DWP May Be Over-Estimating Bedroom Tax Savings

University and social landlord collaborative research has found the DWP may have significantly over-estimated the savings from the bedroom tax. The University of York worked with Riverside, Wigan and Leigh Housing, Affinity Sutton and Gentoo to apply figures based on the experience of the housing associations tenants to a model used by the DWP to estimate the savings reported to parliament in impact assessments in 2011 and 2012. DWP estimated that the introduction of bedroom tax would reduce the housing benefit bill by £930 million over the next two years, with further tests showing annual savings within a range of £10 million either side of its main estimate. However, the new research suggests that using the DWP’s own model, the actual savings may be little more than 60 per cent of the projected figure. Download a copy of the report from the Riverside website.