 Maint gwrth i'n gweithio i ddechrau o fynd y dechrau o'u 20, 19 cyflawnielau a dyfiadurol. Rwy'n gweithio i chi gryru allanodol sy'n fynd i'n cwrnodol o'r phoedd mwy oedd yn ddechrau i ddefnyddio'r byd. Rhaid i chi womfwrdd yn gwaith i chi. Yn rhaid i chi'n eu credu ar hyn, rhaid i chi'n cymohon o'r ddiwedd. Mae'n ddywodol i gael pan pwysigodau yng nærcaf ym ysgolwyddiad yn eich ffraeg i ddaeth gyda'r ffawr, yn gwybodaeth eich fawr, yn gwybodaeth eich fawr, yn gwybodaeth i ddaeth. Rwy'n meddwl i agenda item 2. Agenda item 2 yn y brifysgol i'r ffawr, i fynd i yn ymdrygiadau ffordd. Mae'r rhaid i gael cyflau'r cyflau'r cwynlluniaeth P1, rwy'n meddwl i gael cyflau'r cyffredinol, i fynd i gael cyflau'r cyffredinol i'r cyffredinol i gael cyflau'r cyffredinol, The Inverclyde letter draws the committee's attention to a barrier to the council's aim of maximising uptake of free school meals and the school clothing grant. In March 2018, the committee held an evidence session on benefit automation and maximising uptake. Following that session, the committee wrote to all the local authorities, COSLA and the Minister for Social Security. The issue raised has now by Inverclyde Council, which was highlighted in other local authority responses, albeit in more general terms. For clarity and for the public interest that there may be in this matter, I want to spend a short time setting out a context to this matter. I want to quote briefly from the Inverclyde Council letter, which says that the council considers the inability to reuse council tax reduction data received from the WP to identify families eligible for free school meals or clothing grants represents a barrier to the maximisation of the uptake of those benefits and has also raised the matter with COSLA, who has undertaken to take up the matter with the DWP. Inverclyde Council was committed to reducing child poverty and sees the reuse of DWP data as one step in achieving the same, so it would welcome your assistance. That was a letter to myself in my capacity as convener of this committee. The Inverclyde letter then helpfully summarises its perspective on the legal positions of Inverclyde Council and the DWP, and I thank them for that. I have also mentioned the briefing paper prepared by SPICE, and I want to take some of that information and put it on the public record this morning. In relation to that briefing, social security information sharing. Information sharing is governed by GDPR, but legislation can allow information to be shared for particular purposes under the 2012 welfare reform act, and welfare services, council tax and housing benefit. Welfare services include services that provide accommodation support, assistance advice or counselling to individuals with particular needs and for those purposes. The explanatory notes of that act refer to using information to assess whether someone has to pay for residential care and, and this is important, the information might also be used for decisions on whether to provide assistance under localised schemes such as help with council tax. I apologise to members for the length of this explanation, but the explanatory notes therefore go in and say that examples of further services covered are the provision of disability facilities grant, blue badge parking permits, discretionary housing payments or assistance to families with multiple disadvantages. I would therefore make two points before seeking comments from committee members. First, and most importantly, it would appear that the difference of interpretation in relation to the 2012 UK act between the DWP and Inverclyde King, so appears to have led to the denial of data usage, which would deliver by automation potentially the school clothing grant and free school meals to families in Inverclyde and perhaps right across Scotland. I would suggest that automation would provide assistance to families with multiple disadvantages. That would be staggering if the UK Government seek to deny the use of data in such a way, and I am sure that it would not want to do that, certainly not intentionally, in order to help children and families in need and support of assistance. I would therefore ask that we write, as a matter of submergence to the UK Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, to seek speedy clarification and to hope that that will direct the DWP to permit the use of that information. However, if the clarification does not enable the use of this data, that the UK Government prioritises taking whatever steps are required to amend the 2012 act or relevant regulations in order to enable the automation of entitlement to families who would qualify for free school meals and school clothing grants. I know that there is a lot in that member's bit, but when a local authority writes to us with a very substantive issue in relation to getting money to those most in need, we have to look at this in a meaningful way. I have made a suggestion there, but before we move to agreeing to that suggestion, I would welcome any comments from members at this stage. I agree with the steps that you have outlined. The one thing that I would note from the letter from Inverclyde is that, clearly, there is a difference in legal position between the council and the DWP. In fact, if Inverclyde decided to accept the legal advice that is being provided to it by its own legal experts, it is hard to see who would challenge the use of the data in that way. If councils' own legal advice is that they can do it to reduce poverty in their communities, I would ask for clarification from Inverclyde whether they are going ahead and doing that. I agree with the comments that Mark Griffin has made. He has put on the record that I am grateful to Inverclyde Council for drawing that to the committee's