The number of people presenting themselves as homeless in Scotland has dropped, official figures have revealed.
There were 8,734 applications for homelessness assistance in the final quarter of 2012, a 12 percent drop on the same period in 2011.
Crisis has called on the government to urgently reverse cuts made to housing benefit as new figures reveal a 10 percent rise in homelessness since 2011.
And the official statistics, released by the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG), show that the number of households accepted as homeless and owed the main homelessness duty over the last two years has risen by 26 percent.
Millions of pounds of funding announced by the Department for Work and Pensions for the creation of budgeting accounts to help benefit claimants adapt to the new Universal Credit regime may not be available after all following intervention from the Treasury.
Last year the DWP announced a £145 million fund to encourage financial services companies to develop new basic banking facilities such as jam jar accounts.
The London Assembly has called on the Mayor to launch an "urgent review" of the potential impact on London of the Government’s plans to change the way housing benefits are paid, amid fears that it could lead to an increase in rent arrears and damage the building of new affordable housing.
Assembly Members backed a motion urging Boris Johnson to press the Government for assurances that the introduction of the new Universal Credit – whereby rent would be paid to tenants instead of directly to landlords – would not exacerbate London’s housing crisis.
Councils that have pledged not to evict tenants who run up arrears as a result of the government’s ‘bedroom tax’ could struggle to keep their promise once universal credit is introduced.
Dundee Council last week agreed that no tenant in arrears due to the under-occupation penalty would be evicted if they are doing what they can to avoid falling behind on payments, and several other councils are considering similar promises.
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.