)”).

ESA(c) is paid for a maximum of twelve months for people in the work related activity group but ESA(ir) is not time-limited and ESA(c) in the support group is not time limited. It is possible to receive ESA(c) with a top-up of means-tested ESA(ir): this would apply if the claimant is a member of a couple and their only income is ESA(c).

ESA(ir) and the other means-tested working age benefits are gradually being phased out and replaced by Universal Credit. But ESA(c) remains as a separate contribution-based benefit.

An excluded licence is when a person has permission to occupy a dwelling without security of tenure: s/he can be evicted very easily without a court order.

Excluded licences include:

• A lodger who shares living accommodation with his/her landlord
• Temporary homeless accommodation where the local authority needs to be able to move people around quickly and flexibly

The following are excluded from most means-tested benefits:

• People from outside the European Economic Area who do not have leave to enter or remain in the UK (eg asylum seekers), or whose leave prohibits them from claiming public funds (eg students)
• People from the European Economic Area who do have a right to reside in the UK under European law
  • Generally this means people who have lived in the UK for less than five years and are not active in the job market, not taking part in self-employment and do not have sufficient means to be self-sufficient
• People with capital over £16,000
  • Although this does not apply to Tax Credits and Pension Credit

In addition the following people are excluded specifically from Housing Benefit:

• People who are absent from their home for longer than 13 weeks or, if the absence is for certain special reasons (including medical treatment), 52 weeks
• Most full time students (there are some exceptions)
• People with contrived or non-commercial tenancies
• People whose tenancy has certain characteristics that are considered to be an abuse of the HB scheme (including renting from a former partner who used to live in the same home; renting from trustees or from a company with which the claimant has close connections)
• People whose housing costs are covered by a different benefit (mortgage interest and long leaseholders’ ground rent and service charges)

The independent body that hears first-instance appeals.

The First-tier Tribunal is divided into “chambers” that deal with appeals against decisions by a variety of different public bodies. The different chambers all follow procedural rules that are intended to be harmonised as far as possible irrespective of the subject matter: so the experience of pursuing an appeal against a benefit decision should be similar to the experience of pursuing an appeal an immigration decision, or an appeal about a child’s special educational needs. Appeals against social security decisions (including Housing Benefit) are heard by the Social Entitlement Chamber of the First-tier Tribunal.

An appeal to the First-tier Tribunal is a “merits” appeal - the Tribunal can take a completely fresh look at the facts and come to a different decision from the original decision maker. There does not have to be anything wrong with the original decision: the Tribunal can simply take a more generous view on a matter of subjective judgment, including whether the claimant’s landlord provides more than minimal support in an exempt accommodation case.

If the losing party disagrees with the Tribunal’s decision, there is a further right of appeal on a point of law to the Upper Tribunal.

A fixed service charge is one that does not vary according to the cost of the service provided: it is a fee for the use of facilities or receipt of the service, as opposed to recovery by the landlord of the costs of providing the service.

Permission to occupy accommodation for a fixed length of time, after which the occupier can be evicted very easily. Unless it is an exclude licenced, the landlord must still serve notice and apply to the court for eviction, but there is very little the licensee can do to oppose or challenge the application.

Floating support means support that is not linked to accommodation and not normally provided by a person’s landlord. Irrespective of his or her housing situation a person might need support with issues such as budgeting, life skills, drug or alcohol misuse, avoiding offending etc. A support provider can offer this as a stand-alone service without providing or arranging accommodation linked to the support.

In principle a person receiving floating support could be a tenant, licensee, owner occupier or living in someone else’s household. Typically, however, floating support tends to be provided to people who have previously lived in supported accommodation such as a hostel and have recently “moved on” to their own tenancy for a self-contained dwelling. In the short term they might require some help and guidance in setting up utility accounts, budgeting to ensure that fuel charges are paid, keeping in touch with a probation officer etc.

In Housing Benefit, there are no particular rules for people receiving floating support: HB is calculated according to the normal rules for this type of accommodation arrangement (rent rebate for council tenants, Local Housing Allowance for private tenants etc).

General needs housing means housing that is not purpose built, adapted or managed for a particular client group such as:

• Elderly people
• People with learning disabilities
• Homeless people

Personal care provided as a stand-alone service, not connected to accommodation. For example, when a homeowner receives visits at home from a carer to help with washing, dressing or preparing a meal, this is home care.

Home care is sometimes referred to as domiciliary care.

