14 February 2006 - Fifteen months on: An interim evaluation of running the LHA in the nine Pathfinder areas
Interim findings from the evaluation of the Local Housing Allowance Pathfinders are published today.
The report is part of a series that give feedback on the evaluation and is the first in the series which looks at the live running of the LHA, fifteen months after its introduction in each of the Pathfinders. The report focuses on those stakeholders who are involved in delivering the LHA and examines the way in which its introduction has affected the work of their organisation.
The live running of the LHA continues to go smoothly in all of the nine Pathfinders and for many it is now considered the normal way of working. This has been achieved against a background of other changes in regulations, significant organisational change in some Pathfinders and a variety of IT and staffing problems ranging from the trivial to the acute.
Direct payments to claimants still remain very high with 87% of claimants being paid their Housing Benefit direct by May this year.
Though only affecting 3% of LHA cases, arrears have increased as a reason for paying landlords in some of the Pathfinders. It can be expected that the proportion of cases may increase and then level off the longer the LHA has been up and running. Additionally, there is some sense in which landlords are using the arrears provisions as a way of getting payments made to themselves by claiming arrears or missed or insufficient rent payments in circumstances where they might not have done so before. Evidence from this stream of the evaluation, though, shows that arrears are not a widespread problem for the majority of LHA recipients and their landlords.
Vulnerability decisions still account for the major reason why landlords are paid Housing Benefit (applying to 4 out of 5 payments to landlords), with the main reason for this being on medical grounds. Initial decisions are very rarely seen as permanent by Pathfinders and cases are expected to be reviewed at pre-determined intervals. This is particularly the case where vulnerability has been granted because of claimants being unable to open bank accounts, which is still the case for a small minority of claimants.
Processing times in the Pathfinders continue to improve more quickly than in the rest of Great Britain. Although some Pathfinders voiced concerns that savings from not having to undertake rent officer referrals may be offset to some extent by an increase in time spent on vulnerability assessments.
Notes to Editors
- Fifteen Months On: An Interim Evaluation of running the LHA in the nine Pathfinder areas is published on 14 February in the Department for Work and Pensions Local Housing Allowance Evaluation Series (Report number 8). A copy of the report can be downloaded from the DWP website: www.dwp.gov.uk/housingbenefit/lha/evaluation/
- Earlier reports in the series that look at the position within the Pathfinders before the introduction of the LHA and after the first six months can also be found on the website.
- The evaluation is being carried out over a two year period following the introduction of LHA within the private rented sector in the nine Pathfinders and will inform the eventual rollout of the scheme nationally. An independent consortium of the Universities of Birmingham, Loughborough and York along with the National Centre for Social Research has been commissioned to carry out the evaluation. As well as this the Department will be conducting analysis of its own administrative and statistical data which will feed into the evaluation and consider the effect of the LHA on meeting the objectives of the scheme.
- The stakeholders included in the evaluation include Housing Benefit administration, rent officers, Jobcentre Plus, and local authority and independent advice agencies. The experiences of landlords and claimants are the subject of separate reports which will be published with the final stages of the evaluation.
- The nine Pathfinders of the LHA are Blackpool, Brighton & Hove, Conwy, Coventry, Edinburgh, Leeds, Lewisham, North-East Lincolnshire and Teignbridge.
DWP Press Office: 0207 238 0762
Public enquiries: 0207 712 2171
Prepared by: Department for Work and Pensions Housing Analysis & Evaluation
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