attention, because the committee for some time has been really interested in the idea of income maximisation and automation of benefits and just draw, for the purposes of the record, the attention to the fact that there are very important principles in the social security act that we just passed. I think that that should be drawn to the attention of the DWP that we have principles in that act that we would like to abide by. Inverclyde has been an example of a local authority who wants to maximise the income and make it easy. It is proven to work for many local authorities. Glasgow being the obvious example seems to be the lead in it, so I am grateful to Inverclyde for drawing it to its attention. I am happy with the election that is going on. Picking up Mark Griffin's point, that seems to be a legal issue or a legal definition issue around it. It would be interesting to ask the Secretary of State what legal advice DWP has taken and what advice they are relying on. As we all know, if you get three lawyers into a room, you get five bits of different legal advice. I do think that there is clearly a difference of legal view on that. It would be interesting just to explore a wee bit further what has happened. I know that you want to do that in a certain way, but I think that it would also be asking what has happened in other parts of the United Kingdom. Had the issue been raised by English authorities and Welsh authorities, because clearly it would be interesting—I cannot believe in the fact that the only people have hit that issue. Had the concerns been raised by English local authorities and Welsh local authorities, how have they got round that and can we get round that? Is it purely a legal issue or is it a policy issue? I think that it is a key issue for me around this. In terms of the suggestion that you make, Mr Balfour, I think that that is very reasonable, but what I would want is clarity. We will talk about circumventing legal issues in a moment. We will move to the next stage of our discussions, but we are asked of the UK Government not to necessarily circumvent legal issues, but to remedy any deficiencies that may be in the 2012 act. Rather than having three lawyers in a room sort something out or argue something out, it would be much more beneficial if we just got clarity to the 2012 act, which meant that we weren't paying lots of lawyers to argue how many angels are dancing on the head of a pin, but I absolutely agree that we should ask the questions that you are asking there, Mr Balfour. You have said everything, and I was going to say that better. Thank you, convener. I agree with the proposed suggestion. As the deputy convener has said, this is an issue that this committee has long had an interest in. The deputy convener hosted an event with Glasgow City Council last year, and we learned of what they were doing. I would like to think that there is a resolution to the issue, because, given that the parties unanimously supported the actions and the child poverty act, it is important that that is the case. It would also be important that local authorities have an opportunity to share their activities with one another and to understand what the differences are. That is very helpful, and we will look at suggestions in terms of COSLA and other local authorities in a moment. That is very helpful, Mr Balfour. The key word for me in all this was the word assumption. The assumption that the act only provided for the three elements of information sharing is a legal thing, and it is the lawyers who have made that advice. We should go back to the UK Government and ask the question what we are trying to do here. Is that assumption absolutely rigid? On what legal basis is that assumption rigid? Can we not have a bit of flexibility in that? Keith Brown, before we move to a final decision. A couple of weeks ago, at the committee in relation to some of the housing issues that we faced, I made the point that we keep on looking in lots of these areas at making men's solutions, circumventing this or finding a workaround for that. I just repeat the point that I made then, which I think is that we have to look at this at its root. I think that there are two different philosophies going on here. One is about income maximisation, which I think has been the case in Scotland and parts of the UK. I must say that the UK Government is opposed to that, but it has not built that into its legislation, which is why it throws up these anomalies. If you were to come back out from this and look at it fresh, what we are trying to do is a fundamental thing, which is making sure that people most often need to get all the benefits that they are entitled to in the seamless way as possible. That is not working. It may be that we can get clarification from the UK Government in relation to this, but I am sure that we are going to trip ourselves up over some other anomaly that comes up as well. The best thing to do is to try and look at it from the other end, which is somebody who is absolutely struggling to feed their kids, clothe their kids, get the council tax reduction that they are entitled to and all the other social security benefits. If you look at it from that point of view, they should have to do as little as possible in order to get that. The people who are trying to provide those benefits should not be tripping up over each other and trying to achieve that end. It may be a furlwn hope, but I think that a much more holistic view of the thing has to be taken to make it as easy as possible for people to get the benefits that they are entitled to. However, I am happy enough to go along with the suggestions that are made by the convener. I think that we do have pretty much unanimous agreement in relation to how to take this forward in relation to