The HCA is the government body that regulates and funds social housing providers in England. The HCA maintains a register of all the organisations who provide social housing. For more information about organisations on the register, see What is a housing association? and Tell me more about registered housing associations and exempt accommodation.

This is the official DWP handbook that local authorities are encouraged to consult for guidance on how to make Housing Benefit decisions correctly. It used to be issued in paper form but these days it is maintained online. Although the Guidance Manual is written for local authority benefit decision makers, it is published online and anyone can view it here.

Housing Benefit Subsidy is the money paid by central government to local authorities to reimburse them for the Housing Benefits they make to claimants and to contribute to the cost of administering the scheme (eg staff and computer systems).

Housing management refers to the tasks that any landlord must do from time to time as long as s/he/it has tenants or licensees occupying his/her/its property. Housing management includes:

• Signing up new tenants
• Organising repairs and maintenance
• Collecting rent and chasing arrears

In the context of supported accommodation, housing management is distinguished from care, support or supervision. But sometimes supported accommodation requires additional or intensive management to such an extent that it overlaps with support.

A housing support service generally means a scheme or project, such as a hostel, where accommodation and support are provided together as a package.

In Scotland, Housing Support Service is a defined legal term meaning any service mentioned in a list of services qualifying for local authority funding. See the Housing (Scotland) Act 2001 (Housing Support Services) Regulations 2002.

A means tested benefit for people under state pension credit age who are excused from being available for and seeking work,usually because of caring responsibilities. The main groups entitled to Income Support are:

• A carer for a severely disabled person
• A lone parent with a child under 5
• Someone who is in the late stages of pregnancy or has recently been pregnant

Income Support and the other working age means-tested benefits are being gradually phased and replaced by Universal Credit.

Independent living means not living in an institutional or establishment setting (such as a care home or hospital). The person has a tenancy or owns their home, but might still receive support.

Registered Societies used to be referred to as Industrial and Provident Societies.

A society will be one of the following:

• A cooperative society which exists to serve some mutual interest of its members, or
• A community benefit society which exists to serve the wider community, or a section of the community (such as vulnerable people who need housing)

Most of the large traditional housing associations are registered community benefit societies.

The extra time and additional tasks that fall to landlords in supported accommodation. These can include:

• Tasks that any landlord would have to perform, but in supported accommodation these tasks are more frequent or more complicated
  • For example reletting void units, arranging repairs, urging tenants to keep their rent up to date
• Tasks that fall within the general meaning of “housing management” (as distinct from care, support or supervision) but which are not normally required in general needs accommodation
  • For example small maintenance tasks that are normally done by tenants in general needs accommodation

Intensive housing management is also referred to as “additional housing management”.

Jobseekers Allowance (JSA) is a benefit for people under state pension credit age¹ who are out of full time work but available for and seeking full time work. It is possible to qualify for JSA by paying National Insurance Contributions (when it is known as “contribution based JSA”, or “JSA(c)”) or by satisfying a means-test (in which case it is known as “income-based JSA” or “JSA(ib)”).

JSA(c) is paid for a maximum of six months but JSA(ib) is not time-limited. Many single people start off receiving JSA(c) and then switch to JSA(ib) if they still have not found a job after six months, because the rate of JSA(c) is the same as the single person’s rate of JSA(ib). During the first six months it is possible to receive JSA(c) with a top-up of means-tested JSA(ib): this would apply if the claimant is a member of a couple and their only income is JSA(c).

JSA(ib) and the other means-tested working age benefits are gradually being phased out and replaced by Universal Credit. But JSA(c) remains as a separate contribution-based benefit.

A keyworker is a named person who is the regular support provider for a particular service user in supported accommodation: the keyworker builds a relationship with the service user and understands his/her needs better than any other member of staff.

In housing and property law, a lease agreement is the contract under which a contractual tenancy is created. That tenancy can be of any duration: a few months or 999 years, either way the interest in the property is the tenancy and the lease is the contract under which it is created.

In everyday use, “lease” tends to refer to a longer tenancy that may be sold (“assigned”) for a large amount of money; whereas “tenancy” tends to be used to refer to agreements of shorter duration, or open-ended tenancies in social housing which cannot be bought and sold.

In supported accommodation, the term “lease” is normally used to refer to the agreement under which a not-for-profit body acquires property from a private owner for, say, three or five years at a time.

