Universal credits back in spotlight as Highland rent arrears fears flagged
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FLAGSHIP welfare reforms being tried out in Inverness got hundreds of people back into work but left council housing tenants facing a downward spiral of rent arrears and disabled people waiting nearly a year for benefits.
Universal Credit was rolled out at the city’s River House Jobcentre last year, getting nearly 400 people into work, including more than 250 into full-time jobs.
However, a change in the system that means housing benefit is no longer paid direct to Highland Council and instead goes direct to the social housing tenants has seen them spending the money on other things and slipping into rent arrears.
And a “huge backlog” in face-to-face assessments by private contractors has left disabled people waiting up to nine months for a decision on their benefit claim.
Richard Laird, SNP group depute leader in Highland, said there were “fewer greater examples of how the Union fails Scotland”.
But Mary Scanlon, Tory MSP, said it remained to be seen if the nationalists would do better with benefits, and said she was proud to be part of a government that helped people get back into work.
The Inverness Jobcentre catchment area, which extends as far as the Wester Ross, Strathpeffer and Lochalsh ward and across to Nairn and Badenoch and Strathspey, was the first in Scotland to feel the force of the UK government’s welfare system change. It is being rolled out elsewhere between now and 2017.
A Universal Credit replaced several current benefits, including housing benefit and income support, and gives claimants one monthly payout.
Housing benefit is now paid directly to claimants rather than the council or landlord, and it appears 15 council housing tenants have used the money to pay for other things, tumbling into rent arrears.
Derek Yule, the council’s director of finance, said it was difficult to establish if the 15 tenants were in arrears at the time the signed up to Universal Credit but the impact on these claimants and the implications for wider roll out were “significant”.
His report to Wednesday’s resources committee reveals more than 600 new single claimants have been made at Inverness Jobcentre since November.
Up to 65 per cent have gone into employment.
Last month, Ian Duncan Smith, Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, said the “unacceptable” waiting times for disability payments would come down and pledged that by the end of the year no-one would be waiting more than 16 weeks.
Meantime, the demand for foodbanks is continuing to grow in Highland with 10 now in operation.
Homeless charity manager Dr Paul Monaghan of Highland Homeless Trust said many of his clients were getting into arrears because they were spending their rent money on other things.
He said: “Universal Credit will almost certainly result in a rise in evictions and lead to a rise in homelessness.”
