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Universal Credit, Benefit Cap, APAs and DHPs
New HB Bulletin from DWP on this:
They are now feeling their way towards a coherent defence of their view that you cannot get a DHP if the full rent is being covered by UC paid direct to the landlord: if your rent has been paid in full, you don’t require further financial assistance to meet it. As I have already argued on here, I think that is a very narrow interpretation and I don’t agree with it, nor do many local authorities ... but it is at least based on a proper understanding of the regulations and you can have a sensible debate around it.
They still don’t seem to have let go entirely of the hilariously misconceived nonsense that has been doing the rounds over the last few weeks: especially the novel argument that paying some UC to the landlord means the award is no longer calculated by reference to a housing element. I sense a reluctance to be seen to climb down unequivocally from that. It appears the latest guidance has been written by a grown-up who doesn’t want to subject whoever was responsible for the earlier rubbish to complete public humiliation so they are still emphasising that you can only get a DHP if your UC assessment includes a housing element ... but that was never the issue, everyone knew that already.
We have a case where we received an APA for the full rent liability (£307 pcm) until recently when the tenant was capped when the reduced benefit cap came in. The capped amount of around £150 has been taken from the APA so we are receiving about 1/2 of the rent liability now and the tenant receives the rest. Presumably we can apply for a DHP for the shortfall as there is now a rent liability that isn’t being met?
I thought the capped amount would be taken form the remaining elements/personal allowance (rather than the Housing Element) which was why the issue of cancelling APA’s to claim DHP’s is an issue. If it is taken from the Housing Element then there is no need to cancel the APAs?
I am confused.
You are still thinking in the old way! There are no separate elements in the UC award - the elements are used earlier in the assessment to determine how much the claimant’s max UC is but after that it is just some money: as Glenys and Julia at Housing Systems rather nicely put it, a “smoothie” blended from the four fruits of the elements. Debating whether to extract the strawberries or the blueberries from the final jug is pointless - it has all been blitzed to kingdom come.
So what you have here is that the claimant was entitled to some UC- a single generic amount. Some of it was paid to you as landlord. DWP has now poured £157 of smoothie out of the jug so it no longer contains as much as it did before. They have also decided not to pay you quite as much of what is left as they did before. They haven’t capped the housing element as such, they have (i) capped the whole award and (ii) adjusted the payment to landlord - two separate actions. And yes it does according to the logic in the recent circular open up the possibility of a DHP as the full rent isn’t being paid and there is therefore a requirement for some financial assistance in that regard.
Thanks HB Anorak. Where would I be without you! I am familiar with and understand Julia’s smoothie analogy but in this case it appears UC don’t!
Surely there has to be some reasoning behind how much they decide to give us in an APA? The tenant has been capped by x amount and they have reduced the APA by x amount. Why? Is it in the regs anywhere that it comes from the APA? Normally when we apply for an APA (where someone isn’t working and there is no bedroom tax, housing costs contribution etc) we get the full amount so why just because they have been capped do we get less?
[ Edited: 11 Jan 2017 at 01:31 pm by JoW ]Normally when we apply for an APA (where someone isn’t working and there is no bedroom tax, housing costs contribution etc) we get the full amount so why just because they have been capped do we get less?
I think it’s to fit with their view that full APA = no DHP (leaving aside whether that view is correct): they can see that a full APA leaves the claimant without enough money to live on when capped so they have decided that a better idea might be to let the rent take second place for the time being as eating is more important. If the local authority buys the no DHP view, this is the only way the claimant won’t starve.
We wrote to the DWP asking them to clarify the policy on DHPs where there’s a MPTL in place and in their reply they confirm their view that -
‘If an MPTL is preventing an application to a DHP from being made (because there is no longer a housing shortfall), in agreement with the claimant, DWP can remove the MPTL, thereby enabling the claimant to make a DHP application.’
We’re wondering how this is playing out in practice - in JoW’s case the payment to the landlord has been reduced by the amount of the benefit cap which gets round the problem from the claimant’s point of view as HB Anorak says - does anyone have a case where the payment to the landlord hasn’t been reduced and the client has been told they have to come off the MPTL to get a DHP?
I’m still unclear how this is going to work out in practice. One approach - which is probably the simplest - is that the benefit cap is taken from the housing costs payable to the landlord. This would then enable the Local Authority to pay the DHP immediately. But in other areas it seems it is being taken from the claimant. In this case then is the process:
(1) claimant applies for DHP to the Local Authority
(2) Local Authority contacts DHP (the work coach or someone else?) and asks them to stop paying to the landlord
(3) The Local Authority then pays it to the claimant who it is hoped pays the DHP plus the rest of the rent to the landlord.
This leaves all sorts of questions - how long will it take? what if the work coach does not agree? what if the landlord is opposed?
Does the DHP cover the first period of the benefit cap (when the money was paid to the landlord before the claimant knew anything about it? Or does the claimant miss out on that first month and only get a DHP for the second month?
If there is anyone out there who knows how it is going to work, please let the rest of us know!
Ruth
Re DWP’s insistence that any MPTL is removed before a DHP can be made: it seems that the penny has finally dropped…
Lord Henley: “DWP does not see any reason why Discretionary Housing Payments cannot be paid to Universal Credit claimants who have Managed Payments to their Landlord in place.” (!)
Ah, see it was the Councils’ fault all along: they had somehow got the idea that DHPs cannot be paid alongside an MPTL and the inventive and helpful DWP had come up with the “remove MPTL” work-around to by-pass this misguided intransigence on local authorities’ part. NOT!
DWP Explain:-
“12. Previously you said that an MPTL had to be removed before a DHP could
be granted, what’s changed?
At the time we felt that our interpretation of the legislation; Section 2 of The Discretionary Financial Assistance Regulations 2001, was such that the MPTL would need to be removed before a DHP could be granted. DWP does not see any legal reason why DHP cannot be paid to Universal Credit claimants who have an MPTL in place. We have revised our guidance to make the Departments position clearer and remove any confusion it may have been causing for LAs”
( From the revised version of Circular G12/2016 https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/hb-bulletin-g122016 )
Never trust anyone who refers to Regulations containing “sections”!
Looks like the problem hasn’t gone away. Vulnerable client is receiving UC and is subject to the benefit cap, mainly because his rent (for accommodation where he has been placed by LA) is very high. His rent is being paid in full direct to landlord under an APA, leaving him very little left over, hence an application was made for a DHP. Application refused, so we went back to LA quoting latest DWP position. LA replied maintaining their position, saying:
“The issue here is the fact that Mr CLIENT is being paid the full housing element of £XXXX a month directly to his rent account so his rent commitment is met.
Therefore there is no shortfall in the housing cost in order for me to grant a DHP.”
The fig leaf which is being used is the DWP statement in their revised policy that “DHPs can be made to people who are entitled to either HB or a Universal Credit award that includes an amount for housing costs and who have difficulty meeting their rent commitments.”
In other words the intent behind the change of policy is effectively being ignored.