The report went to the Prime Minister's office last January. But it was shelved following the announcement of the Housing Green Paper - at that stage ministers wanted an overhaul of the system rather than minor changes (Housing Today, 29 April).
However after a third attempt at overhauling housing benefit, the government is understood to have concluded that such changes are unworkable. Ambitious plans for the benefit are now only expected to appear as an aspiration in the long-awaited Green Paper. But the paper is now expected to propose introducing options outlined in the simplification and improvement project.
A number of options were originally put forward by the project. The significant proposals include:
- Widening the definition of the single room rent so that young tenants effected receive a higher level of benefit.
- Restructuring non dependent deductions to make the system fairer.
- Increasing earnings disregards, which have been fixed since 1989, to increase working incentives.
- Introducing fixed term payments so that tenants can have the same housing benefit for a six month period whatever their change of circumstance.
- Restructuring local reference rents including a plan to require rent officers to take into account local authority and housing association rents in areas of low demand when setting reference rents.
Child Poverty Action Group head of public affairs Geoff Fimister, who was a member of the original project said: "The talk now of incremental changes seems to imply that they have abandoned big bang changes and will be blowing the dust off the simplification project."
National Housing Federation policy director Liz Potter said: "Real improvement is urgently needed - the proposals were ready a year ago. Why not introduce them now?"
Source
Housing Today
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