the UK Government, but just for the purpose of the record, are we agreed on the course of action that is outlined? No. Okay. Thank you. I would also like to draw members' attention from a briefing that the DWP has worked with the Department of Education in England and Wales to create an automated eligibility checker to allow individuals and local authorities to check entitlement to free school meals. The Welsh Government pays the Department of Education for use of their eligibility checking service. The eligibility for free school meals is set by the Scottish Parliament in regulations. The eligibility for school clothing grant is set by local authority policy. It is a Scottish policy choice to link eligibility to reserve benefits—a very reasonable one, I suspect—and to set an income threshold for eligibility for those on universal credit. I would therefore suggest that we also contact the Scottish Government given its ambitions to tackle child poverty and to promote income maximisation. We should also draw their attention, in my view, to the alternative model that exists in Wales, although personally I am not convinced that either Scotland or Wales should be paying for the privilege to access data that is clearly in all of our interests and in the public interest. I suggest that we ask whether the Scottish Government is aware of this specific issue and whether it will make representations to the UK Government to seek to resolve this matter. We should also request, in my view, that the Scottish Government updates our committee on the use of reserve benefit entitlements to access devolved services and how it is working with the UK Government and the Department of Work and Pensions to resolve any issues, such as the one that Inverclyde has drawn to our attention. I think that that might be a reasonable way to proceed in relation to the Scottish Government, so I would open that for any comments or from members at this point. Jeremy Balfour? I think that, as Michelle Ballantyne pointed out in my previous letter, the word is a something here. I think that it would be interesting again just to ask the Scottish Government, as we are going to ask, how they accept this assumption. It would be interesting when we do the letter to COSLA to have other local authorities taking this assumption on board, or are they taking a different legal assumption? Clearly, the principal solicitor from Inverclyde has taken a view on this and that is what he advised councillors. I suppose that the question for me is whether the Scottish Government agrees with that assumption or whether it takes a different view on it. We want the COSLA to do so, but I think that I would like to know whether the Scottish Government thinks that this assumption is correct or that it is wrong. What are its marshalling clerks in terms of what letter we would write to the Scottish Government? I absolutely agree with that, but I think that I would see for the record again that what I would not want is a lengthy debate about what lawyers interpret the 2012 act by assumption one way, or by assumption another way, or if you get a third lawyer involved, assumption... I mean, I think that I think that... Can I just finish what I'm saying and I'll let you back in? We should absolutely ask what the Scottish Government's view is of the assumption that the DWP makes. For those who are watching this, that's contained within the letter that Inverclyde Council sent us in relation to the interpretation of the DWP position, but I absolutely agree with you. I'm merely making the point for clarity, for clerks who have to draft this letter that I want the focus to be on a solution and an outcome rather than a legal debate, but I do agree with you. Mr Balford, I said I would let you back in. I'm obliged. I mean, I think the point is that this is not trying to serpentvent the system, this is an interpreting the system. Now, I could interpret certain laws in certain ways, and I'm completely wrong, and that's just the way it is. It's not a... If we're wrong, you know, if I drive through a red light, I'd broken my law even however I want to interpret that. So I don't think I'm trying to in any way say we need to try to get round the system, but if 31 other local authorities have assumed a different model and are doing something differently, Inverclyde simply might be wrong. I'm not saying we are, we aren't, but I think that that's the key issue for me, is if everybody else is doing this, then I think Inverclyde maybe just needs to look at the legal advice they've got. You may very well be right, and I think that's helpful, Deputy convener. Well, very often, if you ask different lawyers the same question, you'll get a different answer, there's nothing new there, so what the DWP are saying is that, for the purposes of your week, we're using the data, it does not appear to include that. I think that we all know that with the application of the data protection that, in my experience so far, has been completely over cautious, and I don't think... Lots of us have got concerns that this is not the primary purpose of the data, and now we're seeing some of the other effects, and I would say that the DWP are being completely over cautious. Inverclyde, I've got a different opinion where their opinion is saying that their thing of reuse is compatible with the original purpose for which the DWP provided the data. It's up to Inverclyde if they want to proceed on the basis of their legal advice, and it's up to anyone else if they want to challenge that. So, in relation to the point about going forward, what are the solutions? Well, certainly if there is any dubiety about use of that data for the purposes of clothing grants, I suppose that my position would be, yes, we should write to the DWP and ask