Communities and Local Government

Rent data includes rent levels and rent service statistics. The latter relates to information on registered fair rents; and rent determinations by rent officers in housing benefit cases and rent appeals.

For social rents levels, information on how much Local Authorities (LA) charge for their properties is collected through the Second Subsidy Claim Form. Data on the cost of renting RSL properties comes from two sources:

• the Continuous Recording system (referred to as CORE) for rents charged for newly let RSL properties; and
• the Regulatory and Statistical Return (RSR) for rents charged for all RSL properties. The RSR is an annual return that has to be completed by all RSLs.

Continuous Recording system (CORE)

CORE is a system developed jointly by the National Housing Federation and the Housing Corporation to record information on social lettings and sales in England.

Launched in 1989 CORE is an essential tool for monitoring housing costs and assessing affordability and is also a comprehensive database on the characteristics of new social tenants and the homes they rent and buy.

The rents shown in the live tables represent the rent levels charged at the start of all new General Needs tenancies (see Notes and definitions for Rents, lettings and tenancies) - which can be at any time of the year.

Up until April 2004 only housing association (RSL) lettings and sales were covered by CORE. After that date coverage was extended to include lettings and sales of Local Authority (council) housing. Note, that the CORE data presented in the live tables does not yet include information about LA/council lettings. Another change in April 2004 was that a single combined lettings log was introduced to replace the previous "General Needs" log and the "Supported Housing" log. CORE covers all new tenancy agreements, including tenants who are new to the RSL sector and tenants who are moving properties either within the same housing association or between housing associations. CORE also captures information about the types of tenancy agreements and previous tenure of the new tenants. During 2003/04 details of 144,000 general needs lettings and 68,000 supported lettings were collected through CORE.

More information is available on the CORE website.

Regulatory and Statistical Return (RSR)

The RSR captures a wide variety of information from each RSL about all properties owned by the RSL.

Information about RSL lettings is also collected, including the size of the properties and average rents. The rents provided by the RSLs are for the last week of March each year. For some RSLs, who change their rents on 1^st April each year, these end-March rents will reflect the average charged throughout the year ending March. But many RSLs adjust their rents at other times of the year - in which case the end-March rents that they report will NOT represent the average for the year ending in March. However, for comparison purposes, we will assume that the average RSL rents reported for end March 2004 are effectively the average rents for the whole of 2003/04.

In contrast the Local Authority figures are the April rents for England and Wales and the September rents for Scotland. Consequently the 2003 LA rents are equivalent to the 2004 RSL rents because they both reflect rents during the financial year 2003/2004.

The other main difference between CORE and the RSR is that CORE captures information on the rents paid for new tenancies only whereas the RSR covers all RSL properties including new and existing tenancies. The size of RSL properties is, by convention, measured by the number of bedrooms they contain. The live tables include information for one bedroom, two bedroom and three or more bedroom properties as well as for bedsits.

The following live tables contain information collected by CORE:

• Table 703
  gives the average rents by region for new RSL lettings based on CORE
• Table 716
  gives annual average assured and fair rent by number of bedrooms for new RSL tenancies; and
• Table 717
  gives quarterly average assured and fair rent by number of bedrooms for new RSL tenancies

The following live table contains information collected by the RSR:

• Table 704
  gives the average rents by district for all RSL lettings based on the RSR

To complete the picture on social renting the following tables are based on information collected from local authorities from the Second Subsidy Claim Form:

• Table 701
  gives the average rents by regions for local authority housing
• Table 702
  gives the average rents by local authority district for local authority housing; and
• Chart 705
  shows the rent increases for the United Kingdom as a whole separating with the rate above the Retail Prices Index separately identified

Private Sector Rents Levels

Private sector (free market) rent levels are available at regional level only. The source for this information is currently the Survey of English Housing (SEH). In April 2008 the SEH was integrated with the English House Condition Survey (EHCS) to form the new English Housing Survey (EHS) and data for 2008/09 onwards will therefore be from the EHS.

Local authorities are required to refer a proportion of claims for housing benefit from private sector and RSL tenants created on or after 15 January 1989, to rent officers. The rent officer must either:

a) accept the referred rent as not being significantly above the market level; or

b) if the referred rent is significantly above the market level, determine a market level rent for the property; and

c) if the size of the accommodation exceeds the needs of the tenants, determine a notional rent for a property of the appropriate size; and

d) if the referred rent of the lowest of the above determinations is exceptionally high compared with accommodation of the same (or suitable) size in the locality, determine a notional rent determination which is not exceptionally high.

Since 2 January 1996, rent officers have also been required to make an additional determination known as a Local Reference Rent (LRR). The purpose is to limit housing benefit to the general level of rents for accommodation of the same size (number of rooms) in the locality. The rent officer determines the LRR by calculating the midpoint of the range of rents (excluding exceptionally high/low rents) for properties of the same size in the same locality.

The Rent Service

Rent Service statistics include rents on housing benefit cases where Private and Housing Association (RSL) landlords have been referred to rent officers and rent assessment committees in England and Wales. The Rent Service provides the data, though there have been delays in processing data for the most recent years.

The following live tables contain information collected by the Rent Service:

• Chart 705
  gives the rent increases for the United Kingdom as a whole separating with the rate above the Retail Prices Index separately identified;
• Table 706
  gives information on fair rents and housing benefit determinations separately including the percentage change and the percentages of cases where the determined rent was reduced, the same or increased after the appeal;
• Table 711
  gives annual average registered rent and average percentage change for private tenancies and Registered social landlord tenancies separately as well as tracking the number of cases;
• Table 712
  gives quarterly average registered rent and average percentage change for private tenancies and Registered social landlord tenancies separately as well as tracking the number of cases;
• Table 713
  gives the annual average proposed rent, average determined rent and number of cases for all tenancies and those tenancies where rents were reduced; and
• Table 714
  gives the quarterly average proposed rent, average determined rent and number of cases for all tenancies and those tenancies where rents were reduced.

