Memorandum from Shelter (DDB 16)
Shelter is a national campaigning charity that
every year works with over 100,000 people. Shelter has two aims:
to prevent and alleviate homelessness by providing information,
expert advice and advocacy for people with housing problems; to
campaign for lasting improvements to housing-related legislation,
policy and practice. Our services include:
— A national network of over 50 housing
aid centres.
— Shelterline—our free, national,
24-hour housing advice service.
— Shelternet—our free, online,
housing advice website.
— The government-funded National Homelessness
Advice Service, which provides specialist housing advice, training,
consultancy, referral and information to other voluntary agencies,
such as Citizens Advice Bureaux and members of Advice UK, which
are approached by people seeking housing advice.
— A number of specialist projects promoting
innovative solutions to particular homelessness and housing problems.
Shelter currently has four "Homeless to Home" schemes,
designed to help formerly homeless families sustain a tenancy
and live successfully in the community.
Shelter supports the introduction of this Bill.
We believe it contains proposals that are an important step forward
to ensuring full civil rights for disabled people. We also welcome
the Bill's housing-related proposals. There are important links
between disability, housing and homelessness: aside from levels
of statutory acceptances on the grounds of physical disability,
research evidence indicates[3]
that homeless households are more likely to contain a person with
a physical disability than a household in the general population.
Evidence from Shelter's own services[4]
for homeless families also indicates a high incidence of this
need—with 19% of families using the projects containing
at least one member with a disability. Appropriate housing and
services, on the other hand—especially those that are well
linked into the local infrastructure—can enable people to
maintain independence and prevent ill health[5].
Our response to the Bill relates to the proposed
extension of the duty to provide reasonable adjustments to landlords
of rented property (Clause 6) and their estimated costs; the proposed
exemptions to the new duty (Clause 7). The response also contains
comments on the proposed new duty on local authorities to promote
equality of opportunities for disabled people.
We support the new duty under Clause 6 and believe
it is an important step towards ensuring that housing and services
are accessible to people with disabilities. However, we also consider
that the current scope of Clause 6 is too narrow to achieve this
aim. The omission of other rights from the Bill, such as the right
for disabled tenants to make adaptations to their homes at their
own expense, also make it likely that some disabled people will
not be able to enjoy full access to, or use of, their housing.
This jeopardises their chances of living independently.
We believe that there needs to be parity for
disabled people in terms of access to services and that this should
not be dependent on the tenure of their housing, or the status
of their landlord. We therefore do not support the proposal to
exempt small dwellings from the new s 6 duty. This will exclude
certain private sector tenants from protection, regardless of
their need for accessible housing and services.
The duties required of a "public authority"
under Clause 8 should be extended to cover registered social landlords.
This would help overcome the current lack of clarity about access
to services for social rented tenants.
We also consider that, if the Bill is to be
implemented effectively, it needs to make clear the links between
rights for disabled people and wider strategic housing issues,
such as planning.
Finally, we consider that the increased costs
incurred in enabling tenants to make adaptations to their homes
should be off-set by analysis of the longer-term benefits on housing,
health and social services budgets through reducing the need for
people to access institutional care.
Clause 6: proposal to extend aspects of the
duty to provide reasonable adjustments to landlords and others
who manage rented premises;
Clause 7: power to modify or end small dwellings
exemption
Shelter supports the proposed extension of the
current duty on managers of premises to provide reasonable adjustments
and auxiliary aids to landlords and managers of rented property.
This fills a gap in the current legislation and will facilitate
access to housing and services for people with disabilities. We
also welcome the fact that the proposed duty will cover all rented
housing. Firstly, it is important that disabled people are given
access to housing on the basis of their needs, not because of
rights that are linked to their housing tenure. Secondly, whilst
local authorities[6]
and registered social landlords[7]
are recognised as having a role to play in housing vulnerable
people, increasingly the private sector is also fulfilling this
function. A substantial number of vulnerable people now live in
the private rented sector—either because their low income
excludes them from other housing tenures, due to a shortage of
social housing and/or because they have been placed there temporarily
by local authorities whilst they await permanent housing. Many
of these people will fall under the definition of disability under
the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 and/or the new Disability
Discrimination Bill.