them to reconsider whether that should be redrafted for that purpose, but other local authorities may still feel confident that their legal interpretation is correct. As a last resort, I do agree that we should ask the Scottish Government to have a look at the Welsh model as a last resort, because ultimately we have been consistent in the position that we've taken both in the child poverty act, which Alison Johnstone adverse to, and the Social Security Act that the principles that we would want to abide by is to encourage the use of data for the specific purposes of allowing people to get benefits for which they were entitled to in the first place, and not beyond that scope and within that scope. It seems to me that both the UK data protection act should allow for that, and local authorities should feel confident to use it. We shouldn't need to pay for that advice, but in the short term, at least until the Social Security System is set up in Scotland, I presume that my interpretation might change, because we would hold the data up, but until such times as that is the case, I think that we have to have a last resort. Very quick one. I think that the reality here is that you're just writing to us, the Scottish Government, what their opinion is on this position in terms of data sharing. I would just take one issue. I'm not sure that you can just use data without the permission of the person who's given you the data in the first place. When you said, it's up to him to guide what they do with the data once they've got it, I'm not quite sure legally that is correct. Sorry, that's what Inverclyde has stated. They wouldn't be writing to us if they thought they could just go off and use it regardless when they've been told specifically that their opinion of the person who shared the data with them in the first place they couldn't. That's not what they've said. That's not what they've said. So, I mean, they're writing to seek clarification over that. No, no. Inverclyde is saying that reuse of data that they've already been given permission to have of that person can be reused for the purposes of giving them the benefits that they're already entitled to is the opinion that they have. Their legal opinion is that they can. But you made the comment that it's up to them what they want to do with data once they've got it. No, no, no. Sorry, no, no, no. It's up. No, no, no. That's not the interpretation of my comment. So, final comment on this point. No, mine is up to Inverclyde how they wish to proceed with their legal advice. Ah, right. Okay. So, misunderstood you then. Not the data. I'm also tempted to say that all the lawyers in the room please raise their hands now in relation to this discussion. Okay, Jeremy, thank you. I don't think that we can take that discussion particularly any further, but it does illuminate the fact that there's a lack of clarity and certainty that we have to get established. And if that involves amending the 2012 act, so be it, if it doesn't, and we can move quickly even better. But in relation to how I get down, we should approach the Scottish Government. Do we have agreement on that? I think that Deputy Queen has asked a really interesting question, and that is who owns the data. And if I am right, the new Scottish Agency takes control of that data as of April next year. So would that then, I think that it's a question just, I mean it's quite an interesting question generally, but in this specification as well, come April next year when the agency holds that, would that make the agency then, the people that, the data controller, rather than DWP? And I think that that's just a general, I find that quite an interesting question generally, but that may well be a different issue that we then face. That's, so that may not be the situation, but it's reasonable to ask that when data migrates into a new Scottish social security system, what lessons, what lessons it can learn in relation to using that data effectively to passport and automate benefits, and that might be the way to ask that question, rather than, I think, that's the more focused way of asking it. I think that we've got agreement anyway, but Mr Brown, do you want to come in and add something? I'm not going to change, just to say that, I think that the point that the deputy community makes is quite an important one, which is, in a way, we're almost being asked to be legal arbiters, or to ask somebody else to be legal arbiters when, I think that it is the case that councils are, if not autonomous, they have their own mandate, they've got their own ability to take their own decisions, their own legal advice. If they think that there's uncertainty, they can get QC's opinion, and I'd rather see councils proceeding to apprehende them, this kind of thing, rather than constantly checked. But maybe the greater good is to get the clarity, which you're seeking, convener, by writing to the people that you've suggested, and I'll go along with that. Thanks, Mr Brown. That's almost like a very, very helpful segue into the final aspect of this that we have to look at before we move to the next session, and that's in... Sorry, Michelle. I was saying it's worth noting that, actually, it was Claire Addison's letter to the council asking about it that generated this conversation, so I don't think it's that Inverclyde has just come running to us as such, to say, could we be arbiters? Yeah, I'll check who I am, but I think I said at the start that the committee had done previous work, and that's also in the spice papers, I think that's actually on the record. But fear pleaded Inverclyde for following this through terminationally to try and deliver for families in their area. Now, I don't have it in front of me, but Glasgow had helpfully provided some information. Now, I