§ Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Touhig.]
4.36 pm§ Ms Karen Buck (Regent's Park and Kensington, North)I am pleased to have the opportunity to raise this issue, which is of considerable importance to my constituents and to claimants across the country. When I was a little girl and asked my mother, "What shall I be?" in the Doris Day tradition, she never suggested as a career becoming a housing benefit nerd. I fear that it would have been sensible if she had given me that advice because I have taken the path of housing benefit nerddom.
I make no claim to have housing benefit expertise. Probably only four people in the world understand the housing benefit system—one more than those who understand the Schleswig-Holstein question. I have never attempted to include myself in that august elite, but I have donned the honorary anorak of housing benefit obsession, especially in recent months as the implications of the near collapse of housing benefit administration in my constituency have become clear. I lost the bloom of youth serving on housing benefit review tribunals during my career in local government in the early 1990s. Since then, as my hon. Friend the Minister is aware, the Select Committee on Social Security has examined several housing benefit administration issues.
The reason I have that underlying obsession is that, although housing benefit has never been a topic of conversation guaranteed to enliven parties, it matters a great deal, especially to the most vulnerable people in society—those who depend for the security of their homes on their housing costs being met efficiently and promptly. When the housing benefit system goes wrong, as it has in my constituency and many other parts of the country, it causes levels of distress and anxiety that no one should have to suffer, as I shall show during my speech.
I want to make one or two other points before I deal with the main issue. Although the task will be fiendishly difficult, I strongly believe that housing benefit reform must be one of the next Labour Government's key priorities. I do not underestimate the difficulty and complexity of the task, but simplifying and improving the housing benefit system is an absolute precondition if we are to build on the excellent foundations of the taxation and social security system and to improve work incentives, tackle poverty and ensure choice in the housing sector. Many policies have cried out for change.
Those issues were set out in detail by the Select Committee on Social Security and include single room restrictions for the under-25s, the high levels of non-dependant deductions and the operation of emergency payments for families on low incomes facing housing benefit restrictions.
Although I have not studied them in detail, I am aware of the welcome announcements made this week by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Security. No doubt my hon. Friend the Minister will refer to them. I am also aware of the content of the Government's response to consultation relating to the housing Green Paper. I warmly welcome the indication, in both those responses, of changes that will be made in the tackling of problems with the administration of housing benefit, and of flaws in policy.
867 I am very pleased that the Government have decided not to restrict backdating of housing benefit, following consultation and advice from the Social Security Advisory Committee and lobbying from local authorities and other specialist organisations. The restriction of backdating would have been seriously damaging to vulnerable clients, especially in view of the enormous difficulties experienced in many parts of the country with the delivery of housing benefits.
In half my constituency—the part covering the Conservative-controlled London borough of Westminster—the outsourcing of benefit administration to Capita put the system into free fall. At one point in the spring there were 23,000 items of post backed up. I am genuinely pleased that the situation is now under a degree of control, but at the last count a wholly unacceptable 10,545 items of correspondence remained to be dealt with, and according to reliable information the number of payments to meet rent rebate claims was decreasing at the last count.
During the midsummer peak of the crisis, claimants—many of them elderly—were sometimes required to queue for three hours at Westbourne house. Some claimants have told me of having to queue for five hours. Those who have attempted to sort out their problems at housing benefit offices have been told early in the morning that there is no point in waiting. They have gone away again and again, increasingly frustrated and anxious about the implications for them if they do not receive housing benefit.
The service offered to people who try to deal with their problems in person is appalling. One lady who spoke to me had waited at the housing benefit office for two hours, with her documentation, and had then asked to use the toilet. She was told that there was not one available for public use, although she had a medical condition. I understand that a toilet is now available, but that it is kept locked and claimants must ask to use it.
Public interaction with the social security system in all its forms is critical. Claimants who are overwhelmingly genuine and, in many cases, vulnerable deserve to be treated efficiently, and with respect to their dignity. If they are not treated in such a way, their experience of Government will be undermined. That is a dangerous and unpleasant fact, but it has been demonstrated in a number of cases.
