STAIRs Goes Live, the Regulator Grades Two Councils, and Commissioning Takes Centre Stage
Issue #28 • Week ending Thursday 1 October 2026 • Complex Law. Clear Intelligence.
Top 5 Roundup
1. STAIRs publication scheme goes live for registered providers
The publication-scheme requirements of the Social Tenant Access to Information Requirements (STAIRs) took effect on 1 October 2026. Every private registered provider of social housing must now proactively publish the information it holds in seven classes: governance and decision making, spending (including use of service charge revenue), housing stock management, performance (including evictions and complaint metrics), housing services, lists and registers, and social housing management policies. Providers must tell tenants the scheme exists and keep it under review. Compliance is now part of the revised Transparency, Influence and Accountability Standard, also in force from 1 October. STAIRs does not apply to local authorities or to unregistered landlords, so the many CICs and charities running supported exempt accommodation outside registration are not bound. Lease-based and small RPs holding SEA stock are caught in full, and residents on licences count as tenants. Phase two, a tenant information-request regime with a 30-day response clock and escalation to the Housing Ombudsman, starts on 1 April 2027.
2. RSH publishes seven regulatory judgements; two councils fail the consumer standards
The Regulator of Social Housing published a batch of seven regulatory judgements on 30 September 2026, covering five housing associations/ALMOs — North Star Housing Group, Paragon Asra Housing, NSAH (Alliance Homes), Freebridge Community Housing and First Choice Homes Oldham — and two local authorities, Thanet District Council and Nuneaton and Bedworth Borough Council. Both councils were found non-compliant with the consumer standards, with Nuneaton and Bedworth’s failings described in local reporting as “serious”. The inclusion of two councils as landlords is notable, continuing the RSH’s active use of its expanded consumer-regulation mandate under the Social Housing (Regulation) Act 2023. Several of the smaller and mid-sized associations named are precisely the type most likely to hold supported or exempt accommodation in their portfolios, making the full judgement texts worth close review by providers and commissioners.
3. NHF chief executive calls for a long-term supported-housing funding settlement
The chief executive of the National Housing Federation used the Labour Party conference period to call publicly for a long-term funding settlement for supported housing, framing short-term, uncertain funding as a critical pressure point for providers. The intervention targets the forthcoming Spending Review as the key opportunity to secure a dedicated, durable funding framework — something the sector has lacked since ring-fenced Supporting People funding ended. The call lands amid continued instability in successor funding arrangements and persistent concern that the economics of developing and running supported housing depend on grant subsidy and revenue certainty that are presently absent. Housing Minister Matthew Pennycook separately used fringe events to press for additional Social and Affordable Homes Programme grant, reinforcing a coordinated pre-Spending-Review lobbying push. A government response or consultation on supported-housing funding models is awaited.
4. Rayner announces new council powers to tackle homelessness
Communities Secretary Angela Rayner used the Labour Party conference to announce new powers for local authorities to tackle homelessness, including — per sector reporting — the ability to refer homeless households directly to housing associations. The announcement formed part of a coordinated conference package alongside Andy Burnham’s council-housebuilding and Right to Buy commitments. For supported housing the detail will be decisive: a significant share of residents in supported exempt accommodation arrive via local-authority homelessness pathways, so any change to referral powers alters the commissioning and gatekeeping relationship between councils and providers. A central open question is whether the powers encompass supported housing and exempt-accommodation providers or are confined to general-needs housing associations. No named legislative vehicle or statutory instrument has yet accompanied the announcement, and the scope and mechanism remain to be published.
5. McGovern puts commissioning “at the heart” of care reform
Care Minister Alison McGovern told a Labour conference fringe event on 30 September that commissioning will sit “at the heart” of the government’s social-care reform agenda, with a focus on how local authorities commission services and the commissioning skills they require. The signal is directly relevant to supported housing, where the commissioning relationship between councils, NHS bodies and providers is a fundamental structural issue — especially for higher-need groups such as people with mental-health conditions, learning disabilities or dual diagnosis, where care and housing support intersect. A reform agenda centred on commissioning quality and workforce capability could reshape how supported-housing services are specified, procured, funded and quality-assured. The announcement aligns with the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services’ call for care reform that “cannot wait until the next election”, signalling momentum behind commissioning-focused change.
Deep Dives
Deep Dive 1 — STAIRs goes live: a transparency regime bolted onto an unresolved legal gateway
On 1 October 2026 the publication-scheme requirements of the Social Tenant Access to Information Requirements (STAIRs) took effect. STAIRs is not a supported-housing regime. It is a tenant information-access scheme for all private registered providers, set by government policy statement, written into the Regulator of Social Housing's revised Transparency, Influence and Accountability Standard, and enforced through the regulator and the Housing Ombudsman. Yet for the part of the exempt-accommodation sector that sits inside registration, it matters more than for almost anyone else. And for the part that sits outside, it sets a benchmark that will not stay voluntary for long.
