Welfare Reform Bill

I wish to speak to amendments Nos. 70 and 67, which I tabled. Amendment No. 70 relates to rent officers. Many people might be totally unfamiliar with them. They are peculiar figures in our society who have enormous power and can influence an incredible number of people’s lives, yet, sadly, they are subject to little accountability or scrutiny and there is little transparency in their work. At the moment, under the housing benefit system, a rent officer decides what localities will be used to measure rents for different types and sizes of property. He then sets the local reference rent, which is effectively the maximum amount of housing benefit that one can get in an area. Under the local housing allowance scheme, he will set the broad rental market area, which is the area in which different types of property are situated, and set its local housing allowance rate, which, again, will be the maximum amount that claimants can get. A rent officer does that without reference to anyone and without consulting anyone. The decisions appear to be unchallengeable and are not subject to any scrutiny or serious investigation. A rent officer is not even required to consult the relevant local authority, which is strange when one considers that even those local authorities that are no longer landlords still have a strategic housing duty and a duty to homeless people. Guidance on homelessness from the Department for Communities and Local Government instructs local authorities that they should have regard to the private rented sector, yet local authorities have no input into a rent officer’s assessment of those rental rates.