apologise if I misrepresent how Glasgow have sought to enable some of this, but I understand that Glasgow believe if you're in receipt of council tax reduction, then they use that as passporting you through to accessing the school clothing grant, and then the way they then seek to approach individuals allows them to automate some of these benefits. So there may be other ways where we can give meaningful help and assistance so I think that it would be reasonable to write to Glasgow just asking them for an update on how they seek to maximise free school meals entitlement and school clothing entitlement despite restrictions and constraints that may be placed on them in relation to WP or GDPR. Would that be a reasonable thing to do? And just for brevity, could we also, given that COSLA has been approached by Inverclyde, because we also write to COSLA asking them for an update on their perspective in relation to that matter? I think that we're there now, and I know we've taken a bit of time over that, but ultimately, irrespective of the conversations that we've just had this morning, all of us around this table just want to make sure that those most in need get the benefits and entitlements that they should have as speedily as possible. As long as we all stay focused on that, we can make sure that this committee can hopefully drive some change to make sure that happens. So is there any additional comments before we move on to the next agenda item? Of course you can. I'm happy enough for that, but you mentioned about the council tax reduction the way that's used. Am I right in thinking that no council tax reduction applies in England or in Wales? Well, I'm going to repeat that same question also because I don't have information on that. I think that you're right, but let's get an update for the next time that we can consider this. Thanks members for their patience. I can also thank SPICE for their assistance in preparing for this morning's meeting for Edward Clyde for raising this important matter with the committee. We will now shortly be moving to agenda item 3, but can we suspend briefly just to allow witnesses to take their seats? Thank you. Okay, welcome back. We're going to move to agenda item 3, which is social security support for housing. This is the third evidence session for the committee's inquiry into social security support for housing and the focus this week's session is the social sector landlords and local authorities. I can welcome our witnesses, Jeremy Hur, policy lead Scottish Federation of Housing Associations, Julie Malloy, chief executive Scottish Borders Housing Association, Paula Doherty, benefits and welfare team leader of Freeson Galloway Council, John Mills, head of housing services, Fife Council, Gail Ward, housing policy officer, Highland Council. Thank you all five of you for coming along and for waiting patiently till we got to this agenda item. We are moving straight to questions, but just before we do that, we thought it was important to have so many witnesses here so that we could get a very representative view of what's happening across Scotland, something different in different parts of the country. That does put some constraints on five people answering the one question, so we don't want to constrain your ability to put things in the record, but if other people are effectively saying what you're going to say anyway, it might be quite helpful if you could maybe just confirm that and we could move on, and it allows you to come back in to raise additional points just in terms of the management for this session, and I thank you for that. We'll move straight to questions now, Alice Rallon. Thank you, convener. On the point that you've just made there, convener, about the variety of people on the panel here, one of the things that interests me is the variety from local authority to local authority of the balance between different housing types that are available to people and looking at the figures here. For instance, for the private rented sector, Dundee City Council has 26 per cent of its housing in the private rented sector. Shetland has 6 per cent, my own local authority in the Hellenian year is at 9 per cent, although I'm fairly sure that most of those are actually holiday homes. What difference to the picture that we are talking about about housing and benefits is that those varied pictures make when it comes to different parts of the country? John Mills. I think that it's a good point. I mean, I think that every housing authority and their partnering housing associations work in different local housing contexts. And that's important in terms of access to housing. If you're looking at prevention homelessness, we're looking for as wide a range of housing options which are affordable and sustainable as possible. So, if there is a huge diversion or a large diversion in terms of access to social rented, owner occupation, private rented housing, then that does affect the local housing strategy in terms of its aims, but also practical difficulties for people trying to access housing in their locality to keep kids at school or to maintain their registration at a GP. So it is quite significant, but that also offers opportunities for different areas. So I don't know if that answers that particular point, but it's different across Scotland. Okay. Any other comments on that, Paula Dorothy? I think that within Dumfries and Galloway, the information that I hold is the housing benefit records and the housing benefit records one in five with people on housing benefit are in the private rented sector. You know information really around what else private sector accommodates rentals out there unless you look at the landlord registration list. So is one in five, is that across the whole region