Councillor Alexander Nicholl, chairman of the council's contracts committee, told Inside Housing magazine that the situation was
not the tragedy people were making out.I doubt that that dismissal of claimants' concerns will greatly comfort my 85-year-old constituent who made a housing benefit claim in the summer, which then became stuck in a queue along with all the other claims. Having never owed money before—as is the case with a great many claimants—my constituent is unable to sleep because of the anxiety caused by five months' rent, and is selling items of furniture to tide herself over.My client Mr. Habboushi has not received housing benefit for more than 12 months. Set after set of original documentation has gone missing. I have referred the case to the local government ombudsman who, it seems, has also been unable to obtain a reply from the council since the middle of the summer.
868 One young man who had been housed by the council because of mental health problems—through the community care housing policy—became so agitated by all the problems involved in sorting out his claim that, according to his carer, he handed in his key, and is now assumed to be sleeping rough. One lady has been asked on five occasions for her husband's death certificate; another lady with terminal cancer has a county court judgment against her for unpaid debts. My constituents are running up rent arrears amounting to thousands of pounds—£11,000 in one instance. They are experiencing the profound distress of receiving notices seeking possession from their landlords because of debts that are not of their making.
Following up a case with the West Hampstead housing association, which I believe is pretty typical, I was told:
You mention that the family received a notice seeking possession. These are issued to all clients when their arrears go over £2,500. This allows them to take the notice to the housing benefit department to help speed up their applications.What an indictment of the system—only when people are threatened with homelessness can priority be given to their claims. Can hon. Members imagine the anxiety and fear caused to parents with young children, and to elderly and sick or disabled clients, by the receipt of an awesomely imposing legal document telling them that because of unpaid debts they will lose their homes?The problem is, of course, by no means confined to Westminster. Some authorities are undoubtedly worse, although I do not think that should let the Conservative flagship authority off the hook. The housing charity Shelter has drawn my attention to cases outside my constituency. One involves a lone parent with three children, who ended up in court in a repossession hearing after her council had lost her claim form and refused to accept that a claim had been made. The court found in her favour, but at what cost, given the anxiety and distress that she experienced?
In another case, a single man waited seven months for his claim to be processed. Only when Shelter threatened a judicial review did the council make a payment, a full 11 months and £5,550 of debt later. The man has now been notified that his benefit was stopped again in July, as the normal 52-week review period was required.
Landlords themselves, both private and public, are also suffering. Housing associations are so stricken by cash flow problems that they are resorting to issuing notices seeking possession to spur the council into action.
Notting Hill housing trust provides a wide range of housing services in London—it is a valued local landlord of mine—but, in my view, none of those services is as crucial as the provision of temporary accommodation for homeless families, on behalf of local authorities. Families are often in a desperate state when they have lost their homes, but the housing trust puts them together again. Children are settled at school, and families begin to regain their self-respect and their ability to stand on their own feet.
What a disaster it is that those people must face a bureaucratic, cumbersome and badly run housing benefit service. The Notting Hill trust helps 515 families on behalf of Westminster city council. Arrears have been rising fast, from £500,000 in April to £1.3 million last month. Given the slow progress of claims, it is hard for Notting Hill, and other landlords and housing 869 associations, to know what they are genuinely required to collect from their tenants, and what is due from the council.
Notting Hill—this is a matter of profound regret to me—recently told Westminster city council that it could no longer provide for homeless families, until the position improved. I believe that other housing associations have considered the same action. Such decisions are very serious, because they increase the likelihood of vulnerable families' going into bed-and-breakfast accommodation—something that all civilised people want to avoid.
I know that staff in Westminster city council and elsewhere are working hard to speed things up, and I pay tribute to them because I know how much stress they experience, but this is no way to run a system in the long term. We know of the problems underlying the crisis. There was an ill-considered outsourcing to companies, including Capita, which were clearly not prepared for the scale and complexity of the task that faced them. Some responsibility must fall on Westminster city council for the inadequacy of the original contract, and some must fall on Capita and other companies that patently underestimated the scale of the task.
The performance of local authorities varies, and poor performers must take their share of the blame. Nevertheless, I believe that central Government had a case to answer. Regulations have been introduced at a wholly unrealistic pace, placing unreasonable demands on local authorities—I believe that some 80 have been introduced in the last year. Moreover, local authorities have historically been inadequately funded for the administrative tasks that they are being asked to undertake on behalf of central Government.
The verification framework, while entirely laudable in principle, has placed too heavy a burden on authorities and urgently needs to be reviewed with an eye to simplification. The requirements of the verification programme place local providers, such as the Church Army, St. Mungo's and Wytham Hall which work with homeless families, in particular difficulty.
