FOI/EIR 26/27-104-Exempt accommodation | East Cambridgeshire District Council

Breakdown of exempt accommodation costs and providers since 2018

Received 20 May 2026

Under the Freedom of Information Act 2000, I would like to request information held by the council relating to “Exempt Accommodation” (EA).

Unless specified otherwise, please provide the following information for each financial year from 2018/19 to 2025/26 inclusive, or for the latest date for which data is available.

1.Total Housing Benefit expenditure

For each financial year, please provide the total amount of Housing Benefit expenditure (sometimes referred to as “enhanced housing benefit”) paid in respect of all claims that meet the definition of Exempt Accommodation under Housing Benefit regulations.

2. Number of successful claims

Please provide the number of successful Housing Benefit claims relating to residents living in Exempt Accommodation.

3. Number of exempt accommodation properties

Please provide the total number of properties being used as Exempt Accommodation within the council’s area.

4. Breakdown of provider types

For the properties identified in Question 3, please provide a breakdown by provider type, including:
a) Number of Registered Providers / Housing Associations (registered with the Regulator of Social Housing)
b) Number of registered charities only
c) Number of Community Interest Companies (CICs)
d) Number of Private Limited Companies
e) Number owned by the council
f) Number classified as other provider types (please specify the type)

5. Providers of Exempt Accommodation

Please provide a list of all organisations or individuals operating or registered as providers of Exempt

Accommodation within the council’s area as of the date of this request.

6. Weekly Housing Benefit Amounts

Regarding the weekly Housing Benefit paid per resident in Exempt Accommodation, please provide for each financial year:
a)Highest weekly amount paid
b)Average weekly amount paid
c)Lowest weekly amount paid

7.Average length of stay

Please provide the average length of stay for residents living in Exempt Accommodation.

8. Assessment of new providers

Please provide details of the council’s current process for assessing new providers of Exempt Supported Accommodation before Housing Benefit payments are approved. This may include any due diligence, quality assurance, safeguarding checks, inspections, referral pathways, or standards applied.

Responded 4 June 2026

2018-2019 £861,974.43
2019-2020 £786,030.47
2020-2021 £1,013,806.68
2021-2022 £1,087,314.13
2022-2023 £1,180,089.20
2023-2024 £1,274,078.93
2024-2025 £1,497,870.58
2025-2026 £1,978,622.09

Unfortunately, the rent assessment details do not carry a supported accommodation indicator back as far as this for all awards. Instead I have had to rely upon the supported accommodation indicator held in rent costs, and cross reference this with award periods to determine which awards are supported accommodation. I then cross-referenced this data set with your subsidy tables to determine the payments that had been made in respect of these periods. As a result, I would request that you accept this information as "best endeavours"

2018-2019 80
2019-2020 78
2020-2021 83
2021-2022 83
2022-2023 95
2023-2024 110
2024-2025 105
2025-2026 113

As above, i have had to cross reference your rent awards table with your rent costs table to determine periods of award for supported accommodation. The count reflects claims and addresses, so a claim that changed address in the year will becounted as having 2 successful claims (if in receipt of hb at both)

2018-2019 39
2019-2020 32
2020-2021 37
2021-2022 37
2022-2023 35
2023-2024 48
2024-2025 45
2025-2026 43

This is a count of the number of distinct property references in each year from the data set used to provide responses to question 2

4. Unfortunately, there is no reliable and consistent method of being able to differentiate between a housing association, a cic, a private company or other owner type in the data table as there is no indicator to identify them as such.

The amount of data held there makes it prohibitive to manually review each "hit".

Landlord Name
Amicus Trust Ltd
Arpeggio Properties Ltd
Clarion (prev Wherry) 52 wks
Metropolitan Housing Association
Places for People
Progress Care Association
Sanctuary HA - 46 wk
Sanctuary HA - 52 wk
Sanctuary HA - claimant pd direct-52 wk
Saffron Housing Trust
The Cambridge Pringle Group
The Edmund Trust
The Cambridge Housing Society Ltd

6.a.

2018-2019 £301.49
2019-2020 £309.64
2020-2021 £339.30
2021-2022 £340.69
2022-2023 £372.35
2023-2024 £416.37
2024-2025 £426.90
2025-2026 £478.33

2018-2019 £155.61
2019-2020 £178.97
2020-2021 £180.75
2021-2022 £185.08
2022-2023 £200.07
2023-2024 £215.85
2024-2025 £242.23
2025-2026 £251.35

2018-2019 £6.71
2019-2020 £54.11
2020-2021 £43.07
2021-2022 £56.82
2022-2023 £2.38
2023-2024 £9.43
2024-2025 £61.30
2025-2026 £79.66

7. Unfortunately, I am unable to answer this as a resident may be living at a property for any amount of time without qualifying for, or even applying for housing benefit.

8. Please provide details of the council’s current process for assessing new providers of Exempt Supported Accommodation before Housing Benefit payments are approved. This may include any due diligence, quality assurance, safeguarding checks, inspections, referral pathways, or standards applied.

When we are contacted by a provider or receive a new claim for a new Exempt Supported Accommodation we issue a questionnaire to the provider to confirm all the details of the scheme, including details of the accommodation provider and the details of the Care, Support and Supervision provided. The responses are then considered by a specialist team.