Start with the gateway, because everything else depends on it. "Exempt accommodation" is not a creature of the supported-housing statutes. It is a Housing Benefit construct preserved by Schedule 3 paragraph 4(10) of the Housing Benefit and Council Tax Benefit (Consequential Provisions) Regulations 2006. That provision keeps the pre-1996 rent rules alive for accommodation provided by a housing association, registered charity, voluntary organisation or county council, where that body, or a person acting on its behalf, provides the claimant with care, support or supervision. Exempt status disapplies the local housing allowance caps, so that eligible rent, including intensive housing management, can be met in full by Housing Benefit. It is the reason the sector exists.
The phrase "care, support or supervision" carries all the weight, and it has been litigated for two decades. The Turnbull line (CH/150/2007, CH/4432/2006, CH/200/2009 and R(H) 4/09) established that the support must be more than minimal, connected to the accommodation, and more than the general housing management every landlord performs. Bristol CC v AW sharpened this into the "real difference" test.
Here is where STAIRs bites. A registered provider holding exempt stock must now publish, among other things, how it uses service charge revenue, its performance data including the number of evictions, its policies on managing social housing, and a description of its services. In general-needs housing that is a transparency exercise. In exempt accommodation it produces something new: a provider-authored, public account of the very charges and services on which exemption and eligible rent depend. A council's Housing Benefit team can now read it back against the claim.
The risk runs both ways. A provider whose published service description dresses up housing management as support has, in effect, drafted the council's refusal letter for it. A provider whose published spending data does not reconcile with the rent schedule submitted to the council has handed it a contradiction to exploit. Equally, a provider that understates genuine, more-than-minimal support in a thin publication may undercut an exemption it plainly qualifies for.
There is a second channel of exposure. STAIRs covers information held not only by the registered provider but by any body managing its social housing on its behalf. In the lease-based model, much of the support evidence, incident data and repairs history sits with a managing CIC or charity. The RP cannot publish what it cannot reach, and from April 2027 it must use all reasonable endeavours to obtain it in response to tenant requests. Management agreements written before STAIRs rarely provide for that.
Then there is the asymmetry. The majority of exempt accommodation is provided by CICs, charities and companies that are not registered providers. They are untouched by STAIRs. From 1 October an RP running an exempt scheme must publish how it spends service charge income, while the unregistered provider running the same model next door need not. The Supported Housing (Regulatory Oversight) Act 2023 licensing regime, expected from 2027 with the National Supported Housing Standards as a licence condition, is designed to reach exactly those operators. Councils drafting licence conditions and Local Supported Housing Strategies, due by 31 March 2027, will have the STAIRs benchmark in plain view. It would be surprising if some form of published transparency did not find its way into local licensing expectations.
For practitioners, several things follow. Registered providers with exempt stock should treat the publication scheme as an evidential document, not a marketing one. Every published statement about support and charges should be consistent with the Housing Benefit evidence base and capable of surviving Turnbull and Bristol scrutiny. Lease-based RPs should revisit their management agreements now, to secure access to information held by managing partners before the April 2027 request regime begins. Unregistered providers should consider publishing a STAIRs-style set voluntarily, covering governance, spending, performance and core policies. It costs little, signals quality ahead of licensing, and gives them an answer when an advocate writes in using STAIRs language, as some will, whatever the regime's formal reach.
The deeper point is that STAIRs does not resolve the sector's foundational legal uncertainty; it illuminates it. For RPs, it compels a public account of charges and services that must now agree with the account given to the Housing Benefit authority. For everyone else, it previews the transparency that licensing is likely to demand. The compliant provider on 1 October is not the one with the tidiest webpage. It is the one whose published account, Housing Benefit claim and operational reality tell a single, defensible story.
Deep Dive 2 — The consumer standards reach the council landlord: what the 30 September judgements mean for supported housing
The Regulator of Social Housing's publication of seven regulatory judgements on 30 September 2026 would, a few years ago, have been routine sector housekeeping. What makes this batch significant for supported housing is its make-up. It covers five housing associations and ALMOs and, pointedly, two local authorities, Thanet District Council and Nuneaton and Bedworth Borough Council, both found non-compliant with the consumer standards. Local reporting described Nuneaton and Bedworth's failings as "serious". This is the expanded consumer regime created by the Social Housing (Regulation) Act 2023 working at full stretch, and it has specific, underappreciated consequences for exempt accommodation.
Recall the architecture. Before April 2024 the regulator dealt with consumer matters only reactively, through the "serious detriment" test. The 2023 Act swept that away and introduced proactive consumer regulation. The four consumer standards (Safety and Quality; Transparency, Influence and Accountability; Neighbourhood and Community; and Tenancy) are now backed by inspection and C1 to C4 gradings. From 1 October 2026 they are joined by a separate Competence and Conduct Standard. These standards bind all registered providers of social housing, councils included, whether or not a council thinks of itself mainly as a commissioner or strategic housing authority. The two council findings confirm that the regulator will grade a local authority's landlord function on the same consumer yardstick it applies to a housing association.
