Lord Freud quizzed on bedroom numbers in heated welfare address

Published by 24publishing for 24dash.com in Housing and also in Central Government, Communities, Local Government

Lord Freud was today quizzed on how many homes he owned and how many bedrooms he had in a heated debate on welfare reform, as he set out the Government's intentions to reduce benefit expenditure and introduce Universal Credit from next October.

The delegate who quizzed the minister at the Chartered Institute of Housing (CIH) conference in Manchester had earlier highlighted the "geographical inequality" of some of the benefit reforms.

Referring to the social size criteria, which is set to hit some 670,000 social tenants from next April, he questioned the "morality" of the reform.

He asked Lord Freud: "Do you think it is somewhat obscene and unfair that people who live in large houses with large under-occupied bedrooms should be telling people in two-bedroom bungalows that they are underoccupying."

The question drew applause and a heckle from another delegate, before Lord Freud said the reforms were aimed at bringing the social sector in line with the private rented sector.

He said: "We've got a great shortage of housing across this country and it doesn't make sense for the Government to go on and basically provide a benefit system which is blind to that situation. What we're doing is effectively bringing into line a proposition to social housing tenants which is - we'll pay for the housing you need, and if it's beyond that it's up to you. Either adjust your circumstances or find more income, bring in a lodger, you must make a judgement. We're bringing social housing in line with the private sector in that way. The housing benefit bill has been going up very substantially."

Chairing the session was Joseph Rowntree Foundation chief Julia Unwin who said the Government - through its plan to pay housing benefit directly to tenants from October 2013 as part of Universal Credit - said tenants were being asked to "trade security for cash".

She said: “It’s not a trade I’d personally want to make. We know that many of our residents will get a cash lump sum for the first time of a significant scale. And the first call on that will be the predatory doorstop lender. The second call on that will be utility bills, third perhaps council tax, fourth rent. That’s a difficult task for anyone to manage.”

She said people on low incomes already "budget to the penny" and now the Government was asking them to do that in even more difficult circumstances.

In an address that drew more applause from delegates, she referred to previous JRF research which found that Universal Credit was going to cost a “huge amount to get right” and “you wouldn’t want to do it in a time of austerity and when there weren’t a lot of jobs around”.

She said: “We also have to have a lot of faith in the IT system – I don’t have any faith in the IT system in the small organisation I run. This is a big ask in a very short period of time.”

Professor Paul Hickman, project director of the evaluation of the DWP’s demonstration projects – which are looking solely at paying the housing benefit directly to tenants a year before Universal Credit – outlined his approach to the review of the projects.

It will include tenant surveys and regular contact with stakeholders to ensure lessons are learned to support tenants and safeguard landlords’ rental income.

He said It was incredibly important to understand the local context and that the review would be a "classic piece of action research".

“It’s not a before and after study," he said. "We’re continuously collecting data and constantly feeding back our results.”

However, he warned that it wasn’t about "assessing performance". "It’s about key lessons from the study," he said.

Tim Power, landlord services manager for Oxford City Council – who is involved in the direct housing benefit demonstration projects – said the council has 1,600 properties involved in the project.

He said they will be going on to direct payments – made four weekly in arrears – from July.

He said: “The payment is made to the tenant by BACS and our preference is to recover that through direct debit.”

He added that the council aimed to make the transaction “seamless and in the same day, so it goes into and out of their account in the same day.”

“That seems to be the way people want it to be,” he added. "We feared arrears would increase dramatically as a result of this process. Having been through the process so far, in terms of responses to tenants, we no longer have such fears."