Agenda item

Laura Brown, Benefits Team Leader:

a)    presented a report to provide Housing Scrutiny Sub-Committee with information in relation to the Discretionary Housing Payments Scheme

b)    confirmed that LTP was consulted regarding the draft report and responses had been forwarded to the Resident Involvement Manager and incorporated within the report

c)    added that Discretionary Housing Payments (DHP) were available to local authorities to assist customers who needed additional help with their housing costs. A Central Government grant was awarded each year, specified to individual local authorities based on historical spend/ anticipated need

d)    explained that DHP was completely separate from the statutory Housing Benefit (HB) scheme apart from the fact that HB must be in payment and the weekly DHP amount awarded must not exceed the maximum HB that could be awarded in each case. Since Universal Credit (UC) had also been introduced in recent years, DHP could also be used to ‘top up’ the housing component of UC. DHP can, and was, also used for rent deposits and rent in advance, for appropriate cases

e)    highlighted that a joint DHP Policy was agreed for the Shared Revenues and Benefits Service between City of Lincoln Council and North Kesteven District Council in early 2013, to ensure consistency of decision-making and robust criteria to take account of impacts of welfare reforms

f)      added that the City of Lincoln Council’s DHP grant allocations from Central Government, from 2012/13 through to the upcoming financial year 2025/26 could be seen at paragraph 4.1 of the report on page 22 of the agenda pack

g)    stated that the allocation of DHP up to the end of Quarter 3 2024/25 and the number of applications received and awards made could be seen at paragraph 5.1 of the report on page 23 of the agenda pack

h)    concluded that there had been a reduction in the number of DHP awards made to City of Lincoln Council tenants since including Disability Living Allowance (DLA)/Personal Independence Payment (PIP)/Attendance Allowance (AA) as income within the income and expenditure calculation to assess DHP awards, which in turn had allowed officers to increase the amounts awarded to those in the private sector. This helped to largely keep spend within the Government grant allocated

i)      welcomed comments and questions from Members of the Committee.

Members discussed the content of the report in further detail. The following questions and comments emerged:

Question: Thanks were given for the informative report. Reference was made to page 23 of the report. Under what circumstances would DHP be refused?

Response: DHP could be refused due to excess income, so if a person had more income than expenditure. A refusal for DHP could also be because the applicant had not provided requested information and evidence or that a person did not qualify for example if they had their rent paid in full.

Question: Reference was made to the number of ongoing awards and tenure type at paragraph 5.1 of the report. What was the ‘30+ months’ on-going awards? How long was the period over 30 months and where was the data?

Response: The 30+ months referred to people who had received DHP for over 30 months. A person may have received DHP for financial years 2023/24, 2024/25 etc.

Question: Why was DHP considered for refusal to move?

Response: When the downsizing incentive came in, it was a pilot. Customers were written to and if someone refused, they were not helping their situation. It was not possible to afford to pay for someone who was not willing to help themselves

Question: Of the Government contribution, £132,330 had been grant and £98K had been spent. Were surplus funds able to be used?

Response: If funds were not spent, the money was returned to Government. The remaining £30K covered the final 3 months of the financial year.

Comment: DHP was intended as a short-term payment. Some individuals had received DHP for 3 or 4 years.

Response: If an individual was as on basic job seekers allowance with no other income and lived in a one bedroomed property within private accommodation, there was little they could do for their situation to be improved. There was a long Council waiting list. DHP aimed to keep them in a property rather than ending up with the Housing Solutions team.

Supplementary Question: Could housing priority banding be moved to get an individual moved quicker?

Supplementary Response: Council housing banding was a different department.

Question: Thanks were given for an informative report. Had downsizing helped with DHP?

Response: Yes. Downsizing helped to move people into the right sized property and therefore left funding for individuals within the private sector were rent was considerably higher than social sector rent.

Question: What was the longest DHP payment currently?

Response: Officers would investigate further to the meeting.

Comment: DHP weas intended as a short-term payment which allowed people to change their circumstances. It would be useful to further scrutinise the 9 long term cases where DHP was awarded for 30+ months. It was a considerable amount of money to be tied up for such a long period of time.

Response: A piece of work was carried out a number of year ago and the number of long-term awards at that time was very high. Officers were proud to have reduced the number to 9 cases of which would be scrutinised further for the reasons of the longer-term award to be analysed.

RESOLVED that:

1. Officers be tasked with further scrutiny of the 9 cases awarded DHP for 30+ months and present the findings to Housing Scrutiny Sub Committee at a future meeting.

2.    The content of the report be noted with thanks.