Dear Jenna orderoy,

Thank you for submitting a request for information. Your reference number
is 12683775.

Your request will be reviewed and we may send you questions to clarify
your request. We will respond within 20 working days for Freedom of
Information and Environmental Information Regulations requests, and within
1 calendar month for Data Protection and Subject Access requests

[1]Please click this link to view current status of your request

Yours sincerely,
Information Governance Team
Adur & Worthing Councils

For Freedom of Information (FOI) and Environmental Information Regulations
(EIR):
Email: [Adur District Council request email]

For Data Protection (DP) and General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR):
Email: [email address]

Website: [2]www.adur-worthing.gov.uk/about-the-councils/legal/foi/

This message was sent from an email address not monitored. Please do not
respond to this message. To reply, please
email [Adur District Council request email] quoting your reference
number, , in your message.

References

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Dear Jenna Corderoy,

Thank you for your request for information (ref 12683775) sent to Adur &
Worthing Councils on 10th February 2022.

Your request has been considered and our response is below. Alternatively,
view your request and response
at: [1]https://adur-worthing-hr.onmats.com/w/we...

Request:
This request concerns “exempt accommodation”. The UK Parliament defines
this as: “Supported housing which is exempt from certain Housing Benefit
provisions. It is a sector which houses more marginalised groups with
support needs, such as recent prison leavers; care leavers; those fleeing
domestic violence; and homeless people with substance dependence or mental
health issues.”

I understand that housing benefit for people in “exempt accommodation” is
paid by the council directly to landlords. 

I would like to request the following information:

(1) Please state how much housing benefit has been paid by the council
directly to landlords to provide “exempt accommodation” for those in
receipt of the benefits. Please provide the figures for each of the past
three financial years (2018/19, 2019/20, 2020/21), as well as any
available data for 2021/22.

(2) Please provide a list of the 20 landlords that have received the
highest amount in housing benefit from the council for providing “exempt
accommodation” for those in receipt of the benefits. Again, please provide
this information for each of the past three financial years (2018/19,
2019/20, 2020/21) as well as any available data for 2021/22. For each
year, please (a) provide the landlord’s full name or company name, (b)
state the total amount they received from the council in each year.

Response:
From our preliminary assessment, it is clear that we will not be able to
answer your request. This is because the information you have requested
cannot be easily extracted.

The landlords who provide accommodation for supported exempt, also provide
accommodation for Non-supported exempt. To provide the information
requested, we would need to manually look through each account and
determine if it matches supported exempt. 

To clarify, we have 25 Housing Associations. Each will have numerous
accounts linked to them. For example, one of these housing association
providers has 1012 accounts linked to them and it will take us
approximately 15 minutes to review each account. For this HA alone we
would spend 253 hours to gather the information.

Section 12 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA) makes provision
for public authorities to refuse requests for information where the cost
of dealing with them would exceed the appropriate limit, as defined by the
FOIA and Data Protection (Appropriate Limit and Fees) Regulations 2018:

“12 Exemption where cost of compliance exceeds appropriate limit

(1) Section 1(1) does not oblige a public authority to comply with a
request for information if the authority estimates that the cost of
complying with the request would exceed the appropriate limit”.

The Regulations provide that the appropriate limit to be applied to
requests received by local authorities is £450 (equivalent to 2.5 days of
work).  In estimating the cost of complying with a request for
information, an authority can only take into account any reasonable costs
incurred in:

“(a) determining whether it holds the information,
(b) locating the information, or a document which may contain the
information,
(c) retrieving the information, or a document which may contain the
information, and
(d) extracting the information from a document containing it”.

For the purposes of the estimate the costs of performing these activities
should be estimated at a rate of £25 per hour.

We estimate that it will take us in excess of the applicable time limit to
determine the appropriate material and locate, retrieve and extract the
information in reference to your request. Therefore, your request will not
be processed further.

We hope this is sufficient for your purposes.
 

Review procedure
If you are not satisfied with the response to your request for information
you have the right to an internal review. Details can be found on
[2]www.adur-worthing.gov.uk/foi

Your request for internal review should be submitted to us within three
(3) months of receipt by you of this response. Any such request received
after this time will only be considered at the discretion of the Council.

If having exhausted the review process you are not content that your
request or review has been dealt with correctly, you have a further right
to appeal to the Information commissioner’s Office (ICO), details of which
can be found here: [3]www.ico.org.uk/concerns

Yours sincerely
Information Governance Team
Adur & Worthing Councils

For Freedom of Information (FOI) and Environmental Information Regulations
(EIR):
Email: [Adur District Council request email]

For Data Protection (DP) and General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR):
Email: [email address]

Website: [4]www.adur-worthing.gov.uk/about-the-councils/legal/foi/ 

This message was sent from an email address not monitored. Please do not
respond to this message. To reply, please
email [Adur District Council request email] quoting your reference
number, 12683775, in your message.

References

Visible links
1. https://adur-worthing-hr.onmats.com/w/we...
2. https://www.adur-worthing.gov.uk/foi
3. https://www.ico.org.uk/concerns
4. https://www.adur-worthing.gov.uk/about-t...