PQ 201971 & 201972 - Howarth
The Rent Service
LHA - Broad Rental Market Area guidance Background The Broad Rental Market Area (BRMA) is the area used for the local housing allowance (LHA) determination under the new Housing Benefit scheme. It is defined in the Rent Officer (Housing Benefit Functions) Order (the Order). The same definition will be used for cases after 7 April 2008 as was used for the Pathfinder and Second Wave Group local authorities in the recent past. The full definition of BRMA comprises three elements and is an area: comprising two or more distinct areas of residential accommodation, each distinct area of residential accommodation adjoining at least one other in the area; within which a person could reasonably be expected to live having regard to facilities and services for the purposes of health, education, recreation, personal banking and shopping, taking account of the distance of travel, by public and private transport, to and from facilities and services of the same type and similar standard; and containing residential premises of a variety of types, and including such premises held on a variety of tenancies.
The BRMA definition is broadly similar to the definition of locality that rent officers have used since late 2001. Despite this similarity there are significant differences in the way BRMAs are used. Once determined, the extent and name of the BRMA, and the areas of distinct residential accommodation within it, are notified to the local authority along with the LHAs applicable to that BRMA. The local authority will use the BRMA to determine the appropriate level of LHA to award to the claimant. At no time is there a referral with the claimant‟s tenancy details to the rent officer. There are also two particular differences between the definitions of BRMA and locality. “Neighbourhood” is replaced by “distinct areas of residential accommodation” and “tenant of the dwelling” is replaced by “person” The principle behind BRMAs is that they are areas within which it is objectively reasonable for a person to live and enjoy access to facilities and services of the same type and similar standard. Determination BRMAs are determined in much the same way as localities. Of the three elements shown above, it is best to consider the second element first as it is more important. However in practice rent officers will have decided on the distinct areas of residential accommodation before moving to this element as these are the building blocks of the wider BRMA.
PQ 201971 & 201972 - Howarth
Access to facilities This element can be approached as three tasks: identification of facilities and services, assessment of standard, and assessment of accessibility.
The facilities and services which need to be identified, and for which access and standard need to be considered, are those for the purposes of: health, education, recreation, personal banking, and shopping.
The rent officer should identify and take account of: General practitioners, dentists, opticians and pharmacies, health centres and hospitals. Primary schools, secondary schools, colleges of further education and universities. Universities should be noted but because their catchments tend to be regional, national and international using them to determine the BRMA is not advised. Parks, leisure centres, sports centres, swimming pools, outdoor sports facilities, spectator sports venues, theatres, cinemas, museums, places of interest, restaurants, clubs and other community activities. Banks, building societies, post offices and automated cash machines. Convenience stores, shopping parades, supermarkets, high streets, street markets, shopping centres, out of town sites and regional retail centres. Regional centres should be noted but because their catchments are regional they should not be used to determine the BRMA. The rent officer must then make an assessment of the standard of the facilities and services. The Courts have held that, in relation to localities, "standard" for educational and medical services can be construed as meaning services which meet the requirements of the law and the appropriate public authorities. .As there is a clear link between localities and BRMAs this direction is applicable to BRMAs as well. This means that unless a school or doctor‟s surgery, for example, is identifiable as failing in its legal duty the standard is met and it is likely to be of a “similar” standard to others of the same type. Facilities and services for recreation, personal banking and shopping are not subject to the same regulatory requirement. Therefore consideration of standards and whether they are similar are influenced more by matters of personal choice and
PQ 201971 & 201972 - Howarth
market operation, though the rent officer must still make a comparative assessment of them. Finally, the rent officer moves on to consider access to the facilities and services identified and assessed to be of a similar standard. The requirement is that a BRMA must offer reasonable access by both public and private transport to the facilities and services identified. The Order requires consideration of the “distance of travel” and, inevitably, “distance” is commensurate with „time‟. If a journey would take an unreasonable time it is likely that the BRMA is too large. In the context of determining a BRMA boundary, access to some facilities and services will have an influence one way while access to others will have an influence the other way. The rent officer should therefore strive to exercise careful judgement when determining the extent of the BRMA. The important thing is that people living across the BRMA share a reasonable level of access to similar facilities. The use of the word “reasonably” in the definition is the element which limits the size of the BRMA. „Reasonableness‟ is a concept that allows public bodies to take decisions that follow Parliamentary intentions but do not exceed them. It is not possible to provide a precise definition that would cover every situation. The provision of good transport links means that a broad area is justifiable as a BRMA when all parts of it share a degree of access which is not unreasonable. In relation to the extent of a locality (and therefore a BRMA) the Courts accept that there is no blue-print that can be applied to analysis and comparison between city centre, small town, suburban and rural areas but they have said that “access to city centre facilities could be a factor in determining boundaries”. Two or more distinct areas of residential accommodation Before considering the accessibility issue (which as indicated above is the more important one) the rent officer must identify the “distinct areas of residential accommodation” as they are the building blocks. It is TRS policy to identify all distinct areas within the BRMA by name. While the definition of locality referred to „neighbourhoods‟ which were defined elsewhere in the Order, the definition of BRMA refers to “distinct areas of residential accommodation” There is no further definition in the Order but a distinct area of residential accommodation could be: a small town or village, part of a larger town or city, a group of villages or hamlets, a larger area of sparsely populated countryside.
