As we outlined in our blog last month, the consultation on draft regulations to implement the Supported Housing (Regulatory Oversight) Act (SHROA) is currently live.
The consultation closes 10th December 2026. Homeless Link will be responding on behalf of our members, and we also encourage individual members who have the capacity to do so to respond.
This blog shares some initial analysis of what has been drafted by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG), and highlights key points to consider in drafting your own response to the consultation.
Overview
The Government's April 2026 consultation response set out its policy intent for how SHROA will be implemented. These plans, and the amendments made to the original proposals, were broadly welcomed by the sector.
Overall, the draft regulations take a sensible approach toward realising that intent, and there are many details to welcome. However, there are some drafting inaccuracies, and mismatches with what was set out in the April response, which will need to be resolved before the regulations are laid to Parliament.
There are also some areas where insufficient clarity has been given in the regulations, or where the Government has failed to fully consider the reality for providers. It's therefore important that homelessness supported accommodation providers have their voices heard and can shape and refine the final plans.
The details covered by the Government consultation are:
- Question 4 - General, citation, commencement, extent and application, and interpretation
- Question 5 – Designation of licensing areas
- Question 6 – Requirement to hold a supported housing licence
- Question 7 – Exemptions from licencing
- Question 8 – Licence fees
- Question 9 – Applications and decision making
- Question 10 – Fit and proper person requirements
- Question 11 – Licence content and duration
- Question 12 – Changes, variations and revocations
- Question 13 – Enforcement work
- Question 14 – Records and transparency
- Question 15 – Appeals
- Question 16 – transitional arrangements and interactions with other property licensing regimes
- Question 17 – Types of supported housing exempted
- Question 18 – Grounds for unfitness
- Question 19 – Licence conditions
(Questions 1-3 relate to information about the person responding to the consultation)
The following suggests some areas you might want to pay particular attention to if responding to the consultation, but please note this is not an exhaustive list.
Question 4 - General, citation, commencement, extent and application, and interpretation
The consultation asks whether the general provisions in Part 1, including the key definitions and proposed commencement arrangements, provide sufficient clarity for the operation of the licensing regime. We feel two key definitions in particular are missing:
- 'Type' of supported housing - there is repeated reference throughout the regulations to the 'type of supported housing' a provider operates. The licence application must specify which type they plan to operate and they must notify the licensing authority if the type changes. However, there's no clear definition of what is meant by type in the regulations, e.g. whether this would apply to the client group, the housing tenure, the support model, shared vs. self-contained etc.
- The licence holder, aka the person 'managing or in control of' the supported exempt accommodation. In the last round of consultation, we raised the need for clarification around who the licence holder would be in circumstances where multiple parties are involved, for instance a head landlord, a managing agent and a support provider. The Government's response said they:
"[W]ould expect the organisations to agree between them who is the appropriate person to hold the licence, having regard to guidance and any relevant case law. Where there is any doubt on who should apply for the licence, an applicant may wish to discuss this with the licensing authority.
"The licensing guidance will include draft illustrative case studies to set out who would be expected to apply for and hold the licence. In many cases, the managing agent will be the appropriate person if they have control of the day to day running of the property."
The draft regulations do not offer any further clarity on who the licensee would be in various common arrangements. We are interested in views from members as to whether setting this out in guidance and case studies will resolve the issue, or whether this needs to be more clearly defined in regulations.
Question 5 – Designation of licensing areas
The draft regulations make provision for local councils to designate their own area as a licensing district, as well as enabling the Secretary of State to designate districts. Although the Government say that their intention is for the Secretary of State to designate all local housing authorities in England as licensing districts.
If powers for local authorities to designate their own districts are used, the regulations set out a list of people the local housing authority must consult, including 'residents in supported housing in the district' and 'providers of supported housing in the district'. However, it's not made clear what an acceptable threshold of coverage for the consultation would be, or that the local authority must make reasonable efforts to contact, for example, all providers.
Regulation 5 says that a licensing authority must 'from time to time' review the operation of the licensing of supported housing in their district, which we'd hope would consider any unintended consequences for supply and homelessness. However, the regulations don't state how often this should be done as a minimum, or place an onus on the Secretary of State to review this proactively.
