Good afternoon, The “Independent” ran an article the other day “The Government’s Universal Credit welfare reform has serious flaws” http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/universal-credit-welfare-reform-has-serious-flaws-a7011206.html, which attracted considerable social media attention and comment. It’s perhaps unsurprising, given it highlighted the individual and mass effect of HMG, through George Osborne, reducing and withdrawing “work allowances” especially for…

Good morning, A number of housing association & private members have contacted me, extremely concerned about the potential impact on revenues, created by the series of planned changes to Housing Benefit and Universal Credit, announced in the Chancellor’s summer & autumn budgets. Although, in many instances, we’re still awaiting much…

Good morning, You’ll recall I wrote to you on 30th November to highlight George Osborne’s Autumn Statement announcement to Parliament which included: “Capping Housing Benefit in the social rented sector – The government will apply the relevant Local Housing Allowance (LHA) rates as maxima for Housing Benefit paid in the…

Good morning, Our 30th July bulletin http://universalcreditadvice.com/housing-associations/2016/07/universal-credit—how-to-pursue-queries-complaints explained how you could raise queries and make complaints to DWP, concerning Universal Credit administration processes, where problems of delays or non-payment of Landlord Managed Payments (LMPs) or Third Party Payments (collectively known as APAs) occur. We continue to press DWP hierarchy to…

Good morning, DWP has recently produced a revised version of its Discretionary Housing Payments (DHP) Guidance Manual, which includes a Good Practice section and can be found here. The latest version reflects guidance which is designed to address the likely impact of the summer & autumn benefit changes, proposed by…

Good morning, You may recall, I wrote to you initially in November 2015, following the Chancellor’s autumn statement, which, amongst other things, raised the prospect of social landlord tenancy charges being restricted to Local Housing Allowance rates for all new tenancies created from April 2016 – effective from 2018. The…

Good morning, One of the most common questions I’m asked when doing our training sessions http://universalcreditadvice.com/housing-associations/training is – how will claimants exist with no money between their last payment of legacy benefits until Universal Credit’s first payment kicks in 5/6 weeks later? The answer lies in what are known as…

Good morning, A common question I receive nowadays, from my Housing Association clients, relates to the recent change (from 3rd August, 2015) whereby in “new” claims for Universal Credit, the claimant has to wait 7 days before his eligibility to UC will start. Some of you are clearly under the…

Good morning,   Our website www.ucadvice.co.uk and related services are utilised by just under 1000 registered RSL users, with the numbers steadily increasing as the rollout of Universal Credit expands throughout GB.   Each month we issue a number of UC updates, through our bulletins. Some of the more recent ones…

Good morning, Both Leigh Day & Public Law solicitors have reported that the Supreme Court has granted permission, to their 5 adult clients, all adversely affected by “Bedroom Tax” penalties, to take their appeals to the highest court of appeal. Permission was granted, following last year’s Court of Appeal decision,…