Secret Survey Shows Universal Credit Issues

Saturday 10 October, 2015 Written by Inside Housing

Around one in three universal credit claimants living in housing association properties are having their benefit for housing costs paid directly to their landlord, results from a secret survey have shown.

The findings, seen by Inside Housing, show that despite the government’s intention to have all but a ‘small minority’ of claimants paid their benefit for housing costs directly, a large chunk of tenantsappear to have been judged unable to pay their rent, with their landlords stepping in.

According to a National Housing Federation (NHF) survey of 25 housing associations in May, 1,082 out of 3,009 universal credit claimants were on an ‘alternative payment arrangement’ (APA).

Most APAs allow the housing costs element to be paid directly to the landlord if their tenant is unable to manage their finances.

At the end of May, there were 65,380 people claiming universal credit.

The figures suggest a higher proportion of claimants could be on APAs than the government originally intended, although it is not clear the extent to which the NHF sample is representative of the wider universal credit caseload.

A senior official at the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) told Inside Housing welfare reform minister Lord David Freud was unlikely to be happy about the high number of tenants on APAs as payment to tenants is intended to be the default position.

Sam Lister, policy and practice officer at the Chartered Institute of Housing, said: ‘The original idea would have had a much lower expectation of people who would need [APAs], probably nearer 10%, 15%, or 20%.

A DWP spokesperson said the ‘vast majority’ of tenants were managing rent payments well.

ABC Comment: It does not quite seem that way from the evidence

112,180 people were on the Universal Credit caseload, as of 13th August 2015. Of these, 34,611 (or 31 per cent) were in employment and 77,571 (or 69 per cent) were not in employment. 128,342 total starts to Universal Credit up to 13th August 2015. 23,576 starts to Universal Credit were in the last month. 203,529 claims have been made for Universal Credit up to 3 rd September 2015. 22,624 claims have been made for Universal Credit in the last four weeks at an average of 5,656 per week.