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The bedroom tax, ‘a policy that has no logic’
Patrick Butler of the Guardian has written an article on the spare bedroom tax. He pulls out examples from Duncan Forbe’s blog the chief executive of Bron Afon Community Housing in south Wales, who went around visiting tenants in Torfaen with 60 of his staff.
Here’s one account, of an ex-serviceman suffering from post-traumatic stress:
He currently lives at the property with one daughter who is hoping to go to university next year. So where he currently under-occupies the property to the tune of one bedroom this is likely to increase later next year. His daughter is worried about him and her decision (whether she even goes on to higher education) is going to be heavily influenced by the effects of the changes to dad’s benefit. His depression is not seen as a disability sufficient to prevent him seeking work so his benefit was cut recently. We talked about how he could manage the additional cost following a cut in his housing benefit, short of stopping eating and heating the home he was unable to identify any other savings. He was resigned to having to move to a smaller property but did not want to do it. The current home is the one he raised his children in, the one his wife shared with him until she died. He was proud of the home and the time, effort and money he had clearly put into it. Leaving that to start again was a thought that (I observed) made him so very anxious and visibly shaken.
Here’s another tenant, who was also anxious:
When I went door knocking I met a lady who is blind and lives in a two-bedroom property. She will get a cut in benefit due to the ‘bedroom tax’. She has lived in her home around 20 years and it has been adapted for her needs. Her neighbour acts as a carer for her too. If she is forced to move because she can’t afford to stay she will have to leave the community she loves because there are no one -bedroom properties in her area. If she moves away she will leave an area she is able to safely travel around because she knows it so well.
Perhaps the most unfair burden is that even if families were to try and downsize, there are virtually no affordable smaller properties any where nearby. Take Blaenavon in the north of the borough: 113 Bron Afon households there are deemed to be under-occupying but there is nowhere to go. There are just 29 one bedroom flats locally, of which just five or six a year become come available. It costs more to rent a private rented sector one bedroom flat in Cardiff or Newport than a three bedroom social home in Blaenavon, points out Forbes, so if the families do move, it will cost the government more in housing benefit.
For Patrick’s article, see Welfare reform: the bedroom tax, ‘a policy that has no logic’
As some readers may be aware Oxford City Council and a local Housing Assoc. is running one of the pilot projects for direct payment of rent costs (HB) in preperation for Universal Credit. To date the project has been pretty successful with only about 5% of tenants falling into arrears etc due to the scheme (after some initial ‘teething problems’). However that has invloved significant input from the social landlords to suppprt some tenants. Some tenants already known to the landlords as likely to have difficulty were not included in the scheme. It fair to say tenants should never be labelled as ‘vulnerable’ or likely to have difficulty - some won’t and equally those who might be expected to manage direct payments got into significant difficulty. At the end of the day the numbers involved in the project are small and the resourse imput from the social landlords significant (not to mention advice agencies, support workers etc.)
I attended a project update meeting today which included project staff from the DWP. The social landlords seem aware of the potential issues (how good is anyones crystal ball?) and, at present anyway, keen to support tenants as far as they can and intervene at the earliest point. Its not so clear what level of support they will be able / willing to provide when direct payements impacts on all tenants.
The wider implications of the collective impact other reforms including ‘bedroom tax’, squeeze on benefit uprating, council tax reform etc were also discussed. It is unclear how far social landlords will be able to respond and support tenants who get into financial difficulties and rent arrears because of general benefit cuts. But at least they recognise the issue.
The approach from the DWP reps. present was to provide the usual PR management ‘bull****’ about consulting and aiming to learn from the pilot projects etc. Now DWP has never had a role to support claimants through the benefit system or the impact of welfare reform (‘its not our problem gov’). However DWP do appear to have an expectation that significant ‘partnership working’ will arise to support claimants affected. When asked where additional funding & other resourses will come from “.........” (more bull****).
One suspects that initially DWP will make further small pots of money (‘sweeteners’) avaialble for more pilot projects, transitional support etc - but in the longer term??
We do appear to be entering a period when claimants / tenants will be left to sink or swim (with a post code lottery of some levels of support available).
A grand social project with an uncertain outcome! Messrs Cameron, Osborne, IDS & Clegg are proud to present Low Income Person performing, without a safety net, an amazing financial juggeling act for their back benchers and tabloid press entertainment.
When this family, forced to downsize because of the bedroom tax, went to view a prospective property they probably didn’t have this in mind.
http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3337/3672386175_57bea37c60_z.jpg
Contact a Family has highlighted that on Wednesday 23 January, there will be Westminster Hall debates on housing benefit and disabled people and on the under-occupancy of social housing and housing benefit entitlement - the bedroom tax. The debates have been secured by Jeremy Lefroy, Conservative MP for Stafford and Phil Wilson, Labour MP for Sedgefield.
Contact a Family say they welcome the debates which will shine a light on the ‘discriminatory’ rule due to affect families with disabled children. Srabani Sen, Chief Executive of Contact a Family, said: “Contact a Family is extremely concerned that in April some families whose children cannot share a room with their brother or sister because of their disabilities and caring needs, will face a terrible dilemma: move to a smaller property that is unsuitable for their disabled child or face a cut in help towards rent. The Court of Appeal recently ruled the policy as discriminatory towards disabled children and their families. Contact a Family is calling for families in social housing to be exempt from the size criteria rules where their child’s disability is a factor in the size of property that they have been allocated.”
