Social Rented Housing – Parliamentary Written Answer

Stephen Doughty: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what guidance his Department has provided to registered social landlords on managing increases in rent arrears. 

Mr Prisk: DCLG and the DWP are working closely with a group of social landlords on the direct payment demonstration projects, which are testing the impact of the payment of housing benefit direct to tenants. A key aim of the demonstration projects is to explore how we can best protect social landlords, and tenants themselves, from the risk of increases in rent arrears. We intend to use the evidence gathered from the projects to inform the design of universal credit, including the safeguards to be put in place to protect the financial position of social landlords and prevent tenants from falling into significant debt. My Department and the DWP are also co-funding a learning network to capture the lessons from the demonstration projects, and encourage the sharing of best practice and information, to help social landlords prepare for direct payment.  We have also worked with the Chartered Institute for Housing on guidance for social landlords to prepare for the introduction of the social sector size criteria.  More generally, we would expect social landlords to work with their tenants to minimise the risk of rent arrears as far as possible.