Good morning, As I’m sure you’re already aware, Iain Duncan Smith, Secretary of State for Work and Pensions announced on Thursday, the DWP’s plans for the next stages in the Universal Credit roll-out. You can read the full transcript here. a)      The Government’s priority has been to deliver Universal…

Earlier today I advised you that the Judicial Review attempt had failed. You’ll find the full judgement at:

http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/QB/2013/2213.html

Below you’ll find evidence of the court’s displeasure with our Secretary of State for not creating secondary legislation in relation to the earlier Gorry, Burnip Judgement and relying…

Judicial Review Appeal fails!

The BBC and Guardian have just announced that the Judicial Review (JR) attempt, pursued by a number of disabled families, has been unsuccessful. The JR involved ten families who wished to challenge the loss in their housing benefit due to the imposition of “Bedroom Tax” sanctions.

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The Work and Pensions Committee has just announced it intends to undertake an Inquiry into the provision of support to meet housing costs in the reformed welfare system.

Recently the Committee published a report in November 2012 on Universal Credit implementation: meeting the needs of vulnerable claimants. The…

Almost every day you’ll find newspaper articles covering protests against: under-occupation penalties; threats of repossession action by councils and RSLs for rent arrears; combined with complaints about new Council Tax charges arising from the less generous Council Tax Reduction scheme which started in April.
In Sheffield anti-Bedroom Tax protestors gathered…

Earlier this week, the DWP issued its latest circular A14/2013 providing councils with some advice on how the Ashton-under-Lynne Pathfinder will prepare the way for the national roll-out of Universal Credit. The circular is really quite technical, as a whole, so I’ve decided not to attach it nor depress you. But…

In earlier bulletins I’ve commented on the critical importance of Housing Benefit (HB) to RSL revenue streams. With all the attention being focused on the Bedroom Tax and Universal Credit it’s easy to overlook the scheme still has still another 5 years, at least, to run, and probably many more as the…

The DWP confirmed on Monday this week that Personal Independence Payments (PIP), the replacement for DLA for people between 16 and 64, will now be rolled out nationally.
Those currently receiving DLA outwith this age band are not affected and so will continue to receive DLA. In contrast, those…

DWP has just issued a HB circular which provides a breakdown, council by council, of how much of a DWP allocation has been made, and secondly, how much the budget can be increased to with your local council’s support.

If you examine Annexe A you’ll see the…

The DWP announced yesterday, that the 6 demonstration projects, designed to assess the amount of assistance tenants will require, under Universal Credit (UC) with budgeting, opening bank accounts and paying rent to their landlord, have been extended by 6 months, until December 2013. https://www.gov.uk/government/news/direct-payment-projects-extended-for-6-months
Significantly, this…