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The Universal Credit direct payment demonstration projects will be extended for a further six months, Minister for Welfare Reform Lord Freud recently announced, as new findings from the projects are published.
The Department for Work and Pensions says the extension will help to further develop the support needed for social housing tenants moving onto Universal Credit. The projects will now run until the end of the year.
The Welsh Government has launched a consultation into reforming the private rented sector in Wales.
Proposals include ditching ASTs in favour of simplified, standard contracts. They would contained a ‘prohibited conduct’ term to deal with anti-social behaviour.
Four families have launched a legal challenge against the government’s benefit cap on the grounds it is ‘discriminatory and unreasonable’.
The families have issued judicial review proceedings against the work and pensions secretary Iain Duncan Smith today at London’s High Court.
Welfare reform minister Lord Freud has described a suicide linked to his controversial bedroom tax policy as a "desperately sad event".
Giving evidence to the House of Commons Welsh Affairs Committee, which is investigating the impact of housing benefit reforms in Wales, Lord Freud extended his condolences to the family of Stephanie Bottrill, who left a note in which she blamed the government for her death.
Letting agents have criticised the Government’s flagship ‘build to rent’ policy, describing it as a “ludicrous” intervention in the sector.
A survey of over 250 agents by Leeds company Morgans in conjunction with software supplier LetMC, found unhappiness over the Government’s approach.
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.
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 coming bedroom tax will end up costing Scottish taxpayers more not less, a housing charity has warned.
Shelter Scotland is now calling on the Scottish Government to make £50m available to protect the country's tenants from the under-occupancy charge which is due in April.
Liberal Democrat peers have called for there to be no fresh welfare cuts before the next general election.
Peers yesterday debated the Welfare Benefits Uprating Bill, which will cap increases in a number of benefits at 1 per cent rather than the level of inflation as is currently the case.
The four boroughs forced to trial a £500-a-week benefit cap will spend their whole share of an emergency hardship fund within five months unless they move people to cheaper areas or obtain more funding.
Research by London Councils for Inside Housing reveals the four London boroughs unexpectedly having to trial the government’s £26,000-a-year benefit cap could spend their share of the pot before their peers are affected at all.