In my constituency work, I deal with many refugees whose original documentation has been locked away inside the immigration and nationality directorate, sometimes for years, thereby making it impossible for them to present the verification documentation required by housing benefit departments. There remains great scope for joined-up thinking between the Home Office, the Department of Social Security and the local government agencies under the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions, to determine whether some of the documentation requirements are unrealistic and should be reviewed.
I very much welcome the Minister's indication that, at least initially in a pilot, registered social landlords may be allowed to use other verification documentation. I know that registered social landlords have asked for and would welcome that facility, which I think would significantly reduce the burden.
As I said, this week's announcements go a considerable way towards meeting my wider concerns about administration of housing benefit, and I particularly welcome the positive and constructive tone in which they have been made. They contrast with the previous Government's total indifference on the issue. Over 870 18 years, they let housing benefit take the strain of housing costs and created many of the problems that we are now trying to tackle.
We are on the right road, but there is much more to be done to simplify the system, reduce the administrative burden on councils and remove some of the harsher policy elements in relation to non-dependant deductions, rent restrictions and the other issues flagged up in the Select Committee on Social Security.
I believe that we may be close to ending the administrative chaos that has blighted so many lives in recent months and years. Will the Government please ensure that they follow through on the proposals announced earlier this week and help to ensure that local authorities which, for whatever reason, are providing a completely inadequate service are enabled to deliver properly for housing benefit claimants?
Will my hon. Friend the Minister also promise that long-term reforms will be built on to extend and develop the proposals that were announced this week, so that we can seriously consider options such as fixed-term payment periods—for 12 months for pensioners and six months for people of working age, which I think go a little beyond the proposal that has already been announced—and a full review of the current system of rent restrictions? Will she also assure me that, in the coming months, organisations such as the National Association of Citizens Advice Bureaux, Shelter, the Chartered Institute of Housing and the National Housing Federation—which has played a very constructive role in the dialogue on housing benefit reform—are fully consulted on the necessary changes?
Thank you very much again, Madam Deputy Speaker, for giving me the opportunity to raise this issue. I look forward to hearing the Minister's reply.
§ The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Social Security (Angela Eagle)I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Regent's Park and Kensington, North (Ms Buck) on securing such a timely debate on an extremely important issue. I think that she undersells herself when she says that she is a nerd and an anorak who is not an expert on housing benefit, as she is very knowledgeable about very complex subjects. She is also a doughty and expert campaigner on behalf of her constituents, who I am sure are very proud of her.
My hon. Friend is fortunate in her timing because, as she said, yesterday we published our response to the housing Green Paper, which proposes radical measures to achieve rapid improvement in the administration of housing benefit. As yesterday's announcement was covered in just one paragraph in one newspaper, I have to agree with her that the media do not always treat housing benefit claimants and serious problems with housing benefits as newsworthy. They certainly do not cover our struggles in trying to improve the situation.
I profoundly agree with my hon. Friend on her points on public interaction with the benefits system. Each week, £2 billion in benefits are paid out in the United Kingdom, and, each day, the Benefits Agency receives 600,000 telephone calls. Those statistics do not include the transactions handled by the 409 local authorities that currently administer housing benefit. Housing benefit reform is therefore central to implementing our modernisation of the very run-down and under-invested system that we inherited.
871 We must give higher priority to providing a much better service to those who interact with the benefits system. Some of the examples that my hon. Friend cited of the service provided by Westminster city council are simply not acceptable. It is totally unacceptable that there should be a lack of toilets or endless waiting to solve a problem that is not even of one's own making.
Currently, 4.3 million people receive housing benefit, and it supports many more in their homes. Improving housing benefit delivery is vital. It is in all our interests that those who administer it do so effectively, efficiently and securely, delivering a service that—as my hon. Friend said—gives people on low incomes the help that they need for a decent home. As she also said, when provision goes wrong, it can cause profound stress and anxiety. I am personally very aware of that.
In 1997, we inherited a system that was fragmented—with 409 different local authorities administering it—over-complex and very neglected by central Government. That neglect meant that, although a handful of councils were delivering housing benefit successfully, many more were struggling, and no help was forthcoming to overcome the situation.
