Temp accommodation under the Homelessness legislation & UC housing costs

I was under the impression for a recent welfare reform course that when claiming UC, the housing element will be paid direct to the tenant even when they have been placed in temp accommodation under homless legisation but an officer at a local RSL is sure that under such circs the housing additon will be paid direct to them as the landlord.

Please can anyone confirm which is the case, and point me in the direction of which peice of legislation to check.

Many thanks

This is my understanding for Homeless temporarry accommodation under UC.

The housing element for all TA cases will be based on the household size NOT the property

Normal payments direct rules will apply. 

Your colleague probabbly is referring to leased or licensed temp. This means (prior to UC) they currently get 90% LHA plus £60.00 per week management element.

Under UC the proposal for TA, is that the claimant will be paid direct, but the MANAGEMENT ELEMENT will be seperated and then paid direct to the LHA (a sort of DHP, the precise mechanism is still to be decided) and then reallocated to the landlord.

NB this management element might not be £60.00 per week, the precise level is still to be decided.

So you are probably now really confused.

Is it possible that they are thinking of exempt supported accommodation that will continue to be paid by Housing Benefit and I assume direct to landlord?

SamW - 15 March 2013 11:04 AM

Is it possible that they are thinking of exempt supported accommodation that will continue to be paid by Housing Benefit and I assume direct to landlord?

It is, BTW I strongly suspect, with the exception of Gareth, I dont think anybody really understands Universal Credit.

In fact Gareth now has a lot to answer for, as he is single handedly creating the “false” impression, on this site, that the UC is understadable, making the rest of feel like imbeciles as we cant seem to get our heads round this new so called “simple” benefit…...... 

I might be wrong, but if Gareth wasnt around we would have simply concluded that in fact UC is now MORE complicated than what was being replaced, as it is has been designed from scratch by fanatics, who are seeking a MYTHICAL PERFECTION rather than ammending a naturally evolving Benefit Sytem which was founded on the sound priciples of helping those in need. UC now appears to be more about getting people into work in the teeth of a recession.

It might seem tough to blame Gareth, but the TRUTH must be told.

Look it really is simple.

Lord Freud says so, IDS says so, David Cameron says so; they can’t all be wrong.

So if you can’t grasp how simple it really is ....

I have to agree.

I must try to keep up.

I confess I was hoping to sneak in a post without you noticing.

Apologies.

Many thanks MartinB - it does seem that I have not completely lost the plot in thinking that homeless hostel payments for housing costs will go to the tenant on UC, not to the RSL.

In response to SamW - this RSL doent run our exempted supported accommodation so that does not appear to be where their thinking was stemming from.

Does anyone know the UC reg I need to quote to confirm this is the case?

BTW - I am simple, so no wonder I cant grasp UC. Unlike govt ministers, I have only spent 22 years as a welf, so what do I know???  :)

At the risk of making it sound even less simple, is it helpful to express it as two separate questions, which are not really related?

Q1 - will the claimant’s UC include a housing element?
A: If the claimant has been placed in temp acc under the Housing Act 1996 or Scottish equivalent, yes it will and it will be calculated as if s/he were a normal private tenant.  But if the claimant occupies exempt accommodation with more or less the same definition as currently applies for HB purposes, no it won’t: it appears that HB will soldier on for the next few years at least

Q2 - if the claimant’s UC does include a housing element, will it be paid to the landlord?
A: Who knows? The C&P Regs include the vaguest and broadest discretion to pay landlords direct and do not really leave us any the wiser.  It will come down to DWPs internal policy, but from what thyey have said publicly it appears they would prefer by default not to pay any landlords direct and there is no special treatment for any particular kind of landlord or tenancy.  So your UC housing element could be paid to the landlord at DWP’s discretion but the fact you are in homeless temp acc will probably not be a major factor in deciding that.

I have some notes which say temporary accomodation is LHA +£60 outside London and £40+LHA in London.  I can’t remember where I got that from or what happens to any split I’m afraid.

Another bit from a DWP presentaion says:

Temporary Accommodation in Universal Credit will have housing costs met in line with Local Housing Allowance rates. An additional management element will be paid as a national flat rate to local authorities.

The figures Gareth refers to are the rates of HB subsidy that DWP pays to the Council for temp acc under the current arrangements.  The actual HB awards are calculated in the normal way which means in effect that the Council ends up subsidising the placement more often than not.  The LHA rate used in the subsidy formula is the rate for the property, not the claimant.

Under UC these claims are lumped in with private renters, which means the UC housing element is based on the claimant’s personal LHA.  And as far as I can make out, they will not be given any special treatment when it comes to decisions on direct payment.

There is a particular concern in Scotland that the proposed Government top-up or balancing payment will leave the authority our of pocket even assuming the Council is able to collect all the UC money from the claimant to begin with - they have to house a lot of young single people under the more generous homelessness provisions but the claimant’s personal LHA will only be the shared rate.

I have too many bits of paper lying around.

Here’s another DWP piece:

The management element for temporary accommodation cases in Universal Credit will be separated out and paid directly to local authorities. In the interim, our preferred option is through top-ups to local authorities’ Discretionary Housing Payment pots with a mechanism to reflect changes in local caseloads. We will develop a longer-term solution with stakeholders and other Government departments.

I think the problem that people have with universal credit is that they think it is actually designed to deliver the benefits that people need.  This is not actually the case.  It is designed to deliver a benefit that is simple to administer, whatever the consequences for people on the recieving end. Understand this and everything becomes clear.  However the government seems to have forgotten about the upper tribunal which is going to have its work cut out filling in the gaps.

It is nice of Gareth to pretend he is struggling a bit, to make us feel better. 

My favourite bit is the application of the social sector size criteria (That is the bedroom tax to everbody in the whole world, other than IDS) to Temporary Homelesse Accommodation.

Where the LA/HA or RSL use their own accommodation the rules apply.

Where the LA/HA or RSL are leasing the accommodation the rules dont.

BRILLIANT!

One clever authority near me is leasing individual rooms in HMOs for that very reason.

Most of this is annoying, maddening etc.

However, most HP units will adapt, they are used to complex rules regarding subsidy.

The one thing that will certainly sink them is…..

Homeless familes occupying Temporary Accommodation cases are NOT exempt from the cap.

Thats it.

Direct payments,bedroom tax, HB subsidy…..not nice, but they will manage.

Its the CAP.