Impact of Universal Credit Housing Options Perspective

Background Although UC has been in place for some time now there was no systematic recording by the Housing Options department as to the actual numbers of our customers who were in receipt. This position has now changed following the introduction of the HRA and the new statistical reports that each LA must submit.

Reporting As part of HCLIC requirements each housing authority must report the following information Ethnic Group Sexual Orientation Nationality of main applicant Employment status of main applicant Benefit towards housing costs Benefits towards other living costs Accommodation at time of application Main reason for loss of settled home It should be noted that the customer can decline to submit the information

Reporting cont… With regards to Housing Costs the following responses are available: Don’t know/refused Housing Benefit No Benefits Universal Credit

What we know Since 3 April 2018-31 Oct 2018 breakdown is as follows: Remember roll out of UC was much earlier in NDDC than WDDC/WPBC hence higher number of cases WDDC WPBC NDDC DON’T KNOW/REFUSED 17 23 18 HOUSING BENEFIT 47 108 28 NO BENEFITS 139 204 99 UNIVERSAL CREDIT 39 67 58 % OF UC 16% 17% 29%

Emergency Accommodation Between December 2017 and April 2018 customers who were placed in B&B or within the leasing scheme had to claim housing costs via UC and not HB(unless they met one of the exception criteria). During this period around 75 households were placed into B&B.

Emergency accommodation cont.. During this time at least 25 of these households had to claim housing costs through UC. The average costs per customer for B&B is around £1200 The cost is normally recovered from either the customer or through benefit payments that they are entitled to. Unfortunately monies were not forthcoming from either the customer directly or from the DWP. The councils combined have lost approximately £30,000 revenue in that short time frame.

Case study # 1 A female customer with two children contacted us following a relationship breakdown, her partner had left earlier in the year. The customer had made an application for UC but was later served with Section 8 notice due to rent arrears. The Housing Officer, when completing and income and expenditure form, queried why she was only receiving £317.50 for housing costs when she was fully benefit dependent. The Size of her household meant that should be receiving the full LHA rate of £595. It took some time to get response from the DWP but eventually we were advised that the customer hadn’t requested to claim for her housing costs when she made the initial application. This was further complicated in that they were only paying half of the rental liability because the partner was still named on the tenancy. Housing Options had to make a payment to landlord to clear the arrears in order to preserve the tenancy whilst the UC claim was amended.

Case study # 2 A single female customer renting from social landlord. She already had rent arrears which were not assisted by fact that she was subject to bedroom tax. Checking the amounts paid by UC it was clear that the housing costs were wrong even allowing for the 14% deduction. No overpayments were in place. Response came back from DWP that there was a mistake in the amount of housing costs awarded and that it would be corrected. However this was too late to salvage tenancy as the judge refused to stay the warrant.

Case study # 3 Female customer in domestic abuse relationship. She stated that her partner was taking the money from her bank account when she received her UC payment. She fell into rent arrears and was subsequently evicted by her social landlord. Despite the fact that she was in a refuge for period of time an application for DHP was refused because she had already received full housing costs within her UC. Housing Options had to make a payment to the previous landlord to clear the rent account in order for her to be accepted by another landlord.

Budgeting Advances It is also clear that the assistance available to claimants is not as generous under UC as legacy benefits. Claimants are no longer able to claim for rent in advance payments resulting in greater demand on the LA and local charities