Legal personality describes the way that a company or society exists as a “person” in its own right, separately from the people who own or manage it. The practical effects of legal personality include:

• If a limited company is dissolved owing debts to creditors, the owners of the company are not personally liable for the company’s debts: their liability is limited to a specified amount:
  • In the case of a company limited by shares, the amount that the company’s founding shareholders paid for their shares
  • In the case of a company limited by guarantee, the amount that the company’s founding members pledged to pay towards the company’s debts
  • In both cases this is often a token amount such as £1
• If the company owns assets, these assets are not the personal property of the people who own or manage the company. If a company is dissolved having both assets and creditors, the assets must first be used to pay off the creditors before the owners of the company can take any money or property for themselves.

“Lessee” is the tenant under a contractual tenancy.

Because in everyday use it is conventional to use the term “lease” when referring to longer tenancies, the “lessee” in a supported accommodation scheme tends to mean the charity or voluntary organisation to whom the accommodation has been leased by its owner, rather than the individuals who occupy the property.

“Lessor” is the landlord under a contractual tenancy.

Because in everyday use it is conventional to use the term “lease” when referring to longer tenancies, the “lessor” in a supported accommodation scheme tends to mean the owner of property where the tenant (or “lessee”) is a charity or voluntary organisation.

A licence agreement is the contract under which a person is given permission to occupy accommodation without having a tenancy. A licence provides less security of tenure than a tenancy and it is therefore easier for the occupier to be evicted. Supported accommodation schemes such as hostels tend to issue licenses to their service users because it gives them the flexibility and control they need to move people around, gain access to their rooms, remove them if they break the house rules etc.

A licensee is a person who has been given permission to occupy accommodation without having a tenancy. A licensee has less security than a tenant and cannot prevent the landlord from doing certain things such as requiring people to change rooms, enter into someone’s room. For this reason people who live in supported accommodation schemes such as hostels tend to be licensees.

A managing agent is a person or organisation to whom the management of accommodation is delegated by the owner.

There are commercial managing agents who will advertise property, sign up tenants, collect rent and organise repairs on behalf of the owner for which they take a percentage commission from the rent. And there are specialist managing agents who will manage a supported housing scheme on behalf of its owner. These agents tend to be in the charitable or voluntary sector and they are often called in by housing associations to manage projects.

A needs assessment is carried out by a local authority’s social care department to determine whether a person needs to receive any care or support service. If s/he does, s/he might be referred to a commissioned commissioned service or have bespoke service commissioned for him or her.

A night shelter provides short term emergency accommodation for people who would otherwise be sleeping rough on the streets. Traditionally night shelters only guarantee a place for a single night: people must leave in the morning and there is no guarantee of a bed the following night. Following a decision by the Upper Tribunal that such short-term arrangements do not qualify for Housing Benefit because the claimant does not occupy the shelter as his/her home, many night shelters have modified this traditional approach so that shelter users have more of a connection with a “home”: for example allowing a longer stay with a guarantee of returning to the same room or bedspace for more than a single night.

A night shelter provides short term emergency accommodation for people who would otherwise be sleeping rough on the streets. Traditionally night shelters only guarantee a place for a single night: people must leave in the morning and there is no guarantee of a bed the following night. Following a decision by the Upper Tribunal that such short-term arrangements do not qualify for Housing Benefit because the claimant does not occupy the shelter as his/her home, many night shelters have modified this traditional approach so that shelter users have more of a connection with a “home”: for example allowing a longer stay with a guarantee of returning to the same room or bedspace for more than a single night.

A not-for-profit landlord means a company, society or other organisation constituted in way that prevents the people who run the organisation from using it for their own financial advantage. Common examples include a company limited by guarantee and a community benefit society.

A pen portrait is a brief description of a person: a character sketch in words. In the supported accommodation field pen portraits can be used to provide an impression of the kind of client group that a particular project caters for. This in turn can help the local authority quickly decide that the people living in the accommodation qualify for Housing Benefit under the exempt accommodation rules.

Examples of pen portraits:

• A is a 29-year-old young woman; she has been an intravenous drug user since she was 16 and has a history of depression and self harm. She is currently engaged with a treatment programme and has a regular heroine substitute prescription. Her support needs include correct use of substitute medication, rebuilding relationships with family and improving self esteem.

• B is a 40-year-old man who has struggled with alcohol dependency throughout his adult life. Became homeless after his marriage broke down. Support needs include abstinence from alcohol and establishing regular contact with his children.

