Landlord part-funding housing benefit officer

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

A housing association in the Midlands is part-funding a member of the housing benefit team in Birmingham City Council in a bid to support its residents and ensure their claims are handled as efficiently as possible.

Trident Group - which manages 3,000 homes and works across nine local authorities - says it is part-funding the role for a dedicated officer to help the flow of information between it and the council.

Councils involvement in Universal Credit - which will see the bulk of claimants apply online for their benefits through a centralised system from next year - is currently uncertain.

It's expected they will continue to deliver housing benefit services to 2018 by which time the Government expects to migrate all working age customers over to the new arrangements, leading to fears that local authority benefit staff will be surplus to requirements.

The DWP has, however, called on councils to deliver pilots to "support residents" in preparation for the introduction of Universal Credit next year. The pilots will focus on delivering the face-to-face support people may need to make claims for Universal Credit, providing help to get online and encouraging financial independence.

John Morris, Trident chief executive, said the group's arrangement with Birmingham would help support tenants' claims, for example, where payment has been cancelled or where circumstances change.

The arrangement has been taking place over the last 12 months and Mr Morris added that he would be "open" to repeat the move across the eight other local authorities it works with as a way of promoting best practice.

Mr Morris said: "We were looking at how best we could assist the council as we both share a common goal to support claimants and handle claims as efficiency as possible. We asked whether we could we make a contribution to [the council] to get a much-needed service as part of our financial inclusive approach and social investment work.

"The one service you need is good communication and we were prepared to contribute to that. We agreed an arrangement where we would make a payment once a quarter to maintain a vital service."