We have some reservations about Clause 6. We
consider that the proposed extension to the duty needs to be broader,
if disabled people are to enjoy full access to, or use of their
housing. We share the concerns expressed by disability organisations
regarding the omission of the Disability Rights Task Force recommendation
6.27.[8]
This would prevent landlords withholding consent unreasonably
from a request to make changes to the physical features of premises.
We consider that including the DRTF's recommendation is important
because existing Landlord and Tenant law does not provide protection
or clarity for disabled people wishing to make adaptations. Shelter's
legal team, for example, regularly deals with cases in which landlords
either refuse consent for work to be done, or in which tenants
who have carried out adaptations face the prospect of legal challenge
by landlords.
Refusing disabled people the right to make adaptations
to their homes is also likely to restrict the day-to-day activities
that they are able to carry out. In effect, this will mean that
many people with disabilities are left in inappropriate accommodation;
this, in turn will jeopardise their ability to live independently.[9]
For local authorities, there is also a strategic need to increase
the supply of suitably adapted accommodation. The lack of access
to adaptations services is already recognised as being problematic.[10]
In addition to this, whilst most local authorities do not yet
hold complete information on the supply and ownership in of accessible
housing, existing evidence clearly indicates that a combination
of factors—including demographic change and the increased
expectations of disabled people—is leading to a mismatch
between housing need and the type of accommodation available.
[11]
Allowing disabled people the right to make adaptations
to their homes could therefore have a positive impact: decreasing
the number of people who need to move each year because their
housing is no longer appropriate and decreasing pressure on existing
housing stock.
Shelter strongly recommends that this recommendation
be introduced into the Bill. We agree with the DRTF's recommendation
to consider further the factors that determine when it is reasonable
and unreasonable for a landlord to withhold consent from a disabled
person to make adaptations. We consider that a regulatory clause,
stating the type of alterations permissible in given circumstances,
would useful. This would also have the benefit of being flexible
to changes in technology and user expectations.
EXEMPTIONS TO
THE NEW
DUTY (CLAUSE
7)
We do not support the proposal to exempt certain
private sector landlords from the new duty. Disabled people—whether
current or prospective tenants of the private rented sector—have
a need for accessible housing and services. This right should
not be related to the landlord's status as an owner-occupier,
as currently or formerly resident there. Such a measure is not
consistent with other parts of housing law relating to the private
rented sector.
We are also concerned that the proposals will
not offer protection to people who are placed by local authorities
in temporary accommodation. The shortage of suitable social housing
means that people with disabilities, who have been homeless are
likely to wait long periods in temporary accommodation before
a suitable permanent property becomes available. The legal status
of many people living in hostels and B&B accommodation, however,
means that they lack legal rights as tenants and therefore would
not qualify under the proposed duty of Clause 6.
ESTIMATED COSTS
CONTAINED WITHIN
THE REGULATORY
IMPACT ASSESSMENT
We agree that the estimated total cost—£650,000
per annum—of implementing the new duty under Clause 6 does
not represent a significant level of expenditure when divided
across all landlords of rented property and that the costs in
terms of services to individual tenants are also likely to be
small. We support the proposal that any costs incurred should
be absorbed into landlords' overheads and spread equally across
tenants. We believe this is a more equitable means of dealing
with the issue than alternative mechanisms, such as charging fees,
which would mean costs falling to individuals. Other recent proposals
that have cost implications, such as rental deposits, have been
approached in this way. The impact on costs to individual tenants
has been demonstrated to be minimal.
Shelter believes allowing tenants to make adaptations
to their home would have a cost benefit in terms of reducing the
number of people with disabilities who need to move each year.
This should be recognised within the RIA. Any broader duty—encompassing
rights for tenants to make adaptations outlined above—would
incur additional costs. Unfortunately, gaps in current data make
quantifying need and therefore cost levels difficult. It is not
possible to currently quantify, for instance, the numbers of disabled
people in the private rented sector who seek to make adaptations,
but are prevented from doing so under current legislation. There
is also difficulty in assessing the relationship between housing
tenure, low income and disability. We therefore consider that
further work needs to be done in these areas. In the shorter term,
however, we also consider that local authorities should be more
strongly encouraged to develop Disability Housing Registers. Developing
DHRs would promote more accurate mapping of current and future
levels of need and would therefore enable councils to match the
needs of disabled people to accommodation.
