BBC’s Panorama programme has exposed what it calls a “scandal” of managing agents exploiting the welfare benefit system.
The agents operate in the Supported Exempt Accommodation sector (SEA) which is supported housing exempt from many of the safeguards that usually surround Housing Benefit and private renting.
They are formally regarded as social housing units, although most operate privately.
It is defined as a resettlement place; or accommodation provided by a county council, housing association, registered charity or voluntary organisation where that body or person acting on their behalf provides the claimant with care, support or supervision.
The Panorama programme concentrates on Birmingham, where hundreds of SEA properties are believed to exist, some operated by individual landlords but many by managing agents.
The city has over 34,000 people living in SEA. London has only 22,000 despite its population being more than seven times larger.
A BBC online report, based on the Panorama programme, says: “Social media accounts, particularly on TikTok, are awash with companies trying to attract people on benefits into their properties, mainly clustered around Birmingham’s poorest areas.
“Panorama has also been repeatedly told about “ghost tenants” – individuals listed as residents but not actually living in properties, for whom managing agents still claim housing benefit.
“A Facebook advert we saw had one man ‘looking for 7/8 ghost tenants in various houses of mine’.
“When we rang the number listed, a man told us he just needed Universal Credit details and National Insurance numbers.
“The claims would be registered to rooms in his houses but “they wouldn’t actually have to live there,” he said.
“He would effectively be receiving housing benefit for people who he was not accommodating or supporting.”
The BBC claims five of the six largest SEA providers in Birmingham have been deemed to be non-compliant with the standards set by the Regulator of Social Housing.
The BBC says: “All five are still operating and receiving hundreds of millions of pounds in housing benefit payments. But the regulator announced last week that it was launching action to close one provider.”
In 2023, Parliament passed a bill to strengthen regulation of the supported housing sector in England.
It included a new licensing scheme and a “fit and proper person” test.
But the BBC report says that more than three years on, the law is stuck in consultations “and has made no practical difference.”
A government spokesperson told Panorama it is “working to implement measures… to raise standards and drive out the minority of poor providers taking advantage of the Housing Benefit system”.
