Dataset: Housing Benefit claimants
Description
Housing Benefit is claimed by a single claimant or household.
Tenure describes the type of tenancy of the household and is recorded as at the reference date (second Thursday of the month).
Tenancy is recorded as part of the housing benefit claim process (see Images of Questions below).
Images of Questions
Definitions
The Private Rented Sector (PRS)
Accommodation that is privately owned and rented out:
-Private regulated tenant
-Private deregulated tenant
The Social Rented Sector (SRS)
Housing rented from local authorities and housing associations:
-Local authority tenant
-Registered social landlord tenant
Local Housing Allowance (LHA) was introduced on 7 April 2008 for private sector tenants. LHA is an alternative way of calculating entitlement under the existing Housing Benefit scheme (note: it does not replace Housing Benefit). Under LHA, a standard allowance is used to decide the eligible rent of all claimants with similar sized households in a broad rental market area. This eliminates linking the level of benefit to each individual property.
Owner Occupier
Accommodation that is owned outright by the claimant.
Classification
Tenure is Applicable to: All claimants
Sector Type:
- Private Rented Sector (PRS)
- Single Rented Sector (SRS)
99 Unknown / Missing
Tenure (within sector):
- LA tenant (SRS)
- Registered social landlord tenant (SRS)
- Private regulated tenant (PRS)
- Private deregulated tenant (LHA) (PRS)
- Private deregulated tenant (non-LHA) (PRS)
99 Unknown / Missing
Total number of categories:
by sector type: 3
by tenure (within sector): 6
Further Information:
The sum of individual PRS tenures will not add up exactly to the PRS total. The PRS total includes Owner Occupiers that are not listed separately due to their small numbers.
Quality Statement
Tenure is recorded as part of the housing benefit claim process (see image of question above). In support of the claim, proof of identity must be provided, for example, birth certificate.
Proof of household address, such as a recent electricity bill, must be provided by the claimant.
Proof of household rent and tenancy must also be supplied by the claimant, for example, a rent book or tenancy agreement.
It is possible that errors can occur in the recording of tenure (both on form and inputting onto computer system within the local authority processing the claim).
A recording error within software used by a large number of local authorities resulted in a significant number of HB claimants having detailed housing type coded as unknown / missing for months August 2009, September 2009, and October 2009, therefore care should be taken when using detailed housing type breakdown for these months.