Birmingham City Council recorded a huge increase in the number of people seeking help to pay their rent in the first two weeks after government welfare reforms came into effect.
The council says almost 2,000 applications were made for Discretionary Housing Payments (DHP) in the first two weeks of April – 50% more than for the whole of the first quarter of 2012-13.
Fraud and error in the benefit system stands at £3.5bn or 2.1% of total benefit expenditure, latest figures from the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) show.
Preliminary estimates for fraud and error in 2012/13 show £1.2bn of benefit spending is lost due to fraud, £1.6bn due to claimant error, and £0.7bn due to official error.
The government is expected to seek to restrict migrants’ access to social housing and benefits in measures to be outlined tomorrow.
Tomorrow’s Queens speech will include an Immigration Bill. This is expected to include measures to limit the access that migrants have to health services, benefits and social housing. There will also be measures to make it easier for foreign criminals to be deported.
A new report from Shelter that claims to have uncovered the damage done to children who grow up in private rental homes has hit controversy.
The report, Growing up renting, claims that children pay the price for insecure tenancies, high rents and constant moves that Shelter says are standard in today’s market. Some tenants have nowhere to go between tenancies and families end up sofa-surfing.
Housing benefit payments will be sent directly to landlords after tenants have gone into two months of arrears during the Universal Credit (UC) pathfinders.
A circular published by the Department of Works and Pensions (DWP) said: “Landlords can refer rent arrears cases to Universal Credit; those which are under two months’ rent will trigger Universal Credit to contact the claimant to discuss their non-payment as part of the Personal Budgeting Support process, where as those with over two months arrears will be switched to direct rent payment automatically and relevant budgeting support activity arranged subsequently.”
The government's new Universal Credit (UC) system has begun to be rolled-out today, in four North West towns.
The reformed benefit programme will be introduced in four jobcentres in parts of Oldham, Ashton-under-Lyne, Wigan and Warrington.
The number of new applicants seeking to rent in March was up 21% from February, with demand outstripping supply as the number of available homes to rent rose only 5%.
According to Sequence – part of Connells – average rents for March were £704, unchanged from February. London rents averaged £1,375, almost twice the national average.
Housing charity Shelter has reported a surge in demand for its homelessness advice services.
In the last year, the charity has recorded a 40% rise in the numbers of callers in England needing help with housing costs, arrears and other debt issues, while in the last six months, visitors to its online housing costs advice service have doubled.
Edinburgh Council has adopted a ‘no eviction’ policy for tenants affected by the ‘bedroom tax’.
The local authority agreed that ‘where the director of services for communities was satisfied that tenants who were subject to the under-occupation charge had done all they reasonably could to avoid falling in to arrears, then all legitimate means to collect rent arrears should be utilised except eviction’.
The first four councils to test the government’s new benefit cap have warned they have not received enough money to implement the changes.
Enfield, Croydon, Haringey and Bromley councils on Monday became the first local authorities to implement the £26,000-a-year benefit cap. The councils must identify who is eligible for the cap and administer the new system.