Durham County Council has issued the following advice regarding changes to welfare benefits due to take effect next year:
As you may be
aware the Government is introducing wide ranging changes to welfare
benefits. A project team has been established to
look at these changes and undertake the work required to ensure we are able to
support the changes being made where we can and our residents are made aware of
the changes and the impact of these.
One of the
changes being made by Government is the introduction in April 2013 of ‘under
occupancy’ criteria which will see housing benefit reduced for those tenants
who are classed as under occupying their property. As an example tenants
will in future be classed as under occupying their home if they have more
bedrooms than they need e.g. a single occupant in a two bedroomed house.
This is one of the areas of work the project team has been looking at and we
will be contacting approximately 8,300 social housing tenants across County
Durham who we believe will be affected by this charge.
The letters are
to be sent in batches from Monday 3rd December and will advise
the tenant of the introduction of the under occupancy criteria and will ask
them to confirm that the detail held on the Housing Benefit system about them
is correct. We have been working
with our housing providers on this communication exercise and the letters will
provide contact details for their landlord should tenants have any specific
questions regarding their personal circumstances. A Q&A leaflet with
further information about this charge will also be included with the letter.
Customer Services
have also been involved with the planning of the distribution of the letters
and have been briefed on the contents of the letter. They are prepared should there be an
increase in calls or visits as a result of these letters, but it is anticipated
that tenants will contact their landlords first.