The wording „distinct area of residential accommodation‟ has two elements: it must be based on a residential area (but it may extend beyond just the main built-up area), and it must have an element of distinctiveness.
PQ 201971 & 201972 - Howarth
The distinctiveness of a residential area may stem from a number of things and is a matter for the rent officer‟s professional judgement. It could, for instance, be due to a sense of local identity or a predominant housing type. It could be due to a natural or geographic feature or boundary or it may be centred on some historic feature such as a market or church. It may be based on a local authority ward or a parish. Categorisation of distinctiveness will vary from one part of the country to another or within a particular part of the country. For instance, distinct areas of residential accommodation in a city may be based on local authority wards, housing estates, or localised centres of shops and leisure facilities. In the rural area outside that city they might be based around groupings of hamlets and villages. A distinct area of residential accommodation should be identified using a locally recognised name or elements of one („St Anywheres‟ or North Bigtown‟). Alternatively it could be a conglomeration of established names („A, B and C villages‟). The Order requires that a BRMA contain two or more distinct areas of residential accommodation, each adjoining at least one other. Variety of property types and tenancies The requirement is straightforward and requires the rent officer to ensure that the BRMA contains an assortment of property types (e.g. houses, flats, bungalows, terraced, semis, detached, purpose built and converted). Rent officers may also consider whether there are other, less usual, types of dwellings in the BRMA, such as caravans or caravan sites, boats or moorings or other non-bricks and mortar types of dwelling. Having done this the rent officer must also ascertain that there is a mixture of tenancy types (e.g. private rented sector, local authority, registered social landlords and housing association etc) within the BRMA. Other Information Lettings Information The availability of lettings information is not a factor to be taken into account when determining the BRMA. The Order requires that the BRMA must have a variety of tenancies and it follows that the private rented sector is an element of this variety. This should ensure that there is a reasonable amount of lettings information for the rent officer but the extent of the BRMA is not affected by the rent officers‟ success or otherwise in collecting lettings information. The LHA is a median derived from “a list of rents” and that list is based on lettings information collected by rent officers. Where the rent officer identifies that the BRMA has an insufficient number of dwellings of the right category (i.e. number of bedrooms) s/he may include rents from similar areas with comparable rental markets to the BRMA in question. However the important point to note is that the lettings information for the LHA follows the determination of the BRMA, not visa versa.
PQ 201971 & 201972 - Howarth
Consultation with local authorities TRS has given an undertaking to consult with local authorities and other stakeholders when determining BRMAs. The determination decision rests with the rent officer and must be based solely on the legal requirements of the Order. Notification to local authorities Once the BRMA has been determined all the relevant local authorities within it will be notified. The notification will include the name of the BRMA, the names of the distinct areas of residential accommodation and the postcodes within the BRMA boundary. BRMA Review TRS has a Business Plan commitment to conduct reviews of 25% of the BRMAs within the first 12 months (to April 2009). These will include those where TRS have already made commitments, where TRS identify that relevant factors have changed and where a local authority requests a review due to such relevant changes. Related pages; Locality LHA – Exemptions to LHAs LHA – Local Housing Allowance – general