Direct Rent Payments – PWA

John Mann MP (Labour, Bassetlaw): What discretion do local authorities have to make direct payments to landlords through housing-related benefits?
Helen Goodman MP (Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions): Under the local housing allowance rules for calculating housing benefit local authorities may pay housing benefit directly to landlords in the following circumstances:
-when they consider that the tenant is unlikely to pay their rent;
-when they consider that the tenant is likely to have difficulty in managing their financial affairs;
-when payments have previously been made in the same award directly to the landlord because the tenant was in 8 or more weeks of arrears of rent;
-as a one-off payment where the tenant has moved leaving arrears of rent.