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Rent Officers (Housing Benefit Functions) Amendment (No. 2) Order 2008

My Lords, this has been an interesting debate. Before I move on to the particular points raised, perhaps I may start by setting out the amendments that we have made to this order, thus putting the discussion into some context. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, for explaining why he has used this procedure to get a debate. The rent officers order is the statutory framework which sets out the functions of the three national rent services in respect of their duties in supporting the housing benefit scheme. Rent officers in England, Wales and Scotland play a vital role in the delivery of housing benefit to tenants living in the private rented sector. Before April 2008, rent officers helped to determine individual claims to housing benefit by providing a rental valuation service for local authorities. Since April, they now have the responsibility for the setting of local housing allowance rates for different-sized properties in each area. Rent officers are also responsible for setting the boundaries of areas within which housing benefit rates are set. Their role here is to determine a geographical area which reflects the area in which people live and enjoy services, and the rental values within those areas. These areas—or broad rental market areas, as they are now known—are set by rent officers, who must use their professional judgment to arrive at their decisions and follow the legislative framework set down in the order. It is this subjective judgment that is subject to legal challenge. Most recently, as has been expressed, Mr Heffernan brought his judicial review to this House on the basis that the local area used to determine his housing benefit in the Sheffield region was too large. By a majority decision the House of Lords agreed with Mr Heffernan’s contention. This meant that the Rent Service in England had to redetermine the immediate Sheffield area and the local authority had then to make any reassessments to Mr Heffernan’s benefit accordingly. Subsequently there had to be reconsideration of how the judgment would affect the setting of boundaries on a national basis and any knock-on impact on our customers. Following the conclusion of the case the ministerial team in the DWP seriously deliberated on the implications of the judgment. Clearly we needed to reflect fully on the content of the judgment; and critically, we wanted to ensure that we had a stable basis on which the order could operate. We have been perfectly clear about our policy intentions in respect of setting local housing benefit areas. Prior to the amendments, we had two definitions for these HB areas: locality for pre-LHA cases and broad rental market area for LHA cases. It was always our intention that these boundaries should remain the same for both, and it was always our intention that these would be larger areas that could provide customers with more choices in their accommodation. Assessing housing benefit according to larger areas tends to benefit those living in poorer areas. That is why it is essential that we provide rent officers with the flexibility to arrive at broad rental market areas that accurately reflect the housing market within those areas. We have therefore made changes to the order which seek merely to clarify our policy intention. The main amendments seek to provide a largely unified definition of broad rental market areas; to remove doubt that the old localities and the new broad rental market areas should ever have different boundaries; and to provide an increased emphasis on setting boundaries that will accurately reflect the areas in which a person can reasonably be expected to live. Rent officers look at the range of services: health, education, recreation, banking and shopping—the HERBS factor.