Data used in calculating LHA for Cambridge BRMA

David Vincent made this Freedom of Information request to Valuation Office Agency

The request was partially successful.

From: David Vincent

27 May 2009

Dear Sir or Madam,

Please provide me with

a) a list of all those private landlords, lettings agents and
"others who are representative of the local lettings market" who
are contacted on a regular monthly basis by the Rent Service in
order to calculate the local housing allowance for the BRMA of
Cambridge;

b) if this list has changed at any time over the period since the
introduction of the LHA, details of those changes and when they
took place, and details of the reason the list was changed;

c) details of precisely what information is requested of those
contacted and the form in which they are asked to provide it;

d) details of the number of positive responses (i.e. responses
including information that was used in the calculation) from those
contacted which were received in respect of each month for the
period January to June 2009;

e) details of the number of individual rented properties involved
in each monthly calculation of the LHAs for the Cambridge BRMA by
the Rent Service over the same period, broken down into the various
relevant size categories used for LHA.

Thank you for your help.

Yours faithfully,

David Vincent

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22 June 2009

Sent request to Valuation Office Agency again.

From: Mindel, Stephanie
Valuation Office Agency

20 July 2009

This message is confidential and the information must not be used, disclosed, or copied to any other person who is not entitled to receive it. If you have received this message in error please notify the sender and then delete it.

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From: Mindel, Stephanie
Valuation Office Agency

20 July 2009

Attachment Cambridge FOI Final.xls
16K Download View as HTML

Dear David Vincent,

I refer to your FoI request that was received on 22nd June 2009. With regard to your request, the position of the Valuation Agency is as follows:

Although we hold this information, we are unable to provide details of those landlords, letting Agents and others who are contacted for the purposes of LHA calculation as this data is provided in the strictest of confidence on the basis that an individual's details are not passed on to a third party. The attached table shows the volume of sources that provide rental data which contributes to the LHA rates and how this varies over the specified time alongside the volume of rental data used in each category and the LHA rates themselves. This should address sections A, B, D, E of your request.

Finally to answer section C there are 2 elements to our interview process with our contacts; for every piece of data collected we ascertain the address, post code, property details (number of bedrooms, living rooms etc) together with details of the property type, agreed rent and tenancy date. Where possible we also gather information on local market conditions.

<<Cambridge FOI Final.xls>>
If I can be of further assistance, please let me know.

Regards,
Stephanie Mindel
Team Leader
Rent Officer Functions Specialists
Valuation Office Agency
Wingate House
93 - 107 Shaftesbury Avenue
London W1D 5BU

This message is confidential and the information must not be used, disclosed, or copied to any other person who is not entitled to receive it. If you have received this message in error please notify the sender and then delete it.

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From: David Vincent

23 July 2009

Dear Ms Mindel,

Thank you for the information supplied.

I am disappointed and a little surprised that you consider the list
of sources to be exempt from disclosure. I was not asking for
details of the individual items of information provided, after all.
Certainly, as regards the letting agents you contact, I assume
their identities are those of known and advertised businesses,
contactable at their place of business, otherwise they would be
unable to trade. Similarly, even the individual landlords must be
trading publicly and advertising their presence and a means of
contact to potential customers, otherwise they would not be useful
sources of information to you. I do not see that disclosing the
identities of such trading businesses whom you have contacted as
part of that business function could constitute an actionable
breach of confidence, in the terms of the Act. Perhaps you could
revisit the request and provide at least the names of the
businesses, even if you feel it is necessary to withhold the names
of any individuals who do not advertise themselves to the public as
landlords.

As a minimum, please break the numerical figures down into (a)
letting agents (b) individual landlords letting directly to the
public and (c) other sources of information (specifying the nature
of these other sources, at least in a general sense - eg if
websites, the name of the website, if publications, the name of the
publication, if physical sites where information is displayed, the
general nature and whereabouts of those sites etc).

From the answer you give to part C of my request, however, I am
assuming that you are restricting yourselves in the calculation to
properties which are actually let during each period, rather than
properties that are advertised for letting. Please clarify this
point.

If it is true that you are only considering completed tenancy
contracts, I am not sure that any sources of information other than
(a) and (b) would be directly relevant to the calculation, but
again perhaps you would clarify.

Please also indicate what account you take of any "information on
local market conditions" you may have obtained, when making the
calculation of a monthly LHA.

Thank you for your help thus far and I look forward to hearing from
you further.

Yours sincerely,

David Vincent

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From: Mindel, Stephanie
Valuation Office Agency

18 August 2009

Dear Mr Vincent,

I refer to your e-mail of 23rd July 2009. As explained in my earlier e-mail, the sources used by rent officers are confidential. For that reason, the information requested, including a breakdown, will not be disclosed. While I note your observation concerning confidentiality, it is my view that to disclose the identities of landlords and agents would indeed amount to an actionable breach.

However, as confirmed by the Information Commissioner in a recent case, other than the data that the rent officer needs to disclose to discharge his/her duties in relation to producing LHA figures (i.e. the actual rental figures referred to in Schedule 3B of the Rent Officers (Housing Benefit Functions) Order 1997), a rent officer, all of whom are now Officers of Revenue and Customers (now being employed by the Valuation Office, an executive agency of HM Revenue and Customs), are subject to a strict statutory prohibition, pursuant to section 18 of the Commissioner for Revenue and Customs Act 2005 that states that "Revenue and Customs officials may not disclose information which is held by Revenue and Customs in connection with a function of Revenue and Customs." Breach of that provision is a criminal offence that is punishable by both a fine and imprisonment.

Accordingly, the information that you have requested is exempt under section 44 of The Freedom of Information Act 2000.

I am able to assist in relation to the manner in which LHA figures are arrived at. The relevant provisions are at paragraph 2 of Schedule 3B of the Rent Officers (Housing Benefit Functions) Order 1997. The salient parts are: "the rent officer must compile a list of rents"; and "A list of rents means a list in ascending order of the rents which, in the rent officer's opinion, are payable at the date of the determination...". By paragraph 2(9) the LHA is the median rent on the list. It is therefore correct to say that LHAs are calculated using only transactional evidence and not advertised tenancies.

Finally, your reference to "information on local market conditions" applies not to the calculation of the LHA (as described above) but to the approach taken by rent officers when deciding on the most appropriate method of gathering market evidence for any particular area at any particular time.

If you are unhappy with the decision made in relation to your request, you may ask for an internal review by contacting the Customer Service Team at: The Chief Executive's Office, Customer Services Team, Valuation Office Agency, Wingate House, Shaftesbury Avenue, London W1D 5BU or you can e-mail: [email address]. If you are not content with the outcome of an internal review you have the right to apply to the Information Commissioner for a decision. Generally, the Commissioner cannot make a decision unless you have exhausted the complaints procedure set out above. The Commissioner can be contacted at: The Information Commissioners Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire SK9 5AF.

Regards,
Stephanie Mindel
Team Leader
Rent Officer Functions Specialists
Valuation Office Agency
Wingate House
93 - 107 Shaftesbury Avenue
London W1D 5BU

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Things to do with this request

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