Implementation Of Welfare Reform By Local Authorities
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Implementation of Welfare Reform by Local Authorities
Author: Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Communities and Local Government Committee
language: en
Publisher: The Stationery Office
Release Date: 2013-04-03
The significance, timetable and volume of the proposed welfare reforms should not be underestimated. The changes will see Housing Benefit, currently administered by local authorities, transferring into Universal Credit (UC), to be administered by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP). Moving in the other direction, Council Tax Benefit and parts of the Social Fund will be replaced with schemes designed and administered by local authorities. This report focuses on implementation and the part that local authorities are playing. It identifies four key areas that will be crucial to the successful implementation of the changes. First, these reforms require close interdepartmental working, particularly between the Department for Communities and Local Government and DWP. Second, the Government needs to work with the Local Government Association to assess the cumulative impact of the entire programme on local authorities' resources. Third, for the simplification of benefits, the Government is switching the payment of housing support from the landlord directly to the claimant. Housing associations may therefore face increased rent arrears and collection costs, though the Government has agreed that this may be offset by excluding "vulnerable" tenants and an automatic switchback mechanism (paying rent to the landlord when a tenant's arrears hit a threshold level). In addition, it is vital that DWP makes good on its assurances that the financial viability of housing associations will not be damaged by the welfare reforms. Fourth, there are concerns about the readiness of ICT systems, specifically that the systems for fraud detection within UC were still at early development even though implementation is now advanced
National Audit Office (NAO) - Department for Communities and Local Government: Council Tax Support - HC 882
Author: Great Britain: National Audit Office
language: en
Publisher: The Stationery Office
Release Date: 2013-12-13
The Department for Communities and Local Government worked together effectively with local authorities to ensure Council Tax support was introduced on schedule. Not all local authorities' support schemes, however, will achieve the expected objectives outlined by the Department before the policy was implemented. The Department reduced the funding for Council Tax support by 10 per cent, equating to a saving for central government of £414 million in 2013-14. Its 'localization' of Council Tax support required local authorities to design their own local support schemes. Most local authorities have reduced support for claimants to meet some of their funding reduction. Seventy-one per cent of local authorities have introduced schemes that require working age claimants to pay at least some council tax regardless of income. Most local authorities also used new powers to charge more Council Tax on some properties, such as second and short-term empty homes, to help offset the funding reduction for Council Tax support. The National Audit Office found that all of a sample of 207 local authorities had taken advantage of these additional powers, raising an estimated additional income of £178 million. The Department expects local authorities to implement schemes which protect vulnerable people and improve work incentives. The task for local authorities to meet these different objectives whilst managing their funding reduction is complex, and may require trade-offs. The Department takes the view that scheme designs are local decisions and it does not plan to intervene in local authorities' scheme choices
Handbook of Public Information Systems, Second Edition
Written by more than 60 contributors who depict the remarkable transformation of the public management profession by computers, this book presents the historical, institutional, legal, organizational, functional, policy, and theoretical background that constitutes IT literacy for public service. The book describes the application of IT to training, budgeting, and policy simulation at the federal level, and to community planning, community telecommunications, and welfare at the state level. Providing a broad and timely overview of IT as it applies to the public sector the book collects critical knowledge and delivers insight into contemporary uses of IT in the public sphere.