The fifth annual Welfare Reform survey from ARCH and the
National Federation of ALMOs (NFA) shows that households on
Universal Credit are still significantly more likely to have
housing debt than those on Housing Benefit although the situation
is stabilising.
Since the NFA-ARCH annual UC survey was first published in 2016,
it has become a trusted source of information about the impact of
welfare reform. Its evidence has played a critical role in a number
of recent changes to Universal Credit policy, including the removal
of the seven-day waiting period, the run-on of Housing Benefit, and
the development of the Landlord Portal which makes direct contact
with the Department of Works & Pensions (DWP) possible.
This year we received responses to our latest survey from 43
councils and ALMOs managing over half a million homes, and we are
grateful to those member councils who were able to respond to this
year's survey and contribute to the report's findings.
This latest survey report"Setting a benchmark",finds that the
picture on 31 March 2020 suggested that the impact of welfare
reform was beginning to stabilize with the trend showing that
Universal Credit arrears were reaching a plateau with around
two-third of Universal Credit claimants in arrears. However, over
the last 3 years between March 2017 and March 2020, housing debt
owed to local authorities and ALMOs rose by 20%.
We are in unprecedented times and our latest survey was
conducted just as the Covid-19 pandemic hit the country with our
member councils, ALMOs and tenants still bracing themselves for the
full impact of the lockdown and subsequent economic shock to many
peoples' incomes and the country's economy. The survey shows that
landlords experienced a huge spike in Universal Credit
verifications in the immediate weeks following the introduction of
lockdown measures. On average, weekly applications rose by two and
a half times, but this hides a considerable local variation with
some areas seeing a seven-fold increase in Universal Credit claims
in the first few weeks of lockdown.
We therefore intend to follow up this survey with a further
short survey later in the year to seek to assess the effects of the
pandemic and lockdown as it is too early at the moment to assess
the full impact. Some of our member councils reported moving all or
some of their rent free weeks to the beginning of lockdown to
assist people, the '53 week year' is likely to have negatively
impacted rent arrears in March/April, and some member councils had
received, or were waiting for, substantial bulk payments from the
DWP. The Government's furlough scheme has also been operational in
this period and is likely to be cushioning the impact, especially
in those areas where there are high levels of employment in sectors
which have been disproportionately hit by Covid-19. These factors
will take time to work through.
We are also planning to hold a video conference for those
councils and ALMOs that participated in this year's survey to give
an opportunity to discuss the findings and share experiences with
colleagues in other local authorities. We will be finalising
details with our colleagues at the NFA in the next few weeks and
will be in touch with those councils who responded to the
survey.
The ARCH Board will be discussing the survey report at the next
ARCH Board meeting in September and we will be submitting it to
Ministers and senior officials at the DWP and hope to meet with
them, as we have in previous years, to discuss the report's
findings.
Read the latest ARCH/NFA welfare reform survey
report