The Dept for levelling up, housing and communities has announced the launch of its Supported Housing Improvement Programme (SHIP), a scheme designed to deal with rogue landlords who provide accommodation to vulnerable tenants at extortionate rents but provide little support in return.

One egregious example of bad behaviour given by DLUHC involved a landlord who charged £250 a week in rent in an area where the average rent was £80 per week yet only provided support which consisted of dropping off a box of cereal.

Whilst it was accepted that there were many very good providers of supported accommodation helping people with experience of homelessness, mental health issues and domestic abuse, the level of support expected in a support scheme would include providing people with the skills and confidence to successfully enter independent long term accommodation.

A £20 million funding pot was also announced and local authorities can make bidding applications to access this funding so that bad behaviour by accommodation providers can be "stamped out". New measures include giving local authorities more powers to better manage their supported housing market.