Written evidence submitted by Entrain Space [EXA 087]

We provide supported housing (exempted accommodation) for working age military veterans and service leavers in Wiltshire. We are a relatively new provider (open 2 years). We work within the system but there are shocking flaws in it that must be addressed as a matter of urgency.

We are particularly interested in commenting on exempted accommodation in the context of supported housing and how it works in practice.

We operate a very high-quality facility with 44 self-contained flats, a café, training space and on-site support staff. We are a vibrant centre of the community, and I would urge the panel on this enquiry to come and visit us to see the potential this type of accommodation could play in the wider levelling up agenda, but also understand why and where serious reform is needed and why it should be made an urgent priority by government.

Exempted accommodation in a supported housing context needs reform in the following key areas in our view.

1)      More focus on support for those in work and keeping them in work should be encouraged rather than vague and often not well-defined welfare based outcomes used in the current local authority administered system – payment for additional support should be based on more clearly defined and measurable outcomes which organisations like ours would take great pride in reporting

2)      When a vulnerable person gets into work, they often have more challenges around personal finance, managing council tax, and their support needs are often heightened during a transitional phase from welfare benefits to independent employment. Yet as soon as they come out of the welfare system the support stops, meaning the provider will ask them to leave. That is how it works currently in most cases.

3)      Work is one of the best solutions to mental health and wellbeing, and yet the system works in the opposite direction, encouraging people to stay stuck, frustrated and underachieving, stuck in a welfare trap.

4)      Operators are heavily incentivised to keep people on state welfare benefits and often gear support for residents around maintaining and enhancing state welfare benefits rather than genuine progression around wellbeing and employment

5)      All the above can create a negative benefits culture and ghetto, where both residents and staff become institutionalised around the welfare state – this is what needs to change.

6)      The current system rewards financially motivated operators who have little interest in sound social outcomes and punishes good quality operators who invest in and deliver good outcomes – particularly around getting people in work and keeping them in work

7)      The Regulator of Social Housing has a poor understanding of this type of accommodation and a key focus should be on establishing a proper and well-regarded status within the current regulatory framework of the housing regulator so that good operators get rewarded and bad ones get closed.

8)      There is a lack of imagination and vision on the part of government, local authorities and the Housing Regulator – practitioners like ourselves feel excluded and don’t have the resources to properly engage with detailed policy changes even though we are probably best placed to recommend them and implement them - the sector has become institutionalised, callous, transactional , overly bureaucratic and operates on a 19th century welfare model which is why it has now become vulnerable to unscrupulous landlords and investment sharks who have spotted a gap in the market : standards are low and return on financial investment high if you don’t care about people residing in this accommodation and just focus on benefits farming.

9)      There seems very little government recognition for best practice in the sector and no recognition or proper status given to professionals working in the sector.

10)  We would be delighted to see this enquiry leading to good operators and innovative professionals being better rewarded for their efforts, and the bad ones removed –this sector could be a leading pillar of the levelling up agenda – but not in its current unreformed, out of date form.

We would be happy to share wider case study material with the panel.

January 2022