Section: Housing Benefit & Council Tax

New Regulations

Source: Office of Public Sector Information

The Council Tax (Exempt Dwellings) (Amendment) (England) Order 2006 SI 2318

This Order amends the Council Tax (Exempt Dwellings) Order 1992 as it applies to billing authorities in England. The 1992 Order exempts certain classes of dwellings so that they are not liable for council tax.

Article 2 of this Order amends the 1992 Order by substituting a new Class G in Article 3 of the 1992 Order. This new Class G clarifies that where a planning condition prevents occupancy of a dwelling, and the dwelling is unoccupied, the dwelling will be exempt from Council Tax. In all other respects the new Class G operates in the same way as the old.

The amendments made by this Order have effect in relation to financial years beginning on or after 1 April 2007.

Fraud and Error in Housing Benefit

A report was published, showing the latest estimates of Housing Benefit fraud and error for the period April 2002 to September 2005. It provides an estimate of fraud and error in the period from October 2004 to September 2005, and compares this to the baseline year - April 2002 to March 2003. This series of reports is used to monitor progress against DWP's Public Service Agreement (PSA) target "to reduce the level of fraud and error in HB paid to working age claimants by 25% by 2006."

The report emphasises that:

The estimates in the report are of incorrectly paid HB. This encompasses a wide range of scenarios from deliberate fraud to instances where there is a short and difficult to avoid delay in the reporting and processing of a change of claimant's circumstances.
It is not possible to measure the extent to which overpaid HB identified in this report is subsequently detected and recovered, though separate data provided by Local Authorities gives the amount of overpaid HB that they detect and recover each year.
The estimates in this report do not encompass all fraud and error occurring in HB payments. First, it is likely that some fraud and error, if present on sample cases, would not have been uncovered, e.g. because fraud is by its nature a covert activity and because complex error can be difficult to detect. Second, there are also some kinds of fraud and error that cannot be captured at all by the current measurement process, e.g. overpayments caused by incorrect awards of other benefits such as Disability Living Allowance or instrument of payment fraud.

Key findings in the report include:

Around £580 million (5%) of HB expenditure within the scope of the sample is estimated to have been overpaid due to fraud and error.
By using a rough extrapolation, around a further £160 million is estimated to have been overpaid in the HB expenditure outside the scope of the sample.

Fraud and Error in Housing Benefit, April 2002 to September 2005. www.dwp.gov.uk.

Welfare Reform Bill

The Welfare Reform Bill was published. The following summarises its key measures:

Employment advice and support will be extended for those with health conditions to assist them, where possible, to return to work. These measures build on evidence gathered from the Pathway to Work pilots, which are programmed to be rolled out nationally by the end of 2007.
Incapacity benefits will be replaced by a new Employment and Support Allowance, which will be based on a more constructive benefit assessment. In addition to the question of what an individual is incapable of, the assessment will consider what they can do and the assistance needed by them to manage their condition and return to work.

The new allowance will provide a simplified benefits system for those whose health affects their capacity to do work, with a new structure of contributory and non-contributory benefits.

The reforms aim to:

make it easier for people to move into work;
help to speed up local authority administration of Housing Benefit;
promote greater choice and responsibility for tenants;
promote financial inclusion; and
help to combat benefit fraud.

The reforms also enable the national roll-out of Local Housing Allowance across the private rented sector.

The Bill seeks to provide powers to impose a sanction on Housing Benefit for those evicted for anti-social behaviour and refuse to engage with provision for rehabilitation.

The Bill proposes giving local authorities the power to investigate and prosecute fraud relating to Department for Work and Pension benefits, as well as the benefits they administer. It also seeks to enhance joined-up working and remove certain barriers to claiming benefits.

Section: Housing Benefit & Council Tax

New Regulations

Fraud and Error in Housing Benefit

Welfare Reform Bill

Housing Monthly Diary

Issue: September 2006 Reporting on July-August 2006

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