Agenda item

Cost of Living Support

Minutes:

Purpose of Report

 

a)    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.

 

b)    To seek support for and approval of implementation with regard to Household Support Wave 5.

 

Decision

 

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

 

2.    That updates with regard to Household Support Fund Wave 5 be noted, approving and supporting implementation as outlined.

 

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 (UC), Discretionary Housing Payments, Household Support Fund, Council Tax Support Scheme and Financial Inclusion matters. The report also set out proposals for Household Support Fund wave 5.

 

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 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 and delivering 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 April 2024, with statistics relevant to the period up to December 2024:

 

  • 6,458,756 households received UC (this was an increase from 6,220,096 as reported at the last meeting of this Committee).

 

Local authority statistics:

 

  • City of Lincoln – 12, 495 (11,878 as at the last report).
  • North Kesteven – 7,857 (7,289 as at the last report).

 

On 25 April 2022, the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions made a statement in the House of Lords on managed UC migration for working-age legacy benefits – with the aim completing the migration by the end of 2024.

 

DWP released information to state that those in receipt of Tax Credits would be asked to apply for UC by the end of 2024. DWP also announced, through the Autumn Statement 2022, that the managed migration of Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) cases had been delayed to 2028/29. A further announcement was made on the 19th April 2024 with plans to bring forward the managed migration of ESA cases. Notifications for this group were now planned to commence in September 2024 with the aim of notifying everyone to make the move to UC by December 2025, - however no definitive timescale had yet been announced and could change.

 

As at the time of writing this report, further information was awaited from DWP in terms of 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.

 

Discretionary Housing Payments (DHP)

 

 

City of Lincoln’s DHP initial government grant for 2024/25 was £132,330 and North Kesteven’s £86,931.

 

The number of DHP received and determined for 2023/24 was 278 for the City of Lincoln and 153 for North Kesteven.

 

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 Personal Independence Allowance, Disability Living Allowance and Attendance Allowance into consideration, which meant that more customers had income that exceeded their outgoings. This had 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.

 

 

Household Support Fund

 

Shared Revenues and Benefits Joint Committee were updated on the current position in relation to Household Support Fund wave 4, as well as proposed plans in respect of Household Support wave 5.

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

In the Spring 2024 budget, the Government confirmed that a further £421 million would be made available to county councils and unitary authorities in England via the Household Support Fund (HSF) for the period 1st April to 30th September 2024. The fund was intended to support vulnerable households most in need with the cost of essentials, such as food, energy and water.

Following the publication of the scheme guidance on 2nd April 2024, Lincolnshire County Council presented a report to its Overview and Scrutiny Management Board setting out details of the scheme and options to utilise the Lincolnshire allocation of £5,464,685.20 for the benefit of residents most in need of support. This was the fifth round of funding and as with earlier rounds, collaboration with District Councils was required to effectively deliver the scheme. Relationships with delivery partners and mechanisms were now well established with learning taken from previous funding rounds. As with previous rounds, Lincolnshire County Council had proposed that funding was allocated to schools and early years providers to distribute to targeted cohorts and to support eligible care leavers in supported living accommodation. The remainder would be allocated to District Councils using the Indices of Multiple Deprivation (IMD), to support the delivery of an application-based element and locally determined schemes that met the specific needs of communities.

The indicative shares of HSF5 for our shared service local authorities, were:

·       City of Lincoln:  £297,278

·       North Kesteven:  £204,379.

In terms of administrative costs incurred by the shared service for delivery of HSF5, it was proposed that in the region of 5% of Lincoln and North Kesteven’s allocations be allocated to these costs – as was allowable under the scheme. A range of % administrative costs had been claimed by District Councils, in previous rounds of HSF.

 

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 (CTS), - 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 £222,803 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 was to be allocated via local schemes in 2023/24; £101,705 for City of Lincoln, and £38,628 for North Kesteven

 

Officers had worked proactively to ensure this fund was allocated to accounts as appropriate, and moving into 2024/25 only relatively small percentages of original funding were left to be allocated.

Supporting documents: