Verbal update from Catherine Stocks, Rent Operations Manager
Minutes:
Cathy Stocks, Rent Operations Manager, gave a verbal report updating the Committee on Welfare reforms and benefit changes and statistics for Arboretum, Dunkirk and Lenton and Radford and Park Wards. She highlighted the following points:
(a) Universal credit is only currently claimed by single working aged people, this will change in future but at present there are 287 claimants on Universal credit in Nottingham City. This is expected to reach 14,000 when it is rolled out to all categories of claimants;
(b) the biggest challenge seen so far is the change over from fortnightly payments where housing benefits are paid directly to the landlord, to the monthly payments where all payments are paid to the claimant and they are responsible for managing their budget including rent;
(c) there is on average a 6 week wait from the initial claim being made to first payment, meaning that the claimant has no other benefits paid to them for that time. Many claimants struggle for day to day living and on average tenants are £575 in arears at the time the first payment is made. 86% tenants are in arears at the time of receiving the first payment;
(d) across Nottingham City just 30% of those not yet converted to Universal Credits are in arears and on average those arears are less than £300. This is replicated across the country and is not a problem specific to Nottingham;
(e) in Arboretum Ward there are 8 claimants who, on average, are almost £900 in rent arears, in Dunkirk and Lenton there are 2 claimants who are in around £800 arears and in Radford and Park there are 25 claimants who are on average £560 in arears;
(f) claimants across Nottingham are aged between 19 and 55, on average aged 40, two thirds are male, one third female;
(g) there will be further role out of Universal credit in June 2018, with the expectation that all claimants will be on Universal Credit by 2022. All new claims/change in circumstances, updates etc are expected to be made via the internet;
Following questions and comments from the Committee the following points were highlighted:
(h) the benefit cap came into force in November 2016 and the full effect was felt in January 2017. The cap reduced benefit payments from £26,000 per year to £20,000. 60 people within Nottingham were affected by this cap, and it is expected that a further 205 will be affected as of February 2017;
(i) in Arborteum there are 4 people affected, and in Dunkirk and Lenton and Radford and Park there is one person in each Ward who will have been affected;
(j) on average they are £159 in arears, this is being well managed at the moment and discretionary housing payments can be made to the claimants and it takes on average a month for these claims to be processed;
(k) there are outreach sessions to help those people who are not able to use the internet to make their claims and face to face help is also available. Nottingham City Homes is working towards skilling up its tenants and getting people more comfortable with going online to make claims;
RESOLVED to thank Cathy Stocks for her attendance and note the contents of her verbal report on the Welfare reforms and change in benefits.