by James Carson

How are housing associations and their tenants preparing for Universal Credit?  It’s one of the big questions at the heart of the coalition government’s reform of the benefits system. Until recently, the answer was unclear, but we’re now starting to get a better picture of the likely impact of benefits reform on social housing.

In 2010, the coalition government embarked on a major programme of changes to the welfare system. The staged roll-out is intended to simplify the system, replacing five different benefits with a single payment, known as Universal Credit. One of the major changes will see social tenants who previously had their housing benefit paid to their landlord receiving a single monthly payment.

Right from the start, there have been concerns that tenants will have difficulties managing direct payments, and that rising numbers will struggle to pay their rents. Initially, it was difficult to assess whether these concerns were valid, but last month the Department for Work and Pensions published a package of reports evaluating a series of demonstration projects testing the direct payment of housing benefit to tenants living in social housing.

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