To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what guidance is issued by his Department to local authorities on issuing discretionary housing payments to (a) all those in receipt of housing benefit and (b) those in receipt of the single room rent. (190307)

Discretionary Housing Payments (DHPs) can be made, subject to an annual cash limit, where a person is entitled to housing benefit or council tax benefit and the local authority considers that person is in need of further financial help to meet any shortfall in their housing costs or council tax. The scheme is discretionary so it is up to local authorities to decide how they operate it, with any decisions on its use being made on a case-by-case basis.

DWP cannot prescribe the circumstances in which an authority must make payments, but guidance has been issued to all local authorities setting out the conditions for entitlement to an award. In deciding whether to award a DHP local authorities should consider the circumstances that give rise to a shortfall.

In our revised guidance, due to be published shortly, we make it clear that a DHP can cover a shortfall resulting from rent officer restrictions such as the single room rent.

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (1) what the outcome was of his Department’s review of the operation of the single room rent; (190332)

The Department’s recent review examined the shortfalls faced by many single room rent (SRR) claimants and considered why the majority of this group do not live in shared accommodation. Three aspects were examined—affordability, accessibility and availability of shared accommodation.

On affordability we found that there are gaps in the market evidence on which the Rent Service set SRR rates and this may impact on affordability. However, changes to the way the Rent Service gathers market evidence brought about by the introduction of the local housing allowance (LHA) from April 2008, and a change in the SRR definition, should overcome the current evidence gaps and lead to an increase in SRR rates.

On availability we found that some areas of the country, particularly rural areas, appear to have a shortage of shared accommodation that falls within the definition currently used for the SRR. However, the introduction of the national LHA will address some of these issues through the move to a median LHA rate and the new Shared Room Rate. The latter covers a wider definition of shared accommodation than under the current SRR and will better reflect the range of accommodation available to tenants.

The findings on accessibility from academic research and some anecdotal evidence suggest that young people and housing benefit tenants are unpopular with landlords in the private rented sector which may restrict SRR customers’ access to shared accommodation.

The Department plans to make an initial assessment of the impact of the rollout of the LHA on the SRR as part of the two year review of the LHA.

There are no data available to provide an accurate estimate of the quantity of accommodation that matches the definition of the SRR.