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For commissioners and placing organisations

What we are building, and what you would need from us.

This page is for a commissioner, a housing options manager or a charity placing someone rather than for a resident. It says where Bluebell Housing has got to, what you would have to see before you could place with us, and how to start that conversation now rather than at the end of a procurement round.

Bluebell Housing is a new organisation. It is not trading, holds no property and is not accepting placements. That is on our terms page and it is here, in the first paragraph, because a commissioner who discovers it at due diligence has spent a round of their time and ours to learn something we could have said at the top.

The second thing worth saying early is what we are: a supported housing provider. We source and lease property, manage it, and provide housing-related support — help to hold on to a home, manage money, deal with a benefit claim, keep a home running and stay safe in it. We do not deliver personal care, we are not registered with the Care Quality Commission and we need no registration from it, because that is not what we do. If a package needs personal care, it needs a registered provider alongside us, and it is cheaper for everyone to know that before the referral than after it.

What is left after those two paragraphs is worth having. We can tell you what we are standing up first, what we will publish as each piece lands, and who to talk to in the meantime. We would rather be on your radar with an honest position than on your list with a claimed one.

Trading status
Pre-launch. Not trading, no property held, not accepting placements.
What we provide
Accommodation and housing-related support. Not personal care, and not CQC registered — none is required for this.
Registered provider
TBD — whether Bluebell is registered with the Regulator of Social Housing has not been supplied to this project.
Frameworks
TBD — Bluebell has not confirmed which frameworks, if any, it is on.
The thing worth saying first

We are not on a framework yet. Claiming otherwise would waste your time.

What you would ask for, and where it stands

A due-diligence pack has a shape, and most of it is the same whoever you are assessing. Here is that list with our own answers written against it — including the ones that are still blank.

What is actually being provided

Whether the package you are buying includes personal care decides who has to be registered, what it costs and who carries the risk.

Accommodation and housing-related support. Personal care is a regulated activity under the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014, we do not deliver it and we hold no registration for it. Any package needing it needs a registered provider alongside us. What supported housing actually is sets out where that boundary falls.

Corporate form, and the housing benefit basis

Exempt accommodation can only be provided by a county council, a housing association that does not trade for profit, a registered charity or a voluntary organisation. Which of those an organisation is decides whether the funding model works at all.

TBDBluebell’s corporate form, and the housing benefit basis for each scheme, confirmed in writing. This is a commercial and legal question rather than a wording one: exempt accommodation under paragraph 4(10) of Schedule 3 to SI 2006/217 requires the provider to be a non-metropolitan county council, a housing association within s.1 Housing Associations Act 1985 (which must not trade for profit), a registered charity or a voluntary organisation. A for-profit company meets none of those. Until it is settled, this site asserts no exempt-accommodation status, no enhanced housing benefit eligibility and no funding position of any kind.

Registered provider of social housing

The consumer standards and the Tenant Satisfaction Measures bind registered providers. Whether they apply to us changes what you can hold us to.

TBDWhether Bluebell is a Registered Provider with the Regulator of Social Housing, and its RP number, has not been supplied. If it is not registered, that is a legitimate position for a supported housing provider — but this site will never borrow registered-provider language without it.

Housing Ombudsman membership

It is what makes the Complaint Handling Code enforceable rather than aspirational, and it is the route a resident has when we get it wrong.

TBDHousing Ombudsman Scheme membership and number. Membership is compulsory for social landlords and is being extended; whether Bluebell is a member today is a checkable fact, so it is a gap rather than an assumption.

Licensing

HMO licensing, selective licensing and the local authority licensing scheme under the Supported Housing (Regulatory Oversight) Act 2023 all bite on this kind of accommodation, by area.

TBDAny supported housing, HMO or selective licence held, by council and licence number. A licence cannot be claimed before it is issued, and the national supported housing scheme cannot be claimed before it commences in the areas Bluebell works in.

Framework and contract position

Whether we can be called off an agreement you already hold, or whether anything here would have to be a spot purchase.

TBDBluebell has not confirmed which frameworks, if any, it is on.

Company details

Registered name, company number, the part of the UK the company is registered in, and a registered office. A Companies Act duty rather than a courtesy.

TBDAll four are still to be confirmed. Our terms page lists them as gaps with the duty named, rather than leaving the rows out and hoping nobody counts them.

Property standards and safety

Gas safety records, electrical condition reports, fire risk assessments and the Housing Health and Safety Rating System. In supported housing this is the file that fails first.

TBDNo property is held, so there is no certificate, no fire risk assessment and no stock condition record to give you. What can be given now is the standard we will not take a property below; ask for it and you will get it in writing rather than as a line on a website.

Repairs, damp and mould

The Homes (Fitness for Human Habitation) Act 2018 binds us now and a resident can enforce it directly in the county court. Awaab’s Law binds registered providers of social housing rather than private ones, so which of the two reaches your resident is worth establishing early.

Published, with the instruments it is written against named on the page. No response time is promised yet, because there is no rota behind one.

Repairs, damp and mould
Complaints

The two stages, the acknowledgement window, and the route out of us to somebody independent.

