Scots to use NI concession in bid to ditch direct payments

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

Housing associations in Scotland want the country’s ministers to use the concession gained by Northern Ireland to ditch direct housing benefit payments to tenants under Universal Credit.

Unlike the rest of Britain, tenants in Northern Ireland will still be able to have their housing costs paid directly to their landlord under Universal Credit. It follows concessions won by social security minister, Nelson McCausland, during discussions with welfare reform minister Lord Freud.

Its introduction in NI will also take place six months after it goes live in the rest of Britain.

In addition, the payment of Universal Credit may be split between two parties in the household and be payable twice each month. In the rest of Britain, these will be exceptions that claimants will have to be assessed for.

However, the current constitutional settlement means Scotland does not have the powers to replicate the Northern Irish changes even though landlords in Scotland vehemently oppose the reforms.

The Scottish Federation of Housing Associations (SFHA) believes it will be financial damaging to both tenants and social landlords.

SFHA policy manager David Ogilvie said: “Given that 96% of tenants in receipt of housing benefit currently have it paid directly to their landlord, naturally we and our members are very interested in the arrangement which has been made between the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) and the Northern Ireland Executive. However, Northern Ireland has only really been able to do this because they already had powers over welfare policy, which sadly Holyrood doesn’t.

“In her evidence to the Scottish Parliament’s Welfare Reform Committee earlier this week, Nicola Sturgeon commented that if anything then this development perhaps strengthens the case for Scottish independence or getting further powers for Holyrood, but it doesn’t offer anything more than that in the immediate or short term and certainly not under the current constitutional arrangements.

“Though we may wish for Holyrood to replicate the arrangements in Northern Ireland, the fact is that we can’t do much more than envy the concessions they’ve negotiated, although we hope that Scottish Ministers will use the fact that Northern Ireland has won this concession as further leverage in their on-going discussions with the Department for Work and Pensions.”