Rents nudged down across England and Wales by just 0.1% in February – but they were still 3.3% higher than the year before.
According to LSL Property Services, which owns national chains Your Move and Reeds Rains, the average rent is now £731 per month.
Universal credit will fail unless the government can get more people online, a Department for Work and Pensions official has warned.
Mike Shakespeare, who works in stakeholder engagement at the department, told a seminar organised by skills body Digital Unite and social landlord Affinity Sutton last week that digital inclusion work will be vital for the government’s flagship welfare reform policy.
Iain Duncan Smith has declared that foster carers and members of the armed forces will be exempt from the bedroom tax, in a U-turn on the government's forthcoming policy.
In a written ministerial statement, the works and pensions secretary announced that people who are approved foster carers will be allowed an additional 'spare room' whether or not a child has been placed in with them or whether they are between placements.
Rent arrears among tenants of social landlords taking part in a trial of the Government’s flagship benefit reforms have soared.
The pilot is testing out the effects of paying the tenants their rent money, and trusting them to pass it on to their landlords.
The work and pensions secretary has pledged to protect disabled children who will be hit by the bedroom tax.
Speaking in the House of Commons today, Iain Duncan Smith said he would publish guidance tomorrow for local authorities on how to effectively use discretionary housing payments, which are designed to mitigate against the impacts of welfare reform.
A Liverpool-based housing association is asking tenants to sign forms that say they accept they will be hit with legal action if they don’t pay their rent as a result of the ‘bedroom tax’.
One Vision Housing has sent out documents to 2,900 of its tenants who will be hit by the under-occupation penalty asking that they return them signed, and with a counter signature by a witness.
The national roll-out of the benefit cap will begin on 15th July, the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) announced today.
Ministers have opted for a phased roll-out of the controversial policy, with benefit cap pilots to start in Bromley, Croydon, Enfield and Haringey from April 15, three months before its introduction in all other local authority areas across England, Scotland and Wales. It will be completely implemented by September this year.
Iain Duncan Smith has been given two weeks to demonstrate why the bedroom tax should not be subject to a judicial review.
The work and pensions secretary is facing a legal challenge against the government's 'under-occupancy' charge by law firm Hopkin Murray Beskine on behalf of 10 disabled children.
Ten disabled and vulnerable children have launched legal proceedings against work and pensions secretary Iain Duncan Smith to fight penalties for the under-occupation of social housing.
Judicial review proceedings were issued to the High Court on Friday on behalf of the children, who claim the new regulations have failed to take proper account of the needs of vulnerable children and are discriminatory.
The majority of landlords in the private rented sector (PRS) will be freezing their rents this year, according to a new survey.
Members of the Residential Landlords Association (RLA) told the survey that they would be taking a real terms cut to their incomes by freezing rents in 2013 - as a result of tenants facing real term cuts to their wages.