Published, with the statutory acknowledgement window rather than a service promise.

Complaints policy
Safeguarding

How a concern is raised, recorded and escalated, and which of those routes go outside the organisation.

Published, with the statutory basis it is written against named on the page.

Safeguarding policy
Anti-social behaviour

In shared and street-based supported housing this is the policy that decides whether a scheme holds or whether the neighbours end up at the council.

Published.

Anti-social behaviour policy
Modern slavery

Section 54 of the Modern Slavery Act bites above a turnover threshold, and many authorities ask for a statement regardless of whether the duty has been triggered.

Published.

Modern slavery statement
Data protection

What happens to the personal data in a referral, on what lawful basis, and for how long.

Published, though the data controller it names is still to be confirmed with the company details above.

Privacy policy
Insurance and financial standing

Employer’s and public liability cover, and accounts or a bank reference. For a lease-based model, also what happens to the residents’ agreements if the organisation fails.

TBDNot supplied to this project. There is no insurance position on this site to read, so ask us for one rather than inferring anything from its absence.

A named contract owner

Somebody who answers by name and stays answering, rather than a shared inbox that fails quietly in the first month.

TBDNo route on this site has a named owner yet. The commissioning route below still carries an enquiry to the team that will own it, which is why it exists separately from the resident one.

The remaining documents — terms, cookies, equality and diversity and the accessibility statement — are published in the same place, each with the instrument that creates the duty printed on it. Policies and legal.

How this is normally paid for and bought

Four routes, and they carry the risk in four different places. None of this is specific to Bluebell — it is the shape of the market, written down so the conversation can start from the same page.

  • Rent

    The housing half, and it is a benefits question

    The rent is charged to the resident under their own agreement and is normally met by a housing benefit claim rather than bought by a commissioner. Where accommodation falls within the specified accommodation rules, housing costs are met through housing benefit administered by the local authority rather than through the Universal Credit housing element, and the rent restriction rules are applied differently. Whether a given scheme falls inside those rules turns on the provider’s legal form and on the authority’s own decision on each claim — entitlement belongs to the resident, no provider is approved or accredited for it in advance, and we will publish nothing about our own position until it is confirmed in writing.

  • Spot purchase

    One at a time

    A single support package or placement, agreed case by case against a referral you have already assessed. The fastest route to start something, and the one that commits least on either side.

  • Block contract

    Capacity agreed ahead of demand

    An agreed number of places bought in advance, so somewhere is available when you need it. It moves the risk of an empty room from the authority to the provider, and it is priced with that in mind.

  • Framework or DPS

    A pre-qualified list

    A place won through a procurement round, after which each call-off is still its own decision. Being on the list is permission to be asked, not a promise of volume.

All four end in the same place: an organisation with property, a licence where one is required and somebody able to sign. Those are the pieces Bluebell is assembling, which is why this page invites a conversation rather than a tender response.

What we will not do

Five commitments a commissioner can hold us to, and can check us against later.
  • We will not claim a registration, a licence, a framework place or a partner we do not hold. All four are checkable in a minute, and a provider who chances them has told you what its record-keeping is like. There is also no supported housing licence in England for anyone to hold yet — the Act that will create one has not been brought into effect.
  • We will not take on a property that does not meet the condition and safety standards, however good the rent is. A house that is not fit to live in cannot be made fit by a good support worker.
  • We will not accept a placement we cannot support. If what someone needs is personal care, or support beyond what we provide, the answer is no at the referral — an unplanned move costs the person far more than a delayed yes costs your team.
  • We will not set a scheme up as exempt or specified accommodation unless it genuinely meets the test. Claiming an enhanced housing benefit position for accommodation that does not earn it is the abuse this part of the sector is known for, and it is the resident who is left in it when the claim is challenged. How supported housing is paid for sets out both tests and the regulations they sit in.
  • We will not quote a rent, a service charge or a support cost before we have read the referral. A figure produced without one is a guess with a currency sign in front of it, and it is the figure that gets renegotiated in month three.

Charities, housing partners and employers

The About menu describes this page as charity and corporate, and that is the other half of what a partnership can mean here. Nothing has been agreed, so nothing and nobody is named: no charity, no housing association, no landlord, no corporate sponsor and no employer scheme has been confirmed to this project.

What a partnership tends to look like on this side is one of four things. A charity or a refuge that refers people and stays involved after they move in. A housing association or a landlord with property that would work better managed than empty. An employer offering routes into work for people who have been out of it. Or a funder paying for something specific and time-limited, with something to show at the end of it.

A wall of logos is the easiest thing on a site like this to assemble and the hardest to check, so there is not one. If you are a charity, a housing provider or an employer with something concrete in mind, the professional route below reaches the same team a commissioning enquiry does.

Open a conversation

Two routes, and they are the ones already published on the contact page rather than a new address invented for this one. They exist separately from the resident routes for a recorded reason: a commissioning question answered out of the resident inbox is answered by the wrong person. Each carries its own reply window and its own destination.

Neither route has a named owner yet, and this site does not invent one. What the route does today is carry your enquiry to the team that will own it, with the reason you got in touch attached, instead of dropping it into one shared mailbox.