28th March, 2017
Good afternoon
As I’m sure you’re aware, we are fast approaching the 31st March 2017 deadline set by the DWP to report any April, 2017 rent increases, applicable to tenants of yours, living in areas designated “LIVE” for Universal Credit purposes.
Ordinarily the obligation to report any change in circumstances, including rent increases, is the responsibility of each of your tenants. However, for tenants living in “LIVE” areas, where Universal Credit generally applies to only single people, as there is no online facility for doing so, DWP has created a new process, for this year.
Contrastingly, in “Full Service” areas, the onus remains with your tenant to report the relevant increase, and notification letter validating this, by going online and reporting it through their journal.
The briefing note, issued by DWP can be found here and associated spreadsheet or schedule as DWP refer to it, can be accessed by clicking the link.
The schedule must be sent to the UC live service dedicated DWP e-mail inbox noted below:
SOCIALRENTED.SECTORSCAN@DWP.GSI.GOV.UK
If possible, the schedules should only include tenants who are UC live service claimants. If you operate in an area where both live and full service applies and can’t separate out the “live” cases, list everyone and DWP will do the needful.
Before returning the schedule, make sure you’ve populated all the necessary information, including: Claimant name, Claimant NI Number, Claimant address and postcode, Landlord name, Rent old amount, etc. Also make sure the “Subject” field of the e-mail firstly contains the region and secondly the name of the social landlord organisation (e.g. North East (Gemini Housing Association) or Scotland (Taurus Housing Association) or Wales (Pisces Local Authority).
On receiving the schedule, UC live service will acknowledge receipt by return email and process all changes received for our live service claimants.
Any delay by you or your tenants in reporting any increase in rent, out with the tenant’s April, 2017 Benefit Assessment Period, will cause loss of income to tenant and most probably their landlord, so make sure everything is done to avoid this.
Please note, this exercise has no bearing on the longstanding arrangements with Local councils, relating to Housing Benefit, so continue to notify councils in the normal way.
If you require any further information on this or any other welfare reform topic, please get in touch bill@ucadvice.co.uk or 0733 080 389
Bill Irvine
UC Advice & Advocacy Ltd