FOI Request - Housing Benefit Supported Exempt Accommodation
Request 101003461783
I am writing to request information regarding housing benefit payments in respect of exempt accommodation (also known as supported exempt accommodation) under the Freedom of Information Act.
All information is to be supplied in the format of the Excel spreadsheet in the below Google Drive link. Sheets filled with dummy example data are included in the template to show how I would like the data presented.
Link: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1GLTyeDDqfVg-K4aj6jruHwe3ylnGpQyO
The following information is to be provided on the sheet labelled Exempt accommodation full data.
o Anonymised details for each individual paid housing benefit claim in respect of exempt accommodation by Moray Council from January 1, 2017 (or a more recent date if information this far back is unobtainable under FOI cost and time limit rules) to December 31, 2023.
o This information can be provided on a weekly (e.g. Dec 18 – 24 2023) or monthly (e.g. December 2023) basis, whatever is simplest to compile.
o Data should include the following details of the claim:
- Unique (anonymised) claimant ID.
- Local authority.
- Exempt accommodation provider.
- Payment period the data entry refers to (weekly or monthly, etc whichever is simplest. E.g. Dec 18 – 24 2023 or December 2023).
- Total amount paid in Housing Benefit for supported exempt accommodation in the above period (direct to landlord or provider).
- Total amount paid in Housing Benefit for supported exempt accommodation in period (to claimant).
- Number of bedrooms in the claim.
- Type of supported exempt accommodation (if known) (e.g. Mother and baby unit; emergency homeless accommodation).
o Data should include the following details of the property attached to the claim:
- Unique (anonymised) property ID.
- Approximate anonymised location (e.g. ward).
- Property type (e.g. apartment, terrace house, etc.).
- Number of bedrooms in the property in period (NB: If this could lead to potentially identifiable data, for example if there are only a small number supported exempt accommodations with exactly 10 rooms, then please exclude this information and mark with *).
• If it is not possible to provide information to the above level of detail, please instead provide the following summary information, on the sheet Summary data by provider:
o Data for each exempt accommodation provider on how many claims are paid and how much money over a payment period by Moray Council from January 1, 2017 (or a more recent date if information this far back is unobtainable under FOI cost and time limit rules) to December 31, 2023.
o This information can be provided on a weekly (e.g. Dec 18 – 24 2023) or monthly (e.g. December 2023) basis, whatever is simplest to compile.
o Data should include the following details:
- Local Authority.
- Exempt accommodation provider.
- Payment period (week and year or month and year, whichever is simplest).
- Number of Housing Benefit claims for supported exempt accommodation.
- Total amount paid in Housing Benefit for supported exempt accommodation in period (direct to landlord or provider).
- Total amount paid in Housing Benefit for supported exempt accommodation in period (to claimant).
Response 31-01-2024
Not held. We are unable to provide this information as reports to extract this level of information do not exist. Information that is not held falls under Section 17 of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 - Information not held.