The problems of housing benefit administration were magnified by the unacceptable levels of fraud and error in the system. The system established by the previous Government made it possible, for example, to access housing benefit without a national insurance number or any other proof of identity. We could not allow that situation to continue. We have been working very hard to remedy such problems, and we are determined that local and central government should work together to overcome the neglect facing the housing benefit system.
Conservative Members are looking for a quick fix for the problems facing housing benefit, and they have suggested some solutions—such as removing responsibility for delivery from local authorities when there are backlogs. Although I do not know how they intend to define a backlog or make the change, they say that the change will save a quarter of a billion pounds. The proposal is, however, utterly illogical, as none of their proposals would make the system cheaper.
Some local authorities do a good job of administering housing benefit, and we want to encourage the others to raise their standards to that of the best. The best way of dealing with the current situation is to improve the standard of local authorities that have fallen behind and encountered difficulties. The challenge of modernising housing benefit would certainly not be helped by a huge and costly upheaval in infrastructure, personnel and information technology. We also do not believe that, in the foreseeable future, there is a convincing case to support removal of responsibility for housing benefit delivery from local authorities. We certainly do not want to create the type of planning blight that would occur if there were any uncertainty about the matter. The Government firmly hold that view.
The housing Green Paper has explained our reform strategy. As my hon. Friend graciously said, the Government have listened to those who have commented on our specific proposals and on other proposals such as those on backdating. Our response contains a 872 wide-ranging package of measures that will both give support to the local authorities administering housing benefit and raise the standard of service to tenants.
The measures that we have announced will help us to achieve four aims: first, to bring swift improvements to the performance of struggling councils; secondly, to raise standards across the board; thirdly, to streamline housing benefit, thereby making it easier for councils to administer and—equally importantly—simpler for people to claim; and, fourthly, to lay the foundations for long-term and fundamental reform of housing benefit.
My hon. Friend might have noticed that, at the beginning of this week, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Security announced not only a three-year rather than one-year settlement for funding housing benefit, but an extra £24 million—which we believe will help to ease some of the current problems.
The fundamental challenge facing housing benefit is its administration and we have made that our immediate priority. We are setting up and funding an expert help team which will work with struggling local councils to help clear delays in paying housing benefit. The team will draw on experts from top performing councils, the DSS and management specialists to support authorities which have built up backlogs in paying out benefit.
The team will identify what is going wrong in a local authority and identify what action is needed. It will help local authorities to access resources for clearing up immediate problems such as backlogs, and to prevent problems from recurring by developing and then implementing local improvement plans. Because some local authorities succeed in delivering housing benefit well, that approach will allow us to target help where it is most needed. It also proves our commitment to work in partnership with local government to sort out the administration of housing benefit.
We shall establish a set of consistent national standards which we will back up by reliable and accurate information on how local authorities are actually performing. Much of that information is not available at the moment. That will allow us to develop a subsidy that links payment for administration to performance, as well as supporting the improved delivery of housing benefit and the better management of change.
The performance framework will build on the administrative improvements being brought about by best value and help local authorities to strive towards the aim of consistent national standards. We will seek to make sure that local government is accountable to its taxpayers by publishing league tables of council performance. That will not further encumber local authorities with wasteful bureaucracy, but it will build on the successes of best value and raise standards of administration across the board.
The housing Green Paper outlined the need to ensure that those without work had a decent and stable base from which to begin the search for employment. Many respondents were concerned that this was not always the case for young people. We share that concern.
My hon. Friend has lobbied us all about the effects of the single room rent. We are therefore broadening the definition of the single room rent to achieve three aims: first, to help provide young people with stable and reasonable accommodation so that they can concentrate their efforts on finding work; secondly, to ensure that the 873 rent that housing benefit pays better reflects the type of shared accommodation available in the private sector; and thirdly, to encourage landlords to rent to young adults. We do not, however, agree that the single room rent should be abolished completely. It would be unfair if unemployed young adults could afford better accommodation than their working peers.
At present, the multiple and lengthy paper claim forms which are often duplicated between the different organisations involved both delay housing benefit delivery and cause frustration for the tenants. We will develop a more streamlined approach that cuts down on bureaucracy, giving an improved service delivery to the client as well as securing the system against fraud and error. Streamlining the housing benefit claims process will allow local authorities to devote more time and resources to improving delivery and customer service through reducing bureaucratic burdens.