or is that just the people that are on benefit? Okay. Any other comments before we come back to Alasdair Jeremy here? Thank you, chair. I would say that a concern is the high rate of turnover that you get in the private rented sector, which is at least double, I think, what the social rented sector is, so it would be about 16 per cent or more. And if you've got that high rate of turnover and I think one of your witnesses at a previous session was pointing out that private sector landlords may be more reluctant to let to folk who are on benefits. If you like you're getting a diminishing stock there and our concern is that if there's a diminishing stock there's a greater pressure on the social rented sector to try and provide housing. I think that that's very helpful to worrying but very helpful to put on the record. Alasdair Allan, do you want to come? Well thank you, that leads me, I suppose, into the next area I was interested in asking your views on, which, as you mentioned there, potentially reluctance on the part of some landlords to let to people who may find themselves in the situation of claiming universal credit. What evidence do we have from the panel about the situation of renter years more generally and whether that picture is changing? A keel word. I think from a Highland perspective we've been a live universal credit site for five years now. The general trend is towards renter years increasing significantly as a consequence. Just adding on to the last question we've undertaken some consultation through crisis with the private rented sector and 43 per cent of the respondents to that have said that they would be willing to rent people on benefits but only if there are financial assurances in place that would help them to secure those tenancies and put support in place. I think from the renter years perspective overall I think there's been some unintended consequences of policy changes over the last five years around the benefit system and we ask the average renter year that we're seeing in comparison to people on legacy benefits is two, three, four times significantly higher which is having that overall impact on homelessness, renter years and everything across the board. I think it's quite a challenging position in the moment. I'm excited. Julie Malloy wanting to take a sec, Mr Mills. Julie Malloy. Thank you. We've actually compiled information on behalf of the housing associations in the Scottish Borders and around one in 10 tenants in the social housing tenants are applying for receiving universal credit. And we have seen an increase in arrears and particularly what we're finding is the arrears are approximately a third higher for people who are claiming universal credit than other tenants. We've done some specific work in the Borders to separate out the types of debt so some of the debt is due to the timing. Some of it is about timing of claims. Around a third of the debt is what we would call new arrears. So it's people who SBA chair tenants but have accrued new arrears and of that about 40% of the debt is technical, 60% isn't. So there's a real challenge for us in terms of managing rent arrears. We're also seeing quite dramatic increases in demand on our financial inclusion services. We were dealing with around 90 cases. This time last year our team is now dealing with 176 a month. So I think there's a lot of although arrears are going up there's also behind that a lot of complexity and a lot of energy going into the claim service that hasn't been required before. On those. Yeah and I think there's two aspects of rent arrears or rent debt as it affects private rented sector on particularly local authority sector. In terms of the private rented sector increasing arrears or the gap between the LHA and benefit paid and the rent which causes arrears is actually causing homelessness and that's something that we are particularly concerned about local authorities and it's particularly what was the right term it's actually affecting more families with children coming into the homelessness system. So that's something that you can see the national picture from the government statistics and you know the adverse impact on children coming into the homelessness system is something that clearly we're concerned about and impacting on child poverty and other types of poverty. So trying to maintain those families in the private rented sector for as long as possible and we need to find mechanisms to do that in terms of that top-up of the rent required actually is better for the family than to come through a managed route into a social rented tenancy which is clearly much more affordable. So there is that impact on rent arrears in the PRS sector as well as landlords not willing to accept households who want that housing option to come into the PRS sector. When we come to local authorities and Fife's given you written evidence on the impact so far of universal credit on the housing revenue account on rent arrears it's in the region of 1.5 million additional arrears on the housing revenue account in Fife. Now what I've also had to do as head of housing with the head of revenues is to try and make sure that we have enough bad debt provision within the revenue account and we've put an actual million and a half into that last year and that will continue in this year. So there comes a point where we're putting the extra resources in to try and help people falling into rent arrears many for the first time but it now then starts to have an impact on other housing policies that the council wants to follow particularly new-built homes and also trying to develop services for tenants in need. So there is a huge challenge there for local authorities and partners to make sure that we work better together to help people particularly