DWP ‘Deliberately Misleading The Public’ About The Impact Of Housing Benefit Cuts

The DWP has been accused of “peddling lies and deliberately misleading the public” about the impact of upcoming cuts to housing benefit.  Upcoming cuts to housing benefit for tenants in the social rented sector, which come into force from early 2019, will see housing benefit for people living in social housing capped at the Local Housing Allowance (LHA) rate. The director of Angus Housing Association, Bruce Forbes, accused the DWP of attempting to “deliberately mislead the public by implying that it is the increasing cost of social housing sector rents that has seen the Housing Benefit bill spiral out of control”. Read more on Welfare Weekly.

Watchdog Slams Government Efforts to Free Up Land for Homes

A Government programme designed to free up public land for new homes has been criticised for misleading statistics, a lack of monitoring and the absence of any economic rationale. The damning report from the National Audit Office (NAO) said while on the face of it the Government had met its target to release enough land for up to 100,000 homes by 2015, closer examination revealed fundamental flaws. Among them were the CLG’s 'wide interpretation of the land that could be counted towards the target'. This included land for 15,740 homes that had been disposed of before the programme began. A further 10,783 were included despite being on sites owned by the Royal Mail and British Waterways – which have since left the public sector – and have not been developed.

Read more on the LocalGov website.

Energy Department Misled Consumers over Green Deal Savings,

The Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) has been ordered to drop an advertising campaign which misled viewers over the savings they could expect to make from the Government’s Green Deal scheme and failed to make clear the costs involved. In a further blow to the much criticised green initiative, DECC was criticised by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) following complaints that it misled consumers.  Viewers complained about a television campaign which implied that savings under the scheme were guaranteed.  But the ASA found that “DECC could not guarantee that Green Deal repayments would exceed savings. Read more on the Independent website.