A periodic licence gives a person permission to occupy accommodation for a recurring period of a day, week or month at a time, with no fixed end date but without having the security of a tenancy. It is generally easier for a landlord to evict a licensee than it is to evict a tenant.

A personal budget is an arrangement where a local authority adult social care or children’s services department allows the client to control his or her care budget (or in the case of a child, allows the parents or guardian to do so). This allows the client to choose the care services that s/he prefers and it can be more flexible than a commissioned service (where the local authority arranges the care and pays the provider directly). For example, the client might choose at short notice to change the day on which a certain service is provided and s/he is able to negotiate this directly with the service provider.

A registered housing association means a social landlord registered and regulated by the relevant government regulatory body:

• In England: the Homes and Communities Agency
• In Wales: the Welsh Government with independent scrutiny by the Regulatory Board for Wales
• In Scotland: the Scottish Housing Regulator
• In Northern Ireland: the Charity Commission for Northern Ireland

Registered housing association tenants and licensees (especially people living in supported accommodation) usually have their full rent met by Housing Benefit - the main exception being when a general needs tenant has spare bedrooms in which case the rent allowed for HB is reduced by 15% or 25%. The reduction is known as the “Maximum Rent (Social Sector)”, or more popularly as the “bedroom tax”.

This is the official term for a registered housing association in England. The term also covers English local authorities with housing stock and a small number of profit-making companies with a portfolio of social housing (which means housing available to rent or buy at below market rates).

The term Registered Social Landlord is used in both Scotland and Wales to refer to a registered housing association.

The Rent Officer is an independent official responsible for various matters concerning rents outside the regulated social sector. Rent Officers are administratively part of the Valuation Office Agency.

In Housing Benefit the Rent Officer fixes the Local Housing Allowance and Local Reference Rent.

Sheltered accommodation is traditionally understood to mean a small community of self-contained dwellings (whether in a single building or a group of buildings) with some communal facilities (such as a day lounge) and a warden on site or close by. The residents tend to be elderly people and they have some kind of device (either portable or hard-wired) that they can use to summon help in an emergency.

In Housing Benefit there are more generous rules on fuel charges for people who live in sheltered accommodation. For claimants who do not live in sheltered accommodation HB will only cover fuel for entrance lobbies, corridors, staircases and similar common access routes. But in sheltered accommodation HB will also cover the cost of fuel used in rooms of common use. The Court of Appeal has said that “sheltered accommodation” for HB purposes is not confined to the traditional meaning summarised above: without any statutory definition of the word “sheltered” it should be given its normal English meaning, which is broad and flexible. Most local authorities now accept that almost any supported accommodation is probably “sheltered” for fuel charge purposes.

Social rent means the rent normally charged by a registered housing association, except for affordable rents in England. Social rent is the cheapest way of renting a family home: people in full time work can normally afford to pay their social rent without having to claim Housing Benefit or additional Universal Credit.

A spot-purchase contract is an arrangement under which a local authority procures care or support services for a specific individual. The contract is between the authority and the service provider.

A spot-purchase contract is the alternative to a block contract.

State Pension Credit (SPC) is a means-tested benefit for people who have reached a qualifying age. Unlike the equivalent working age benefits (Income Support, Jobseekers Allowance, Employment and Support Allowance and Universal Credit), SPC has no conditions relating to a person’s job seeking activity: there is no requirement to seek work or attend interviews.

Supervision means keeping a close eye on a person to ensure their welfare or to make sure that they do not come to harm. The person doing the supervising needs to be in the same room, or accompanying the supervised person outdoors, or at least very close by and able to intervene within a few moments: the courts have described this as being “present on guard”.

Support in the context of supported accommodation and housing benefit is a broad term that can apply to many activities which, in different ways, help people to overcome difficulties that might otherwise prevent them from living in their accommodation. Examples include:

• Drug or alcohol counselling
• Help dealing with correspondence and benefit claims
• Budgeting on a low income
• Repairs and maintenance over and above what a landlord would normally expect to do

A support log is similar to a contact sheet, but is likely to contain more detailed records about an individual service user and will normally be held in a personal file rather than a general house diary. The information recorded in a support log might include:

• The assessment of the service user’s support needs when he or she first moves into supported accommodation
• Matters discussed during planned regular meetings between the service user and his/her keyworker
• Any follow-up work carried out by the keyworker outside of one-to-one meetings: for example contacting relatives or other agencies
• Any unplanned responsive interventions

A support plan is a document setting out the support provided to a service user in supported accommodation. It might include:

• An initial assessment of a person’s support needs
• A schedule of planned support activities over a period of time
• The goals that it is hoped the support will achieve
• A record of progress towards those goals

There are some recognised methods used to draw up and maintain support plans including the Outcomes Star.