As the main source of funding for adaptations,
it is likely that a high proportion of costs under an expanded
duty would qualify for Disabled Facilities Grant. This would therefore
require a further increase in spending within this budget to take
place. However, this would reflect spending on currently unmet,
rather than new need. As well as providing an invaluable source
of assistance for low-income households in the private rented
sector—who would otherwise be unable to carry out works
to their homes—expenditure on adaptations has also proved
generally to be highly cost-effective.[12]
This is especially true in the longer-term and in comparison to
the costs of alternative accommodation, such as registered care.[13]
Government has recently announced that spending on Disabled Facilities
Grant is to be reviewed as part of the Spending Review 2004. We
consider that arguments about the longer-term cost benefits of
providing adaptations should be included in this.
PROPOSED NEW
DUTY ON
PUBLIC AUTHORITIES
TO PROMOTE
EQUAL OPPORTUNITIES
FOR DISABLED
PEOPLE
Clause 8 of the Bill proposes new duties on
public authorities to eliminate unlawful discrimination against
disabled people and to promote equality of opportunity for such
persons. The explanatory notes to the Bill state that the definition
of "public authority" will be the same as that used
in s 6 of the Human Rights Act 1998.[14]
We are concerned about the implications of this
definition with regard to registered social landlords. The Human
Rights Act left open to interpretation the position of RSLs in
terms of the extent to which their functions are of a public nature.
Subsequent case law has also failed to produce consistency on
this issue, leading to confusion for tenants about their rights
and for social rented landlords about their responsibilities.
In relation to disability issues, differing frameworks for local
authorities and registered social landlords also produces lack
of clarity and can mean differing outcomes for individuals, according
to their landlord's status, not their need. Local authorities
and RSLs are frequently not clear, for example, about who has
responsibility for Disabled Facilities Grants. In our submission
to the Joint Committee of Human Rights, Shelter argued for clarification
of this issue, by defining housing associations' housing management
functions as being of a public nature, although their overall
status would remain as private law bodies. This would make it
clear that under Clause 8 housing associations would have to promote
equality of opportunity in the provision of housing and housing
services. We believe that this principle applies equally in the
context of the Disability Discrimination Bill and therefore request
that this issue be given further consideration.
February 2004
3 eg Randall, G (2003), The Support Needs of Homeless
Households. Back
4
Jones, A, Pleace, N and Quilgars, D (2002), Firm Foundations-an
evaluation of the Shelter Homeless to Home service, London: Shelter. Back
5
Housing Corporation (2002), The Big Picture: Disability and Housing,
London: The Housing Corporation. Back
6
ODPM homelessness statistics show that at least 5% of acceptances
each year by councils are on the grounds of vulnerability due
to physical "handicap" (representing over 7,000 people
in 2002-03). Nationally 8.7% of decisions are also on the grounds
of vulnerability due to mental health (2001). Back
7
A recent survey for Habinteg HA demonstrates that 42% of RSL
tenants have a disability (Responses to Regional and Sub-Regional
Housing Strategies, www.habinteg.org.uk. Back
8
DWP (1999), From Exclusion to Inclusion-Final Report of the Disability
Rights Task Force, London: DWP. Back
9
The Big Picture. Back
10
Audit Commission (2002) Fully Equipped-Assisting Independence,
London: The Audit Commission. Back
11
Pathways to Accessible Housing-Policy Context and Research Findings,
Part 1, The Papworth Trust and Habinteg HA; Shaw, V (xxxx), A
Perfect Match-a good practice guide to disability housing registers. Back
12
Heywood, F (2001), Money well spent: The effectiveness and value
of housing adaptations, York: JRF. Back
13
Quoted in carers leaflet http://www.hants.gov.uk/socservs/0307activecare.html,
the cost of residential care is approximately £7,800 per
annum. Back
14
Explanatory notes para 76. Back
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