Our experience and initial lessons learned Tim Power Landlord Services Manager

Transcription

1 Housing benefit direct payment pilot Oxford City Council Our experience and initial lessons learned Tim Power Landlord Services Manager

2 About Oxford We have 7,800 Council tenancies, 53% of rent from HB About 5,000 housing association tenancies Relatively young population, may impact future % on direct payment Average weekly income to house price ratio 14.5, making renting the only option for many 9% of working age population on benefit, 2.4% on JSA¹ We wanted to learn and be ready for direct payment of HB ¹ JSA % lower due to high student pop (who don t qualify)

3 Preparation for pilot Identify sample x2000 (1600 Oxford CC, 400 Green Square Group), random after exclusions (pension & temp accom.) OCC have 4300 tenants on HB, less those in receipt of pension = 2600, so we only have 900 more to get onto direct payment when universal credit goes live. Assess support needs and phase entry onto pilot depending on level of support required

4 Preparation for pilot (2) Phase 1 (June) will be around 40% of tenants on direct payment, further phased entry to follow, linked to support Get ICT ready for DP. We run Capita for benefit payments, other pilots use Northgate Ensure BACS payment and DD collection are synchronised to enable steady payment to tenant/landlord

5 Communication We have notified all affected tenants about the pilot Asked them: to provide bank details, do they need support or believe they may struggle with direct payment, and to complete a direct debit mandate? To date we have received 1000 replies. More than half of these require no support and are ready to go on pilot; remainder being assessed for support and / or phased entry to pilot

6 Communication (2) Further letters and phone calls are being made and visits will follow, to ensure that we can cover all 1600 cases Of those who have said they do not want to be in the pilot, the main reason (excepting capacity / health) has been budgeting fears and change

7 The process Payment going live end June payment will be 4 weekly in arrears so first payment received end July Payment via BACS, and rent collected via DD on same day Above process easy for tenants and landlord (tenant should see no appreciable difference) but they will see money in/out of their account Where tenant has: support needs, no bank account, will not engage, etc., support is provided

8 Assessment & Support The pilot areas have agreed an assessment process identifying issues that may hinder a tenants ability to manage direct payment, these cover: health, financial, capacity and other factors. Assessment may: (1) determine that the tenant should go onto the pilot with no further action or (2) stop or delay their entry, subject to the provision of appropriate support, whereupon we will visit to agree support and work with tenant to help them to successfully manage.

9 Our experience so far At the start we feared considerable arrears increase, damaging our business plan (self financed 200M debt) We no longer expect a significant increase in arrears We have found financial inclusion barriers, e.g. access to bank accounts (basic / jam jar ), budgeting / money advice, etc. We are drafting a new and wider financial inclusion strategy developed from lessons learned It has required more resources than expected

10 Lessons Be ready to: Increase awareness of the process to your tenants Find out which ones will need support & link with support agencies Obtain bank account information Promote direct debits Identify adequate resources (project team) Review your financial inclusion strategies Join the CIH / DWP Learning Network by contacting laura.shimili@cih.org or david.pipe@cih.org or go to the CIH stall