Agenda item

Cost of Living Support

Minutes:

Purpose of Report

 

To provide Shared Revenues and Benefits Joint Committee with an update regarding various areas relating to the national welfare reform agenda, as well as current cost of living initiatives to support residents.

 

Decision

 

That the content of the report be noted, and a further update be presented at the next meeting of this Committee.

 

Alternative Options Considered and Rejected

 

None.

 

Reason for Decision

 

The report provided Shared Revenues and Benefits Joint Committee with an update with regard to the national and local position of welfare reform/other initiatives, with a specific focus on Universal Credit, Discretionary Housing Payments, Household Support Fund, Energy Bill Support Schemes, Council Tax Support Fund and Financial Inclusion matters.

 

The national Welfare Reform agenda had a significant impact on residents of Lincoln and North Kesteven since 2013 when certain changes were introduced – such as Removal of Spare Room Subsidy, and Benefit Cap – and had continued as further changes had been introduced, such as the ongoing rollout of Universal Credit. These changes had resulted in major changes to the operating of our shared service, to ensure a proactive and positive response to welfare reform and the impacts on residents.

 

The Covid-19 pandemic and cost of living related matters, had caused major challenges to households locally and nationally. The Revenues and Benefits Shared Service played a lead and key role in developing deliverable schemes to help mitigate some of the impacts of cost-of-living challenges. Some of these schemes were directly delivered by this Service, some in partnership with other teams within the Councils, also with organisations such as those in the voluntary sector.

 

Universal Credit

 

The latest national figures published by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) were released on 16 January 2024, with statistics relevant to the period up to December 2023:

 

  • 6,220,096 households receiving UC (this was an increase from 6,043,162 as reported at the last meeting of this Committee).

 

Local authority statistics:

 

  • City of Lincoln – 11,878 (11,478 as at the last report).
  • North Kesteven – 7,289 (6,946 as at the last report).

 

A letter was published by DWP and sent to local authorities on 4 December 2023, setting our managed migration plans in 2024/25, and beyond. As at the time of writing this report, further information is awaited from DWP in terms of anticipated numbers of cases anticipated as moving from a legacy benefit (for example, Housing Benefit (HB)) to UC in 2024/25, - as well as a more definitive timescale. Under current plans, our shared service would continue to be responsible for administering and processing HB claims for those of pension age, all Council Tax Support claims, and Exempt/temporary accommodation HB claims, - as well other related work such as Discretionary Housing Payments. Revenues and Benefits management continued to keep the whole LiNK team aware of UC managed migration and the potential impacts moving forward.

 

DWP had invited all local authorities to a conference on 25 March 2024 to view plans for future years.

 

Discretionary Housing Payments (DHP)

 

 

City of Lincoln’s DHP initial government grant for 2023/24 was £132,330 and North Kesteven’s £86,931.

 

Overall DHP funding for 2022/23 was reduced nationally from £140m to £100m. Consequently, grants for City of Lincoln and North Kesteven were also reduced by more than 29% each.

 

On 23 February 2023, DWP announced DHP government grants for 2023/24. For City of Lincoln and North Kesteven, these were exactly the same amounts as for 2022/23; and the announcement also stated that the national DHP allocation for 2024/25 would be the same as for 2023/24 – so individual local authorities may well receive the same figures for 2024/25 – although this would be confirmed later this year. 

 

The average award for both City of Lincoln and North Kesteven had increased for 2023/24 compared to 2022/23 due to more applications being turned down this financial year because of officers now taking into account Personal Independence Allowance, Disability Living Allowance and Attendance Allowance as part of the consideration, meaning more customers had income that exceeded their outgoings. This allowed officers to award larger DHP payments to those customers living in the private sector where rents had significantly increased, whilst the Local Housing Allowance (LHA) figures had remained the same. However, it should be noted that LHA rates had recently been announced as increasing for 2024/25

 

As the full government grant for the City of Lincoln had been spent, an extra £10,000 had been provided out of the Homeless Prevention Fund to help support the DHP budget for Lincoln residents until the end of the current financial year.

