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Minister for Welfare Reform Lord Freud says the Universal Credit demonstration projects have helped to shape new thinking around direct payments to tenants.

The demonstration projects were set up to learn how we could best support landlords and tenants with the introduction of direct payment. That learning is regularly shared and I’m sure all members of the social housing community have views on what it is teaching us. Because the roll out of Universal Credit is progressive we have time to get this right. 

Six in ten landlords and agents are concerned about receiving rent if they accept housing benefit tenants.
 
A new survey of 500 landlords and agents by website Dssmove found that rent apart, most landlords and agents (75%) were happy to let to Local Housing Allowance tenants. 

The Welsh government's minister for tackling poverty has warned that the coalition's Universal Credit (UC) system has thrown a question mark over the state's ability to deliver support to most vulnerable people.

Huw Lewis told assembly members in the Senedd how UC will have a knock-on impact on Welsh government support such as free school meals. 

The Universal Credit direct payment demonstration projects will be extended for a further six months, Minister for Welfare Reform Lord Freud announced today, as new findings from the projects are published.

The Department for Work and Pensions says the extension will help to further develop the support needed for social housing tenants moving onto Universal Credit. The projects will now run until the end of the year. 

The government's new Universal Credit (UC) system has begun to be rolled-out today, in four North West towns.

The reformed benefit programme will be introduced in four jobcentres in parts of Oldham, Ashton-under-Lyne, Wigan and Warrington. 

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has today awarded a £38 million contract to modernise and grow the credit union industry.

The Association of British Credit Unions (ABCUL) is the successful bidder to deliver the DWP’s project, which is designed to help meet the growing demand for modern banking products for people on low incomes. 

The bedroom tax will cost Northern Ireland more to implement than it will save in housing benefit, new figures have revealed.

According to a joint study by the Northern Ireland Federation of Housing Associations (NIFHA) and the Chartered Institute of Housing (CIH), though the bedroom tax aims to cut the benefits bill by £17m, it will cost £21m to implement. 

Millions of pounds of funding announced by the Department for Work and Pensions for the creation of budgeting accounts to help benefit claimants adapt to the new Universal Credit regime may not be available after all following intervention from the Treasury.

Last year the DWP announced a £145 million fund to encourage financial services companies to develop new basic banking facilities such as jam jar accounts. 

A plan to make people financially responsible, by paying their housing benefit directly into their banks rather than to their landlords, risks backfiring, according to social policy experts.

The National Housing Federation, which represents housing associations in England, is warning that up to a million people in social housing will be at risk of falling into debt when the "universal credit" is rolled out next year. 

Landlords testing direct payment of benefit failed to collect 8 per cent of rent on average in the first four months of the six pilot projects.

Data released today by the Department for Work and Pensions showed 6,220 tenants across Great Britain were paid directly in the first four months of the projects. Of these, 92 per cent of rent was collected on average overall, meaning arrears were around double the normal figure. A total of 316 tenants have been switched back to payment of benefit to the landlord.