Local authority lettings data include information on: the housing register; Choice-Based Lettings (CBL) scheme; nominations; and mobility schemes.

These are collected annually from the Housing Strategy Statistical Appendix HSSA return. The latest copy of this return and the full range of data that we collect can be found in the Local authority housing strategy and business plan data section .

From 2005/06, data on possessions and evictions owing to rent arrears and Anti-Social Behaviour (ASB) are to be included in the HSSA return.

Currently, LA lettings information for: the number of new lettings to homeless and others households; number related to exchanges and transfers; and number of secure and non secure tenancies is presented in live table 601.

Similarly, RSL lettings information from CORE relating to: number of new lets to existing tenants from LA and RSL and new tenants including the number of which are statutory homeless is provided in live table 602.

Lettings and other data related to A8 National Households

From 1 May 2004, Communities and Local Government amended the rules on eligibility for an allocation of housing under Part 6, and eligibility for homelessness assistance under Part 7, of the 1996 Housing Act. These changes apply to applicants who are persons from abroad and who are not persons subject to immigration control. This includes applicants from any country within the enlarged European Economic Area ("EEA").

Communities and Local Government has subsequently collected information on access to social housing and homelessness assistance for households from the eight eastern European Accession States (A8 States). These are: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, Slovenia and the Czech Republic. This is part of the Government's wish to monitor the situation to ensure that allowing nationals from the A8 States access to the UK labour market does not adversely impact on that market, or on the UK benefits system (including social housing). From April 2005 this monitoring has been incorporated within an expanded quarterly P1E return (see Homelessness Statistics section).

The following live tables contain A8 Nationals data:

• Table 604
  Local Authority lettings to A8 nationals;
• Table 605
  RSL lettings to A8 nationals;
• Table 628
  Local Authority assistance to A8 nationals under homelessness provisions of the 1985 and 1996 Housing Acts: decisions on application for assistance;
• Table 629
  Local Authority assistance to A8 nationals under homelessness provisions of the 1985 and 1996 Housing Acts: reason why main duty owed to A8 applicant household; and
• Table 649
  RSL dwellings sales to A8 nationals.

The private rented sector is described mainly in terms of tenancy groups rather than households.

A tenancy group comprises the people who are covered by the same rental (tenancy) agreement and whose accommodation is paid for by a single rental payment. A single household could include more than one tenancy group.

For instance, if four students occupied a house and shared living rooms they would be counted as a single household. If they were covered by a single rental agreement they would be counted as a single tenancy group. However, if they each had their own rental agreement, then each would represent a separate tenancy group. The term "tenancy" as used in this report refers to any rental agreement, written or unwritten, including those that are strictly "licenses to occupy". The four main tenancy types are:

• Assured and Assured Shorthold
• Regulated
• Lettings not accessible to the public
• Resident Landlord/No Security lettings

As well as tenants who pay rent to a private landlord, the private rental sector also covers tenants whose accommodation is tied to their job, people living rent-free (e.g. people living in a flat belonging to a relative) and squatters.

The following live tables and charts are derived from the Survey of English Housing dataset. They are presented by geographic area and ordered by year, where relevant.

• Table 718
  gives local authorities tenancies separated from other tenancies (including RSL tenancies) as well as figures for all tenancies. This also includes information from the Department of Works and Pensions on housing benefit
• Table 731
  looks at the trend (from 1993/94 onwards) of the numbers of private tenancies and the average monthly rent by type of tenancy
• Chart 732
  provides comparison of mean rents from 1996/97, 2001/02 and 2006/07 for (a) private renters / assured; (b) private renters / assured shorthold; (c) Council-owned and (d) housing association-owned accommodation.
• Chart 733
  provides a visual breakdown of the relative numbers of private tenancies by tenancy type - 1996/97, 2001/02 and 2006/07 
• Table 734
  Focuses on "free market" tenancies - namely assured and assured shorthold tenancies accessible to the public without special conditions - and presents the trends in average monthly rent by Govt Office Region. In order to determine reliable rental figures by region the table is derived by combining SEH data from two successive survey years.
• Table 735
  For each age band within each tenure (Council, Housing Association, Private), this table shows the distribution of monthly rents before deduction of Housing Benefit. Note that the rents paid by ALL renters are reflected in this table, regardless of whether or not they receive Housing Benefit. Also shown (for each age group/tenure category) is the total number of households, the mean monthly rent and the median monthly rent. The source for this table is DWP's Family Resources Survey.
• Table 736
  This is similar to Table 735, but instead of rent paid before deduction of HB it focuses on rents paid after deduction of Housing Benefit. More particularly the table is restricted only to rents paid by households who were in receipt of Housing Benefit.
• Table 737
  is similar to Table 736 in that it deals with rent levels after deduction of HB. But in this table all households paying rent are included. Moreover, instead of the disaggregation of households within tenure being by age of household reference person, in this table it is according to the banded joint incomes of the household reference person plus partner.

Further note on Tables 735-737

For comparison purposes these tables include reference to private rents, council/LA rents and housing association/RSL rents. Table 735, in particular, gives estimates of mean and median council/LA rents and HA/RSL rents. These are all derived from the Family Resources Survey, which is a sample survey of households (like the Survey of English Housing).

However, elsewhere in the Rents, Lettings and Tenancies section, LA and RSL rent figures are presented that are based on administrative data supplied by all local authorities and housing associations. In other words, these other LA and HA/RSL rental figures are likely to be more reliable than the rental information included in tables 735-737.

Table 740 shows the private rent sector index.