Under pressure
The funding, administration and operation of discretionary housing payments have all become vital issues over the last year, with expectations to match
It\’s been a busy year for officers handling discretionary housing payments (DHPs) in welsh local authorities. with application numbers growing by hundreds of percent, and various last-minute top-up announcements from the DWP and Welsh Government, it must have been a massive challenge to plan and deliver the service effectively. That challenge is set to continue into the foreseeable future.
DHP systems
It\’s difficult to overestimate how important it is to ensure the smooth running of DHP systems. Welfare reform has created a whole class of people who are stuck in unsustainable housing with little they can do to change their situation. From being a relatively obscure fund, DHPs have suddenly become one of the most public ways in which local authorities can help those people. There are high expectations on authorities to spend their full allocation this year – Shelter Cymru may well not be the only social justice organisation planning a year-end Freedom of Information request to find out if any have underspent.
The Welsh Government recently published research suggesting that at the six-month mark the majority of local authorities had spent between 35 and 50 per cent of their DWP allocation for 2013/14. Seven authorities had spent less than a third. The picture may have changed since then, however, and it is certainly the experience of our caseworkers that spending has been ramped up in many authorities now we are heading towards the end of the financial year.
Partly this is due to the sudden arrival of mid-year top-ups from the DWP and Welsh Government. In August last year three authorities in Wales saw their DHP allocation shoot up by an average of around 160 per cent due to their rural status. This was followed in January this year by the announcement of £1.3 million top-up funding from the Welsh Government, which has to be spent by 31 March.
Inconsistent administration
At Shelter Cymru we have taken a keen interest in the operation of DHPs over the years. This is because we\’ve noticed how inconsistently DHPs are administered across Wales. We think that such a vital source of support should be delivered fairly, and that people in different parts of the country should have the same access to help if they have the same level of housing need.
In some parts of Wales our caseworkers have seen DHP officers go into hyperdrive since Christmas in an effort to spend the money in time. This means that some of our clients are much more likely to be successful with an application now than if they had applied at the start of the year. What about all those people who were turned down earlier? Do authorities have the time and resources to go and find them and give them a second chance?
It’s not only the inconsistencies across the year that we are concerned about. In our experience the whole process of applying for
a DHP is completely different from one authority to the next, from the variances in waiting times to the types of questions asked on forms and the level of proof required.
Pressure to spend
Some forms ask questions that our clients find intrusive and unreasonable, while others take a broader, less accusatory tone. Some require proof of household expenditure that includes receipts for food shopping. The pressure to spend before the end of March may result in some authorities temporarily relaxing their standards of proof, but we still need to ensure consistency and fairness across all areas in the longer term.
One trend we have noticed in most DHP forms is the high level of repetition with housing benefit forms: it seems little wonder that some DHP waiting times are so long when there are so many unnecessary questions being asked that could quite easily be verified by looking at the applicant’s existing records.
While we very much welcome the Welsh Government\’s top-up, we can\’t help but feel that the money would have been spent more wisely if it had been made available earlier in the year. At the time of writing the DWP had just announced the allocation for 2014/15 which includes a sum for Welsh authorities that is actually 12 per cent higher than last year at just under £7.9 million.
Whether the Welsh Government is able to top up again remains to be seen, but should it do so we hope that the decision is taken swiftly to ensure a smoother and fairer service for people in housing need.