DWP Slammed For Withholding Direct Payment Data

The Department for Work and Pensions has been criticised after revealing it will not tell landlords how well its universal credit pilots are working until next year.  Six pilot projects are running across the country to test the direct payment of benefit to tenants instead of to landlords. The projects, which run until next summer, feature housing associations and councils and test direct payment to around 12,000 tenants.  The DWP had indicated it would publish initial data in the first week in November. But instead of publishing information showing the progress of the projects, it released results from a baseline survey of 1,639 tenants, which was carried out before the projects started in June.  Read more on Inside Housing.