 

 

In his Autumn statement the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced an extension to the Household Support Fund, running from 1 April 2023 to 31 March 2024. Guidance was issued to local authorities on 20 February 2023, with allocations for this round of funding. For Lincolnshire, Household Support Fund 2023/24 funding was £10,929,370 – to cover the whole financial year.

Household Support Fund

 

In Quarter 1 2023/24, Lincolnshire County Council confirmed plans in respect of Household Support Fund Wave 4 2023/24 with main details contained at paragraph 6.3 of the officer’s report.

 

For Housing Benefit recipients in Lincolnshire who were not entitled to the national Cost of Living Payment 2023/24, the payment would be replicated in three phases, the first payment of (£301) was issued in August through Post Office vouchers with a total of £184,212 awarded to 612 eligible households within the City of Lincoln and £181,804 awarded to 604 eligible households within North Kesteven. A second wave of the scheme was delivered in December 2023 with a payment of £300 to eligible households. A total of £172,500 was awarded to 575 households within the City of Lincoln and £174,300 awarded to 581 households within North Kesteven. The third wave (£299 per payment) of these payments would be made in February 2024.

 

In terms of District Councils’ separate allocations of HSF4 to be utilised to work with partners to provide payments, including through an application-based process in part (a requirement of the national HSF4 guidance), these had now been communicated to District Councils’ HSF4 lead officers, - for City of Lincoln £202,676 had been allocated, and for North Kesteven £139,340.

 

Officers were  working in partnership with an established range of referral partners and application processes – as well as some new partners/routes – to ensure these HSF4 monies (through vouchers, food parcels, energy top-ups, etc.) were delivered to those identified as in need. A key focus would again be on reducing foodbank dependency wherever possible, working with partners to help signpost residents to other means of support (e.g., money advice), - as well as supporting a drive to further increase usage of community groceries. A strategic aim of HSF4, was also to try and leave a ‘legacy’ of impact – as there was no guarantee of HSF5 (or of another form of local welfare provision) from 2024/25 onwards.

 

Council Tax Support Scheme 2023/24

 

On 23rd December 2022, Central Government provided guidance to local authorities regarding a £100 million Council Tax Support Fund for 2023/24, whereby awards of up to £25 were to be made to Council Taxpayers in receipt of Council Tax Support, - with an element of funding also to be made for discretionary local funds in 2023/24. Funding allocations for City of Lincoln and North Kesteven were £222,303 and £142,500, respectively.

 

Payments of up to £50.00 (the prescribed maximum was £25.00) were made to City of Lincoln and North Kesteven taxpayers as part of the 2023/24 Council Tax annual billing process. Remaining funding would be considered for local schemes in 2023/24. These figures were £101,705 for City of Lincoln, and £38,628 for North Kesteven.

The remaining funding was to be allocated in a detailed breakdown explained at paragraph 7.2 of the officer’s report.

Financial Inclusion

 

Financial inclusion continued to be a key objective and factor in many areas of LiNK’s work. The Lincolnshire Financial Inclusion Partnership (LFIP) was currently chaired by the Assistant Director of Shared Revenues and Benefits for North Kesteven District Council and City of Lincoln Council, - which brought together organisations and partners to promote and raise the profile of financial inclusion across the county.

 

Two key areas of high-profile engagement by LFIP in 2023/24, were:

  • Co-ordination of ‘Talk Money Week’ activities in Lincolnshire during the week-commencing 6th November 2023
  • A conference to be held on 20th February 2024 (likely to be in Grantham), to follow-up from the highly successful conference held at the Jakemans Community Stadium in Boston, in February 2023.

 

As at the time of writing this report, it was unclear what cost of living support funding would be made available to local authorities during 2024/25, with Household Support Fund due to end, also no announcement on national Cost of Living Payments beyond 2023/24. The Spring Budget on 6 March 2024 could be a key date in terms of whether any future support of this type was announced, otherwise a potential ‘cliff edge’ of such support could occur from April 2024. City of Lincoln Council had approved funding for some cost of living projects through the UK Shared Prosperity Fund, for 2024/25. Appendix 1 of the report gave some actual anonymised Lincoln and North Kesteven cases, showing how LiNK has been able to support residents during 2023/24 through the Household Support Fund and other means.

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