housing benefits review

CAB benefits experts gave evidence to the City Council’s Scrutiny and Overview Commission looking at housing benefit, and participated in the Best Value review to ensure that the experience of Bureau enquirers was taken into account.

The outcome of the review is an action plan designed to produce major improvements in the delivery of this vital service.

CAB Chief Executive Simon Harris said: “We are delighted that that the City Council has at last properly recognised the problems many of its poorest residents face as a result of the poor administration of housing benefit. For many years we have seen large numbers of people experiencing rent and council tax arrears, some have even been threatened with eviction and repossession, simply because the Council have not processed their housing benefit claims within a reasonable period of time. This causes huge personal stress and anxiety for individuals and an enormous amount of extra work for organisations like ourselves.”

Many landlords in the City have taken possession action against tenants, not because they wish to evict them necessarily, but more as a means of prompting a quicker payment of housing benefit. This wastes huge amounts of resources and causes even more stress to the tenant.

“The solution is simply to ensure housing benefit is administered efficiently and effectively. For many years we have been feeding back the experience of our enquirers to the City Council, and we are delighted that they have taken this and other evidence on board in making these changes.”