Issue - meetings

Report of the Director of Culture, Strategy and Engagement.  To be introduced by the Cabinet Member for Tackling Inequality and Engagement.

Each year the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) makes grants available to local authorities for Discretionary Housing Payment (DHP) purposes and a report is taken to Cabinet with an updated DHP policy to reflect the new funding allocation.

The Cabinet Member for Tackling Inequality and Engagement introduced the report which sought approval of the Discretionary Housing Payments Policy 2023 (DHP) as set out in appendix A of the report.  The objective of the DHP policy was to sustain existing tenancies and prevent homelessness. DHP is used to help people with a shortfall in their benefits to cover their housing costs including those affected by the benefit cap, bedroom tax (removal of the spare room subsidy), and shortfalls in Local Housing Allowance (LHA) rates.  It was noted that the Department of Work and Pensions had not confirmed the allocation to Haringey for 2023/24 at the time of the Cabinet meeting, and therefore this figure would be reported in the Quarter One budget monitoring report.

In response to questions from Councillor Cawley-Harrison, the following was noted:

-           The review of services providing welfare advice and support was underway and was a really important piece of work.  Councillors Chandwani and das Neves would be chairing the Progress Board for this review.

-           Figures relating to the number of applicants would be provided following the meeting, but it was noted that there had been a reduction in the allocation provided to Haringey.  Currently the number of applications was lower than before but the amount paid to them had increased due to rent increases.

-           The system used to record information relating to applicants did not have the capability to record the tenure type of claimants for those on Universal Credit claims, however going forward a separate manual record would be kept.

RESOLVED to

1.         Approve Haringey’s Discretionary Housing Payments Policy 2023 (see Appendix A) as the methodology to determine the award of individual Discretionary Housing Payments having regard to the Equalities Impact Assessment (set out in Appendix B).

At the time of writing this report the DWP have not confirmed the DHP allocation to Haringey for 2023/24. If notification arrives after this Cabinet meeting, Cabinet will be notified of the figure in the Quarter One budget monitoring report.

Reasons for Decision

Funding for DHP is allocated annually by the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP). The DWP awarded Haringey the sum of £1.6m each year in both 2018/19 and 2019/20. This increased to £2.1m in the pandemic year 2020/21, but reduced again to £1.68m in 2021/22, and then again to £1.17m in 2022/23. This represents a reduction in funding of 44% over two years.

It is recognised that with these depleting funds over the last two years from DWP we need to do more to work collaboratively across our services, such as Housing, to maximise the efficient use of DHP and other similar funding streams. For example, 11% of DHP awards so far in 2022-23 (data up to November 2022) are to help residents pay the ‘Bedroom tax’ caused by under-occupancy of properties. If the Council can work proactively to help residents identify alternative housing options, this will remove the need for DHP to be paid out for this purpose. Discussion  ...  view the full minutes text for item 13