This data sets out levels of support with housing costs, known as the Local Housing Allowance (LHA) rate, for 2013-14, 2014-15, 2015-16, 2016-17, 2017-18, 2019-19, 2019-20, 2020-21 and 2021-22.
The Allowance is set for different property sizes in each Broad Rental Market Area, or BRMA. These are not the same as county or district areas. You can find out more about BRMAs here.
The Valuation Office Agency (VOA) completes a six-monthly survey of private rents across England which is used to set the LHA rates. However in 2016-17, many rates were frozen at 2015-16 levels due to national austerity measures. Since then, selected BRMAs have had their LHA rates adjusted, despite the general freeze. In 2020/21 rates were increased up to a set maximum to help mitigate the effects of the covid-19 pandemic, so LHAs would support a higher level rent than previously. For 2021-22 LHA rates have been held at the same level as 2020-21.
The data comes from the Valuation Office Agency (VOA) and is available online at www.gov.uk. Individuals should seek advice about their individual claims from their local authority benefit team. The VOA provides a search facility to help applicants identify the relevant LHA for them. This search is based on postcode and property size and can be found at http://lha-direct.voa.gov.uk/search.aspx.
