Some figures on overspenders and underspenders on DHPS

Shockingly (but not surprisingly) Liverpool got a pot of £2.06 million and received 14,335 applications for help. By contrast Westminster got a pot of £4.82 million and received just 2,089 applications -

http://www.insidehousing.co.uk/councils-reject-70000-crisis-fund-requests/7003640.article

Sadly the figures are wrong, the “Original Pot” figure is THIS YEARS (2014/15) figure whereas the spend is for last year. For example my authority Aylesbury Vale is shown as returning £14,927 when actually none was returned and there was an overspend.

Is it not also that rents in Westminster are so high any shortfall between rent and HB will be extremely high - much bigger than is experienced in Liverpool. So although numbers are small in comparison, the gap they have to bridge via DHP is huge?

Yes, that’s the reason ... and for similar reasons people are more likely to be capped in Inner London than elsewhere because it doesn’t take many children to tip CTC + LHA over the £500 limit.  Whereas in Liverpool the demand will have been driven much more by bedroo tax which is a comparatively small deduction per person.

I have a view (seem to be in a minority of one in the benefits world) that giving huge DHPs to people in London is throwing good money after bad ... what’s the point?  The situation is untenable.  The rented market has gone all wrong, how can these ludicrous sums possibly be real market rents when only a small number of poeople can afford to pay them without claiming HB?

“I have a view (seem to be in a minority of one in the benefits world) that giving huge DHPs to people in London is throwing good money after bad ...”

I agree.  The following is something (partially adapted)  I previously posted.

The real issue which needs to be pushed to the top of the agenda is that of a proper, coherent and considered housing policy.  Proper security of tenure and rent control need to be brought back into the private sector.  Initial measures should be the abolition of the Assured Shorthold Tenancy, the scrapping of market rents and proper powers being given back to Rent Assessment Committees. 

Within a generation we have seen the invasion of the market into all forms of social and economic relations between citizens, leading to the widening of the gap between the incomes of those at the top and those of the bottom of society and an increase in those numbers of those we now refer to as the working poor.  An affordable roof over one’s head is a basic need in life and one of the hallmarks of a civilized society is where it ranks this issue in the hierarchy of social concerns. 

There should be no room for ideology in housing policy.  The obsession in this country with owner occupation, bringing with it the highwayman of the mortgage, has to stop.  We are now seeing the biggest fall in owner occupation in a generation.  As Larry Elliot writes in the Guardian (http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2013/jan/20/1930s-building-boom-bring-growth), “mortgages are still out of reach for first-time buyers unless they can find deposits of 15-20%. That takes some doing when the average cost of a home in the UK is £160,000-plus, and a lot more than that in London and the south-east. The squeeze on real incomes combined with job insecurity explains why housing transactions are half what they were before the 2007 crash”.

He argues for a programme of mass house building as happened in the 1930’s.  He writes, “building houses, both before and after the second world war, helped not just tackle overcrowding and squalor but also ensured house prices stayed relatively stable until the early 1970s”  He argues that building more houses would create jobs, kick start the economy and keep house prices down.  He quotes Vince Cable who said that “houses built by the private sector rocketed from around 130,000 in 1931 to almost 300,000 in 1934 and it is estimated that house building contributed almost a third of all employment increases in this period.”  The government might respond that they are already doing this.  He retorts that their efforts are not enough and has “provided perverse incentives for local authorities to build when they should concentrate on retrofitting, and has failed to concentrate on areas where affordability issues are most pressing”.  He points to “deep, structural issues that make a comprehensive solution to Britain’s housing problems hard to achieve”. 

However, in my view, this issue is too important to be left purely to the private sector.  It must be remembered that the 1930’s also saw a boom in social housing provision.  Here in Liverpool, which had some of the worst housing in Europe, there were widespread slum clearances and a planned programme of social housing provision.  Although much of this was itself bulldozed in the 1970’s and 1980’s, many residents at the time were overjoyed to have, for the first time, indoor toilets, fitted kitchens and hot running water. 

A decent affordable place to live ought to be a right and not some kind of prize in the lottery of life, dependant on an individual’s purchasing power in the market place. Different people have different needs and come from different bargaining positions.  We need these properties now but we need a balance between those for rent and those to buy.  A proper and informed housing policy could easily achieve this and would condemn sticking plaster solutions to the dust bin of history.