Why does this matter for supported and exempt accommodation? There are three reasons.
First, the regulatory perimeter and the Housing Benefit gateway do not coincide, and the gap is now more visible. Exempt accommodation is defined by Schedule 3 paragraph 4(10) of the Housing Benefit and Council Tax Benefit (Consequential Provisions) Regulations 2006. That is the care, support or supervision test refined through the Turnbull decisions (CH/150/2007, CH/4432/2006, CH/200/2009, R(H) 4/09) and the "real difference" test in Bristol CC v AW. That test says nothing about whether the provider is a registered provider subject to the consumer standards. A large share of the exempt market is delivered by unregistered charities, CICs and voluntary organisations that qualify for the Housing Benefit premium yet sit entirely outside the regime that has just caught Thanet and Nuneaton. The judgements therefore sharpen a long-standing asymmetry. The most tightly regulated landlords, councils and large RPs, are not the ones where consumer risk in supported housing is greatest.
That asymmetry widened again on 1 October. Private registered providers must now run a publication scheme under the Social Tenant Access to Information Requirements (STAIRs), disclosing among other things how they use service charge revenue and how many evictions they carry out. Councils are excluded from STAIRs, as are unregistered landlords. So a private RP running exempt accommodation now operates under graded consumer standards and a public disclosure duty. An unregistered provider running the same model faces neither until licensing arrives.
Second, councils wear several hats, and the judgements squeeze all of them. A council found non-compliant as a landlord is also the Housing Benefit payer for exempt accommodation in its area. From 2027 it will also be the licensing authority under the Supported Housing (Regulatory Oversight) Act 2023, and by 31 March 2027 it must publish a Local Supported Housing Strategy. A council under pressure to remedy its own consumer failings has every incentive to scrutinise third-party exempt claims harder, both to protect its subsidy position and to show the regulator it has a grip. Providers in Thanet and Nuneaton and Bedworth, and in the growing number of areas receiving adverse gradings, should expect tougher Housing Benefit review. As licensing rolls out, they should also expect more exacting local licence conditions. Expect particular attention to whether support is genuinely provided by or on behalf of the landlord, or is in substance a separate service that a decision-maker could sever from the accommodation.
Third, consumer standards and exempt-accommodation quality are converging in substance even where they diverge in law. The Transparency, Influence and Accountability Standard and the Safety and Quality Standard set expectations on resident voice, stock condition and responsive management. These map closely onto what a genuine exempt provider should be delivering. As the National Supported Housing Standards are finalised as a licence condition, the consumer standards are the obvious reference point. A private registered provider of supported housing now faces a double exposure: a consumer grading and an exempt-status test. Each can be evidenced from the same facts and, after 1 October, from the provider's own STAIRs publication.
The practical consequences are concrete. For registered providers with supported stock, a C3 or C4 grading is no longer merely reputational. It tells Housing Benefit teams and future licensing authorities that the provider's management and support systems are deficient. That bears directly on whether its accommodation makes the "real difference" Bristol requires. Consumer remediation, STAIRs publication and exempt-status defensibility should be run as one programme, not three.
For councils, the judgements are a warning that the landlord function cannot be neglected in favour of commissioning and enforcement, and that visible failure in one role corrodes credibility in the others. A council that is itself graded C3 will find it harder to impose demanding licence conditions on others without being challenged on consistency.
For unregistered exempt providers, the direction of travel is clear. The net that caught two councils on 30 September is widening, and licensing is designed to reach the operators that consumer regulation and STAIRs currently miss. Those who begin now to publish their governance, spending and performance information, and to evidence support to the Turnbull standard, will meet licensing on their own terms.
A note of caution against over-reading is warranted. Good standing under the consumer standards does not by itself secure exempt status. The Housing Benefit test is independent, and a G1/C1 landlord can still lose an exemption appeal if the support in a given scheme is minimal or generic. Equally, consumer non-compliance does not automatically defeat exemption, because the tests remain legally distinct. But distinct is not the same as unrelated, and the facts that sink a consumer grading are increasingly the facts that sink an exemption.
The through-line is convergence. The Housing Benefit exempt gateway, the RSH consumer standards with STAIRs now attached, and supported housing licensing were built at different times, for different purposes, on different legal tests. The 30 September batch shows them drawing together in practice. The supported housing provider that treats consumer compliance, Housing Benefit exemption and licensing readiness as separate workstreams has misread the moment. They are becoming one test, evidenced from one set of facts, applied by increasingly coordinated authorities.
