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Financial support for domestic abuse victims with no R2R?

Va1der
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Welfare Rights Officer with SWAMP Glasgow

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What provision/LA powers or legislation covers housing and financial support for domestic abuse victims for someone with pre-settled status and (seemingly) no R2R for benefits (in Scotland)?

Were there any additional measures made during the pandemic?

I’m interested in the above in general, but for background:

A client was refused multiple UC claims on HRT, but before and through that period was provided with LA support (not benefits) as a DA victim for housing and a weekly allowance. This continued until they were moved to a new LA where all support stopped.

We are looking at supporting them with new claims to benefits now on R2R as a worker, but there is a period before they started work where they may not have had a R2R and accrued rent arrears for temporary accommodation.

I’m doing some fact finding, but in the meantime I’m just not clear on what provisions they LA could have been supporting them under.

Elliot Kent
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Local authorities have various powers and duties to assist on a discretionary basis under e.g. the Children Act, Care Act and Localism Act. Whilst no specific additional provision was made during the pandemic, the “Everyone In” initiative saw LAs encouraged to make greater use of these powers. Even before the pandemic, many LAs had specific arrangements in place in relation to seeking to support certain cases of people without access to conventional welfare benefits - there was discussion of this at the last NAWRA conference before the lockdown and I imagine there are some slides on the website.

See also R (Ncube) v Brighton and Hove CC [2021] EWHC 578 (Admin) for a discussion of the various powers albeit in an English case.

Daphne
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Justjared
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Worth a gander, CPAG set up a project recently which supports advisors assisting survivors of DV: https://cpag.org.uk/welfare-rights/survivors-welfare-advice-project

Va1der - 02 November 2021 03:33 PM

What provision/LA powers or legislation covers housing and financial support for domestic abuse victims for someone with pre-settled status and (seemingly) no R2R for benefits (in Scotland)?

Were there any additional measures made during the pandemic?

I’m interested in the above in general, but for background:

A client was refused multiple UC claims on HRT, but before and through that period was provided with LA support (not benefits) as a DA victim for housing and a weekly allowance. This continued until they were moved to a new LA where all support stopped.

We are looking at supporting them with new claims to benefits now on R2R as a worker, but there is a period before they started work where they may not have had a R2R and accrued rent arrears for temporary accommodation.

I’m doing some fact finding, but in the meantime I’m just not clear on what provisions they LA could have been supporting them under.

Va1der
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Welfare Rights Officer with SWAMP Glasgow

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Total Posts: 706

Joined: 7 May 2019

Thanks Elliot. And thanks Daphne for saving me having to read and interpret all that myself. One of these days I’ll manage to convince Finance that we can afford a subscription to your normal content.

I’d forgotten CPAG was doing stuff on DV. I’m having multiple DV cases in my new role, so may well come in handy, thanks.