Supported accommodation means accommodation in which the tenant or licensee receives care, support or supervision that is linked in some way to their accommodation: as a general rule, the tenant or licensee would not be living in the dwelling in the first place unless they needed the associated care, support or supervision.

“Supported exempt accommodation” (often abbreviated to SEA) is an unofficial term sometimes used in connection with Housing Benefit and Universal Credit to mean either of the following:

Specified accommodation, or Exempt accommodation

Because Supported Exempt Accommodation is not a legally defined expression, and because different people use it to mean different things, the more precise terms “specified accommodation” and “exempt accommodation” are preferable.

Supported housing is an alternative name for supported accommodation.

Supported living tends to refer to care, support or supervision (support for short) provided in a person’s own home - normally the home that s/he plans to occupy indefinitely. The support service is typically tailored to suit the needs of the person receiving it.

Supported living is not exactly the same as supported accommodation: a lot of supported accommodation is designed to cater for a class of persons (often referred to as the “client group”) without having specific individuals in mind and there is an expectation that people will move on to live independently - for example a hostel providing short term accommodation for single homeless people is a common example of supported accommodation.

There is some overlap between supported living and supported accommodation. Often a person with a learning disability will occupy the same rented accommodation for many years (perhaps even for life) and the accommodation is built or acquired with the individual in mind - the support provider, the local authority funding or commissioning the support service and the landlord all work in close cooperation. This can be described as both supported living and supported accommodation because it has characteristics of both.

Supporting People (SP) was a government funding initiative which ran from 2003 until 2011, at which point the funding was subsumed into local authorities’ formula grant. The purpose of SP was to enable local authorities to commission support services that would help vulnerable people to live independently. Some of the services were provided in supported accommodation while others took the form of floating support.

SP funding included a number of smaller predecessor funding schemes but the majority of the funding came out of the Housing Benefit budget: for three years from 2000 to 2003 support services in supported accommodation were eligible for HB and during that time the amount of such services covered by HB was monitored so that it could be ringfenced and separated from the HB budget.

Although the SP funding stream no longer exists, local authorities are still expected to commission support services but without a ringfenced pot of money from central government for that purpose. In Scotland and Wales the national governments provide dedicated funding to local authorities for support services and indeed in Wales the programme is still referred to as Supporting People.

Strictly speaking a tenancy agreement is a contract under which a landlord grants a tenant (or joint tenants) exclusive possession of a dwelling for a certain time. It can also be described as a lease. “Exclusive possession” means that the tenant has the right to “shut out the world” and the landlord cannot enter the dwelling without the tenant’s permission. The exclusive dwelling might be an entire self-contained house or flat or it might be a single room in a house of multiple occupation.

In practice the word “tenancy agreement” is often used to refer to a licence as well where the licensee only has permission to use the dwelling but does not have exclusive possession of it (accommodation is often shared with the landlord, for example a lodger who has permission to use the landlord’s home). In Housing Benefit “tenancy” means any arrangement under which a person is liable to make payments that qualify for HB, including a licence.

Strictly speaking a tenant means a person (or more than one person who jointly) who has exclusive possession of a dwelling under a tenancy agreement or by operation of law (for example when a fixed term tenancy agreement runs out and a new statutory tenancy automatically takes its place).

But in practice, and especially in the Housing Benefit context, “tenant” is used as a catch-all for people who make payments for their home that are within the scope of the HB scheme. In particular a licensee who does not have exclusive possession of a dwelling is usually described as a “tenant” for HB purposes.

The term “unitary authority” is used mainly in England to describe the local authorities responsible for areas where until comparatively recently there were separate district and county councils providing different services. For example Cheshire East is a unitary authority that took over the functions of Cheshire County Council and Macclesfield, Congleton and Crewe & Nantwich district councils in 2009.

More generally the term “unitary authority” could just as well describe any single tier local authority (i.e. where one local authority provides all local services):

• The London boroughs
• The English metropolitan boroughs
• All the local authorities in Wales and Scotland

But it is more conventional to use the term “unitary authority” to refer specifically to the single tier councils in England that have been formed or have acquired their unitary status since the Local Government Act 1992 came into force.