Deep Dive 3 — Commissioning as the hidden determinant of exempt status
Care Minister Alison McGovern's statement that commissioning will be "at the heart" of social-care reform reads, on its surface, as a managerial aspiration about procurement skills and local-authority capability. For the supported-housing sector it is something more fundamental: commissioning is the hidden variable that determines whether accommodation is legally "exempt" at all, and whether its Housing Benefit subsidy survives. A reform agenda that reshapes commissioning therefore reaches straight into the legal foundations of the sector, whether or not that is the minister's intention.
The connection runs through the care, support or supervision test. Exempt accommodation under Schedule 3 paragraph 4(10) of the Housing Benefit and Council Tax Benefit (Consequential Provisions) Regulations 2006 requires that the landlord — or a person acting on its behalf — provides the claimant with care, support or supervision. The Turnbull decisions (CH/150/2007, CH/4432/2006, CH/200/2009, R(H) 4/09) establish that this support must be more than minimal and genuinely connected to the accommodation; Bristol CC v AW requires that it make a "real difference" to the resident's ability to occupy. Here is the point commissioning reform cannot avoid: in most supported-housing models the support that satisfies this test is not funded through rent at all. It is commissioned and paid for separately — historically through Supporting People, now through a patchwork of adult-social-care, public-health and housing-related-support budgets. The legal adequacy of the support, and therefore the HB exemption, is downstream of a commissioning decision made by the very local authority that also pays the Housing Benefit.
This produces a structural fragility that reform could either worsen or cure. When a council, under financial pressure, decommissions or thins a housing-related-support contract, the consequence is not merely a reduced service — it can be the collapse of the legal basis for exemption. If commissioned support falls below the "more than minimal" / "real difference" threshold, the accommodation ceases to qualify, the old-scheme rent rules fall away, and the provider's rent is suddenly exposed to the local-housing-allowance caps its cost base was never built to survive. The commissioning decision and the subsidy decision are legally distinct but factually inseparable. A reform agenda "centred on commissioning" that does not grasp this will cut support budgets on one desk while triggering HB disputes and provider insolvencies on another.
Allerdale BC v JD [2019] UKUT 304 exposes the mechanism precisely. The case turned on whether support said to be provided "on behalf of" the landlord was genuinely attributable to it, or was in substance delivered by a separate commissioned body on its own account. As commissioning becomes more sophisticated — McGovern's stated aim — the separation between the housing provider and the commissioned care or support provider tends to become cleaner and more contractual, which is good for value-for-money but legally double-edged. The more clearly support is delivered by an independent commissioned agency under its own contract with the council, the harder it becomes to say the landlord provides care, support or supervision within the meaning of the exempt-accommodation test. Better commissioning can, perversely, weaken exemption unless the contractual architecture is deliberately drafted to keep the support "on behalf of" the landlord.
There is a countervailing, more hopeful reading. If commissioning reform delivers what McGovern describes — higher-quality, needs-led, properly specified support delivered by skilled commissioners — then the support provided will more reliably clear the Turnbull/Bristol bar. Well-commissioned support is, almost by definition, "more than minimal" and makes a "real difference". Good commissioning could thus stabilise exempt status across the sector, reducing the stream of HB disputes that flow from thin, generic or unevidenced support. It could also dovetail with SHROA 2023's National Supported Housing Standards and the RSH consumer standards, so that the quality a commissioner specifies, the quality a licensing authority requires, and the quality the HB test demands finally point in the same direction rather than contradicting one another.
The practical implications for the sector are immediate. Providers should treat commissioning intelligence as exemption-risk intelligence: a council signalling commissioning reform, retendering or budget retrenchment is signalling a potential threat to the legal basis of its exempt stock. Contracts should be reviewed through the Allerdale lens — is the support demonstrably provided by or on behalf of the landlord, or has it drifted into a free-standing arrangement that a decision-maker could sever from the accommodation? Support plans and needs assessments should be documented to the Turnbull/Bristol standard, so that whatever is commissioned can be shown to make a real difference to the individual resident, not merely to exist on paper. And providers should engage commissioners directly on the HB consequences of commissioning choices — because, as the reform tacitly concedes, commissioning is not a back-office function.
For local authorities the lesson is sharper still. Commissioning reform that improves skills and specification is welcome, but councils must recognise that every commissioning decision about supported housing is also a Housing Benefit decision and, increasingly, a SHROA licensing decision. Treating the three as separate — the commissioning team, the HB team and the regulation team each acting in isolation — is the surest route to the incoherence that produces both poor outcomes for residents and litigable exemption disputes. Several billing authorities are already under RSH consumer-standards pressure; adding fragmented commissioning to that mix compounds the risk. McGovern is right that commissioning sits at the heart of reform. For supported housing, it sits at the heart of the law — the quiet hinge on which exemption, subsidy and regulatory compliance all turn.