It is not only the initial claims process that needs simplifying. We want to make sure that housing benefit does not act as a disincentive to returning to work. We plan to ease the transition into work by removing the need to make a new claim for housing benefit on starting work: we will explore with local authorities whether starting work could be treated as a change of circumstances, allowing a speedier payment to be made. That proposal is backed up by a measure to speed up getting housing benefit paid if a job ends after only a short period.
It is not only those of working age who can benefit from simplification. We also intend to prevent pensioners from having to make fresh claims every year and instead institute a simpler review process. We will work with local authorities to develop the detail and discuss the timing of the introduction of these improvements.
Currently, local authorities operate four different schemes to restrict the housing benefit payable to tenants in the private rented sector. The rules have become too complex to administer properly and for clients to understand. We are therefore looking at ways to achieve simplification in this area as well, so as to reduce the administrative burden on local authorities.
The new measures that I have outlined build upon an already considerable agenda for improving administration and tackling fraud. Since 1997, we have been working with local authorities to ensure that we deliver a more efficient and less complex service.
We established the housing benefit improvement programme this year to help local authorities improve their administration. We seek to deliver rapid improvements to the administration of housing benefit and work with local authorities to ensure that this happens, for instance, through setting up the integrated inquiry service, which is a super remote access terminal or RAT. For the first time, remote access terminals—RATs—have allowed local authorities to have an electronic window into Benefits Agency systems to check information. They have been very successful and well used. We want to strengthen the electronic links for information gathering and sharing between the two agencies.
We have established remote access terminals in 404 of the 409 local authorities, providing them with online access to the details of income support and jobseekers' 874 allowance claims. The integrated inquiry service will allow information to be sent back and forth and more of the DSS systems to be accessible.
We have listened to the problems that local authorities say they face in implementing the verification framework. Already we have introduced greater flexibility. In addition, from 2002 we are splitting the framework into separate parts to allow local authorities to implement it incrementally.
The benefit fraud inspectorate continues to evaluate the performance of individual local authorities, helping them to tackle weaknesses in their benefit services. Nearly 80 reports have been published so far; by next October we will have carried out inspections of around 120 councils which between them account for some 60 per cent. of housing benefit expenditure.
My hon. Friend's local authority, Westminster, was inspected by the BFI earlier this year and the report was published in October 2000. We are currently awaiting the council's response to the report prior to any further action on our part. The report noted several praiseworthy areas, such as Westminster's strong counter-fraud stance and its willingness to improve. However, it also highlighted a large number of weaknesses which will need to be rectified in order to deliver efficient services to benefit recipients. My hon. Friend highlighted a few more in her speech tonight.
First, the benefit fraud inspectorate noted that the management arrangements for delivering benefits in counter-fraud work are too complex and this leads to inefficiencies. Secondly, the contracts with ACIT and Capita need to be more firmly monitored and controlled to incorporate key areas of work such as overpayment recovery and the outcomes of fraud investigations. More needs to be done to clear the backlog of overpayment determinations and speed up the instigation of recovery action. Thirdly, the report stated that claim procedures needed to be improved, for example, by improving the claim form and bringing verification standards up to those of the verification framework. Westminster currently uses its own version of the verification framework which does not meet DSS minimum standards.
There is a need to strike the right balance between building on reforms already made and introducing more change. We have not ruled out making further improvements, but the proposals that I have outlined deliberately focus on areas that we consider could contribute most to easing the administrative burden, promoting work and improving services to claimants. There is never any shortage of ideas for improving housing benefit, but there is a shortage of capacity in local authorities to manage change. That is why we want to focus on quality, not quantity, and work with local authorities to improve the system and its delivery.
I take the points my hon. Friend made about fixed-term periods and the verification framework and we are acting on them. She also mentioned the shortage of money and we have announced some modest increases. We certainly take the point about the number of regulatory changes and are looking at more consistent ways of introducing them. 875 I would point out, however, that the changes in the single room rent, which my hon. Friend warmly welcomed, require changes in regulations that need to go through the administrative process.
Let there be no mistake: we are determined to improve the administration of housing benefit, working in partnership with local authorities that have the primary 876 legal duty to administer it. I agree with my hon. Friend that the difficulties currently faced by some tenants and landlords are unacceptable. We have set out our programme of reform and the measures that we have put in place to help local authorities deal with it, and I hope that we will see a rapid improvement.
§ Question put and agreed to.
§ Adjourned accordingly at nine minutes past Five o'clock.