Families with disabled children often need an extra bedroom because their disabled child cannot share with their brothers and sisters. For instance a child with challenging behaviour may present a risk to siblings or a child with complex disabilities may require frequent or prolonged attention during the night which would be disruptive to anyone sharing their room. They are advising affected families to appeal the decision quoting the Court of Appeal case in Burnip/Gorry v Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, and to apply for Discretionary Housing Payments when the cuts happen.
For the news story, see Housing benefit debates will shine light on ‘discriminatory’ rule due to affect families with disabled children
I’ve said it before that you can often tell the moral compass of a government by its housing policy. Tory housing policy in three words (coalition, don’t make me laugh). Discretionary Housing Payments. What a pantomime!
http://www.insidehousing.co.uk/home/blogs/going-spare/6525533.blog
Hmmm….Can anyone explain why your bedroom tax is a massive issue for social tenants, but virtually no one (few honourable exceptions) gave a jot about when this happened to private tenants?
Fact is when older children move out, private tenants have been hit by a “bedroom tax” for years.
I’ve just put up a pile of tables for every BRMA in Britain which assesses housing affordability for each different household size and composition for private tenants. http://blog.cix.co.uk/gmorgan
I’ve just put up a pile of tables for every BRMA in Britain which assesses housing affordability for each different household size and composition for private tenants. http://blog.cix.co.uk/gmorgan
Thanks Gareth BTW I took a look but the link to the paper did not load.
It might be my PC but thought you might want to check it.
It works for me, perhaps your IT people block this kind of thing.
It seems to be OK for others as well; Joe Halewood just posted the following (blush),
“Gareth - this is a stunning piece of work as well as being comprehensive.
Lizzie mentions that its not just private renting tenants who will be affected but also those who live in the misnamed ‘affordable rent’ model. Yet it also applies to many large families in social housing too under ‘normal’ social tenancies given the small residual amount left in the cap figure to pay towards rent.
Lizzie - the bedroom tax is in comparison to the overall benefit cap inconsequential in making families homeless. The cut from the OBC is far more severe at £93pw on average to the £14pw bedroom tax cut which is £480m pa. £93pw average for 171,000 households is almost £830m pa.
Lizzie / Gareth - in terms of the benefit cap the DWP still like to maintain that the benefit cap will affect ‘just’ 56,000 families yet a FOI request from Full Fact when looked at closely confirms that it will affect 171,000 households.and not 56,000. (see http://wp.me/p1vuvL-mm - for full details and discussion)
Gareth - once again an invaluable document which every housing professional should read as the figures reveal the true factual impact of the crude overall benefit cap and pose huge questions for social housing providers. “
Hear, hear: I shall be taking this into my CAB tomorrow (or at least the bits that apply to Basingstoke).
Martin B - I think the reason that people are more concerned about the under-occupancy charge for those in social rented accommodation rather than the restrictions in private-rented accommodation are due to the nature of the tenancy status. (Aside from the fact that they might be working for the landlord with all and sundry stressed about the loss of income.)
Historically, tho less so these days, private-rented accommodation was usually for people who accepted that the accommodation was short-term and they could be expected to move at reasonably short notice. It was also easy to obtain and tenants had (and still do in most cases) a level of choice in the accommodation they lived in and the area where they could live.
Social-rented accommodation has (in my working life anyway) been largely seen as hard to obtain (and impossible for many) and as lifetime accommodation regardless of changes to circumstances. For many people there’s also been no choice (or little choice anyway) in where the accommodation is so tenants may be being asked to pay underoccupancy charges for properties they don’t want but can’t move out of or where they’ve built a life in an area they wouldn’t initially have chosen.
I’m aware that there are exceptions to all of this, particularly as there are tenants living in old-style private-rented accommodation with lower rents, but in general it’s the ‘lifetime tenancy’ aspect that’s the reason I have concerns about the underoccupancy charge because I know that many tenants won’t be able to move without losing not only their home but their security of tenure.
Mairi
The debate continues
http://www.insidehousing.co.uk/home/blogs/under-pressure/6525668.blog
The debate continues
http://www.insidehousing.co.uk/home/blogs/under-pressure/6525668.blog
Thanks for that, very good and balanced round-up I thought.
Whether one believes or doesn’t believe in the ‘bedroom tax’ or the LHA as measures in themselves is, for me, a side issue in social policy terms. So are the measures themselves. Of course these issues are extremely important by those affected and views for or against for those not affected are, by many, sincerely held and without ulterior motive.
The real issue which needs to be pushed to the top of the political 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. It is scandalous that in this country we have only ever had ten years of private sector rent control and security of tenure between 1977 – 1988, the period between the coming into force of the Rent Act of 1977 and the Housing Act of 1988.
The period since 1988 has 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 political 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 such as the LHA and the ‘bedroom tax’ to the dust bin of history.
[ Edited: 8 Feb 2013 at 05:09 pm by nevip ]http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/feb/18/housing-crisis-bedroom-tax-failure-to-build
The statement that:
In Hull the bedroom tax hits 4,700 families with a spare room, and only 73 small properties free.
illustrates the utter absurdity of this particular policy.