Universal Credit: DWP Confirms It Is To Share Claimants’ Data With Social Landlords

Remember this, readers? Well, it seems it’s going to happen.

The Department for Work and Pensions is to share tenant data with social landlords to simplify the administration of universal credit, it has been confirmed.

The DWP said the new regulations would come into force on 13 February after 99% of social landlords responding to its consultation backed the proposals.

Previously, social landlords were reliant on being informed by their tenants of any switch to the new benefits system, a situation that made it difficult to plan ahead and provide help for the new claimant.

The new regulations will only apply to social landlords, including housing associations operating as charities, but not with private landlords – because they do not currently provide welfare support to tenants.

The DWP has also published a summary of responses to the consultation questions:

Q. We envisage social landlords would provide a range of support to their vulnerable tenants. What types of support would you as a social landlord provide your tenants?

Response summary:
Social landlords provide a range of support including:

• budgeting advice
• signposting to debt advice eg Citizens Advice Bureau
• maximising income/benefit take up
• signposting to other support services eg drug and alcohol services

However, the National Housing Federation (NHF) has cautioned against assuming that social landlords have sole or lead responsibility for supporting tenants. They think DWP through the agency of Jobcentre Plus has a key role in ensuring that vulnerable tenants have access to personal budgeting support. There was also a view (from one respondent) that the Support Services Framework, as yet, had not outlined any financial assistance to be provided to social landlords or other local delivery partners.

Q. Our intention is to enable DWP to provide minimum information about the claimant aimed at identifying tenants claiming Universal Credit or being Universal Credit recipients. Would that information be sufficient for you to provide support to your tenant?

Response summary:
Both social and private landlords are generally happy with the idea of DWP sharing minimum information. Specific information which the social sector landlords wanted was for the
claimant’s:

• name
• address
• payment date
• how much will be paid via the housing elementUniversal Credit data sharing – consultation response

Social sector landlords have also identified a number of other areas where data sharing is needed. A particular area for data sharing often mentioned by social landlords is in the area of Alternative Payment Arrangements (APA); they would like DWP to notify landlords when the person is on APA. Other areas where social landlords have wanted information to be shared is when HB ends. An area of data sharing, which NHF listed, is regarding information from DWP to support their court action against tenants.

Q. What do you think would be the implications of not having the information which DWP is proposing to supply under these regulations?

Response summary:
A large majority of responses have mentioned that vulnerable tenants would lose out on the support which landlords can provide if DWP cannot share relevant data with them.

Associations working live with Universal Credit in the first year found it very frustrating that they were unable to support tenants until significant arrears had built up which alerted them to a problem. It was impossible for social sector landlords and housing association to offer any early intervention to support tenants with the new system unless tenants came and asked for help.

Q. What concerns do you think your tenant may have about their information being shared with you as a social landlord?

Response summary:
Most landlord groups did not think their tenants would have any concerns about their data being shared in order for them to benefit from the support. A number of social landlord groups had actually spoken to their tenants before responding. The majority view was that tenants would not object to their data being shared.