The champagne corks were flying yesterday in Whitehall as Ian Duncan Smith announced that the Benefit Cap has been successfully delivered in the 4 London Boroughs of Enfield, Haringey, Bromley and Croydon. In total, just over 2,400 households were capped by having their Housing Benefit reduced. I’ve extrapolated the key…

Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mr Iain Duncan Smith MP) issued a Ministerial Statement yesterday, in advance of giving evidence to the Work & Pensions Committee, on the current state of play with Universal Credit, explaining how the new scheme would be rolled out nationally from October, 2013 In…

Removal of the spare room subsidy – First tier Tribunal decisions The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has written, just yesterday, by way of an HB circular, to councils throughout the UK, seeking to be kept updated on any appeals against the “spare room subsidy”, better known as “Bedroom…

Can’t stay, Can’t go! is the title of a really well crafted and interesting report by Grand Union Housing Group, which is focused on the impact of the Bedroom Tax on its various subsidaries, following 6 months of operation, in the different geographic areas of it property interests. Unlike some…

Carl Brown, Deputy News Editor at Inside Housing posted a tweet the other day which caught my attention. He headlined a linked article – “More whinging from social landlords about UC – this time from associations in pathfinder areas! http://www.insidehousing.co.uk/regulation/landlords-slam-welfare-pilots/6529073.article. I’m surprised at how little reaction there has been to the…

The DWP announced, just yesterday, the phased roll-out of the “Claimant Commitment” to 20,000 Job Centres starting from October at a rate of 100 per month. See DWP report >>> here . So what does this actually mean? Jobseekers UK wide will have to demonstrate the efforts they are making…

You’ll be aware from one of my most recent bulletins of some significant successes at First-tier appeal tribunals concerning the Bedroom Tax, and, in particular the Judgements of Simon Collins QC Judge of the First-tier where he raised some serious questions about how to treat use historically used as, for…

My newsletter last week focused on the issue of “changes in circumstances” and how they would be treated differently under Universal Credit. Kevin Turnpenney, Head of Operations at Barnet Homes responded: “Bill, I write with reference to your recent newsletter, regarding the above issue. Aside from individual change in circumstances…

Now that the Parliamentary recess has ended I expect you’ll start to see much more activity on the Welfare Reform front. Certainly, the DWP Press Office was tweeting away yesterday, no doubt trying to dampen down David Orr’s demands for the “Bedroom Tax” to be scrapped. Within a matter of…

The Bedroom Tax is clearly focusing the minds of Social Landlord staff, throughout the UK as more stories emerge of appeal successes at tribunals and there’s mounting evidence of council housing benefit sections using Discretionary Housing Payments to disuade association tenants from pursuing their grievances to the Tribunal Service. A…