In Housing Benefit there are possible advantages for tenants in supported accommodation belonging to one of the English unitary authorities.

Universal Credit (UC) is a means-tested benefit for people who have not reached state pension credit age. It is gradually being phased in and will eventually replace Housing Benefit, Income Support, income-based Jobseekers Allowance, income-related Employment and Support Allowance, Child Tax Credit and Working Tax Credit.

UC is calculated by adding together up to four elements which make up the maximum possible award before income and capital are taken into account:

• A standard element that everyone receives: the amount depends whether the claimant(s) is/are single or a couple and whether they have reached age 25
• An allowance for each child for whom the claimant(s) is/are responsible
• An amount for housing costs
• Supplements for people who are sick or disabled, carers and people who pay childcare fees so that they can work

The maximum amount is then reduced if the claimant has any earnings or other income.

Most UC claimants must comply with conditions that require them to seek work or prepare for work. There are four levels of conditionality:

• No conditions
  • This applies to people who are excused from work (mainly due to illness/disability and caring responsibilities) and also people who are doing enough work to be excused from trying to find more
• Interviews only
  • This applies to people with children over 1 but still under 3
• Interviews and work preparation
  • This applies to people with a child aged 3 or 4, and to people who are currently unfit for work but who are expected to be able to work in the foreseeable future
• Full work seeking
  • This applies to people who are unemployed or doing only a small amount of work and who are expected to seek full time employment

If a UC claimant does not comply with these conditions they might face a “sanction” which means that some or all of their UC is not paid for a period. In the most serious cases the sanction can last for three years.

The Upper Tribunal hears appeals on a point of law from the First-tier Tribunal. A person who wishes to appeal to the Upper Tribunal must apply for permission:

• To begin with, the application for permission must be made to the First-tier Tribunal that dealt with the original appeal
• If the First-tier Tribunal refuses permission, the person may then make a further application directly to the Upper Tribunal

A “point of law” means the appellant believes the First-tier Tribunal went wrong in law. That obviously includes interpreting the legislation incorrectly, but it also includes procedural errors such as failing to take relevant evidence into account, failing to adjourn when someone has a good excuse for missing an oral hearing and failing to provide proper reasons for its decision.

Like the First-tier Tribunal, the Upper Tribunal is divided into different chambers, each specialising in particular subjects. Benefit appeals are heard by the Administrative Appeals Chamber.

The Upper Tribunal is regarded as having equivalent status to the High Court in the judicial hierarchy. This means its decisions create precedent that will be followed by public bodies making first instance decisions and by the First-tier Tribunal. One important difference between the Upper Tribunal and the High Court is that there is no fee to appeal to the Upper Tribunal against a benefit decision and the appellant can be represented by anyone - they do not have to instruct a barrister.

The VOA is an executive agency of Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs. Its main function is valuing property for local taxation (Council Tax and business rates). It also provides specialist valuation advice on matters such as inheritance tax, capital gains tax and compulsory purchase.

The VOA has two important Housing Benefit functions:

• The Rent Officers who provide Local Housing Allowance and Local Reference Rent figures are part of the VOA
• Local authorities can obtain property valuations from the VOA to help establish whether a claimant has capital in excess of the £16,000 limit.

A variable service charge is one whose amount varies according to the cost of the service provided. It is the alternative to a fixed service charge.

A common example of a variable service charge is when the landlord shares the cost of major works (such as a new roof) between all the leaseholders in a block of flats.

If a party to any legal proceedings (including a benefit appeal) wants to call a witness in support of his/her case it will usually be more efficient if the witness provides a written statement. The witness can still be questioned by the court/Tribunal and the other parties to the case, but if s/he provides his/her initial evidence (also known as “evidence in chief”) in writing beforehand it gives everyone involved in the case an opportunity to read the evidence and think about their questions in advance.

In a benefit Tribunal the witness statement does not have to conform to any prescribed format and the witness does not usually have to swear an oath. The Tribunal’s main concern is that the statement has “probative value” (i.e. that it tells the Tribunal something useful).

Witness statements can be very useful in appeals about supported accommodation because the claimant whose appeal is being heard might lack the capacity to provide the Tribunal with all the necessary information about his/her case and s/he might no longer live in the accommodation by the time the appeal is heard. Witnesses might be the landlord’s staff or support workers and they can provide the Tribunal with an account of their dealings with the claimant.