Question 6 – Requirement to hold a supported housing licence
This part of the regulations sets out that, in an application, the licensee must apply to the relevant licensing authority where the supported housing is located, and include details about themselves and the accommodation to be covered by the licence. It also establishes that that some types of supported housing may be excluded from licensing and creates a process by which a person can apply for a notice confirming that their supported housing is exempt where it falls within one of the relevant categories.
Particularly as there is no deadline given for the length of time by which local authorities have to have made a decision on an application, we would welcome further clarification in regulations that providers will still be able to claim enhanced housing benefit on behalf of residents while a valid application or exemption notice is pending.
Question 8 – Licence fees
The regulations allow local authorities to set fees with a view to recovering the costs of carrying out their functions under the regime and not making a surplus. Licensing authorities would be allowed to set their own fee levels.
Members may want to consider the impact of paying licence fees on their organisational cashflow, and the effect of paying multiple different fees set at different levels if operating across local authority licensing areas. We would advocate for there to be a nationally set fee structure to ensure consistency and proportionality.
We would welcome confirmation in regulations that licence fees will be an eligible expense to be claimed back via Housing Benefit. The Government consultation response stated this, and this assumption was baked into the October 2026 budget.
Question 9 – Applications and decision making
One of the things that the licensing authority must be satisfied of in order to grant a licence is that the licence holder is, 'out of all the persons who have control of, or manage, the housing, the most appropriate person to hold the licence'. Similarly to the above, we'd welcome a clearer definition in the regulations as to who the most appropriate person would be in the different possible circumstances.
The licence also needs to specify the person who is to be the service manager. It's not clear from the regulations how many service managers would be required to be listed on a licence, or how many service managers would need to be listed per scheme(s). We'd also welcome members' views on whether the definition of service manager in the regulations gives a clear enough steer as to the type of role and seniority level that responsibility would apply to.
Question 12 – Changes, variations and revocations
We'd recommend giving particular attention to this section. The regulations set out that licence holders must notify the licencing authority of certain changes to their service ('notifiable changes') and must in effect seek approval from the local authority each time a more significant change is made ('significant changes'), by submitting a variation application.
We'd suggest members consider how often they would need to notify the local authority, or submit a variation application, in practice under the draft regulations. For instance, how often is stock changing, or stock levels increasing/decreasing? How often does your client group change in terms of demographic and support needs?
It appears particularly unworkable that 'changes to key personnel (e.g. service manager or nominated individual)' require a variation application to be submitted to the local authority. Organisations cannot often predict or control when a staff member will leave, and can hardly seek permission for this to happen in advance.
There are a number of drafting errors in this part of the regulations that contradict what has been set out in the consultation narrative and need to be corrected, which is also worth bearing in mind.
We would also welcome far more detail around what safeguards will be in place for supported housing residents, and their entitlements to housing benefit, if the scheme they live in has its licence revoked.
Question 13 – Enforcement work
The regulations introduce a step-by-step approach to enforcement which appears reasonable.
Under regulation 25, a person authorised by the licensing authority has various powers of entry so they can examine or survey premises to make a judgement about licensing. This includes making recordings and leaving recording equipment on the premises for later collection. We would welcome more detail as to how a balance can be struck to protect residents' privacy and operate in a trauma-informed manner.
Question 14 – Records and transparency
Regulation 30 states that the licensing authority should publish the name and address of each licence holder together with the date on which their supported housing licence was granted. We don't think it's appropriate for licence holders' home addresses to be made public and would welcome clarity that this should be a business address.
Question 15 – Appeals
The Government intend to allow a relevant person (the licence applicant or a person with an interest in the supported housing) to appeal to the First-tier Tribunal against key decisions made in relation to licensing. As currently drafted, it's not clear that supported housing residents have that right of appeal. This needs to be changed.
We'd also welcome clarity that housing benefit will continue to be paid while an appeal is pending. It may therefore also be necessary to introduce timeframes for how quickly appeals must be decided on.
Question 17 – Types of supported housing exempted
We'd suggest members read over schedule 1, listing the types of supported housing that will be exempted from licensing, and share views as to whether these definitions align with their expectations for exemptions (as outlined in the April consultation response), and whether they provide sufficient clarity. Members could also consider how often they might need to apply for an exemption, or apply to have one removed, under their current commissioning arrangements/operating model.
You can respond to the consultation on the Government website.
If you would like to share your thoughts on these or any other part of the draft regulations with Homeless Link, please get in touch with Alex using the contact details below.
