The largest local authority in the UK has announced that it plans to charge full council tax on empty properties from next April.
Birmingham City Council, like other local authorities, currently allows a ‘council tax free’ period of six months for empty properties, and an exemption of 12 months on properties undergoing structural repair.
Reports the Government is set to freeze working age benefits - by ending the automatic annual increase in line with inflation - would almost certainly weaken the living standards of low-income families and suggests it is "running out of ideas on welfare reform".
That's the verdict from think tank, the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR), which suggests that a further £4 billion could be saved in 2016-17 if all working-age benefits - including jobseeker's allowance and housing benefit - were frozen from 2014-15.
Cyberfraud and identity theft pose the most serious threat to the implementation of the government's welfare reforms, a government minister said as he outlined potential problems facing the project during the final months of development.
Lord Freud, parliamentary under-secretary of state for welfare reform, said online security was a risk to the introduction of the universal credit. The department was focusing on identity and potential cyberfraud to make sure the system was "utterly robust". Security systems developed by banks were being adopted, and the government was in talks with Amazon to learn from its online security measures, he said.
The Government should create a set of standards for ‘Budget Accounts’ (jam jars) – which safeguard rental income for housing associations – allowing financial providers to deliver them for tenants in return for initial subsidies.
That’s the conclusion of an in-depth report, commissioned by the National Housing Federation (NHF), into the banking products needed by social housing tenants for Universal Credit.
The government's flagship welfare reform programme is heading for "disaster", its "poverty czar" Frank Field has warned.
Writing in The Guardian, the Labour MP says Universal Credit will not simplify benefits as planned and will instead "rot the soul" of the low paid.
Work and pensions secretary Iain Duncan Smith says the Government will explore a 'social housing broadband tariff' to enable those to claim the new Universal Credit online.
From next October, Universal Credit will replace six income-related benefits, including housing benefit, which claimants will apply online for and receive as a single monthly payment.
Iain Duncan Smith is fighting to stop the Chancellor shelving his universal credit scheme.
George Osborne reportedly wants to block the Work and Pension’s Secretary’s £2billion flagship reform amid growing concerns about its escalating cost.
Business minister Mark Prisk, MP for Hertford and Stortford, has been appointed the new housing minister following Grant Shapps' promotion to the cabinet as Tory co-chair.
Mr Prisk - a chartered surveyor by profession - is currently a minister for Business and Enterprise in the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) - a position he has held since 2010.