on universal credit but there comes a tipping point where it now starts to erode the local authorities ability to commit to building homes within the strategic housing investment plan and partnership with the Scottish Government. Jen McHeard, do you want to add anything to that? I would just say that the way the system is set up and the five-week wait you're setting up folk to fail because if you imagine somebody who applied for universal credit last Monday, the 1st of April, they haven't us and their landlord may have raised a rent debit on the 1st of April as well. They don't get any money until seven days after the assessment period is over which it will be into about the 7th of May. So two rent debits will have been set up. So you've already got two months' worth of rent to be paid. Now the DWP, one of the things it's decided to do to ameliorate the situation is to offer 100 per cent advances including the rent. Now anecdotal evidence is that I think claimants aren't perhaps aware that that advance payment also includes an obligation to pay the rent. So if you like, you then have an additional debt which has got to be paid. And so the landlord made to say well we won't manage payments to landlords because we've got two months of arrears. The tenant has got to pay the advance back and you know what may have been typically say something a couple of two children with an average rent would probably get about £888 a month universal credit. So they've got to pay the £888, that's £74 that comes off. If they're in rent they can have 20 per cent of their personal allowance, that's about another £100. So you're already putting somebody in a struggle of indebtedness and you don't know what the back story is. The claimant may have already because of the situation they found themselves may be in an overdraft and even if they get an advance payment that may be swallowed up by the bank. So you are creating, if you like, a hole for folk that's going to be very hard for them to get out of. Alasdalen, I'll take you back in a second to pursue some more aspects around rent arrears but just to note that Mark Griffin in there would like some supplementaries on that but you're exploring a line of questions just now we'll take you in a little second, okay? Alasdalen, I want to come back in some of that. In that case, finally, convener, you've clearly drawn a connection, I think most of you without, to speak for you, from what you've said you have drawn a connection between the practice, I think, of universal credit being paid in arrears and arrears and rent. You've also drawn a connection between arrears and rent and problems around homelessness. Would it be too much, therefore, for the committee to draw a connection causally between the practice of paying universal credit in arrears and homelessness itself? Poledocrity. Just for clarity, universal credit is paid in arrears but so is housing benefit. The issue is around when the customer receives their payment of universal credit, there's no separation as that's for their housing and that's for their living costs. Housing benefit was paid in arrears, it's always been paid in arrears but it was generally paid direct to the landlord as an automatic especially in the social sector. The practice in local authorities was very often if the customer didn't specify that they wanted the payment direct to themselves, we paid it direct to their social sector landlord in the private sector, it worked slightly differently. Universal credit just doesn't differentiate for customers and when they receive money they don't really appreciate that that's for that and that's for that because it's one payment to manage in their own way. What Jeremy was saying around payments and customers and indebtedness because of the restricted income not necessarily because of universal credit because of the restricted income on the benefit freeze, customers income is reducing so when they get money the tendency is to maybe not manage it in the best way and that's how arrears build up because they get money in one hand and they forget that that and that has to come off because something more priority is pressing upon them food for their children new school clothes shoes anything else comes up when that money comes in overdrafts take it other priority debts come across because obviously doorstep lenders are quick to knock on the door for cash whereas they might be inclined to pay that before they pay their rent and that then results in accumulation of a year's ant homelessness. In other comments on that before we bring in what other MSPs John Mills I don't think we should just focus on universal credit you've got to look at the application of local housing allowance rates you've got to look at shared room rates you've got to look at the application of the benefit cap and if we were to examine the HL1 statistics and some issues around the HL1 statistics at the moment that we're trying to refine with colleagues in the Scottish Government if you look at the families and children coming into the homeless system then many of the applicants say that they have been able to actually top up the rent the landlord requires from what they're getting paid through either universal credit or housing benefit so I think that's a significant impact and I think that there is a direct causal link in the creation of homelessness through that mechanism I'll take it in a second Mr Hewer I'm just concentrating on making sure everyone has an equal amount of time to kind of put stuff off the record I know Julie Malloy once then I don't know if Gil Ward does but Julie Malloy just now Okay, thank you I think it's important to acknowledge that a number of people coming into the system are not coming into the system with resources in their pocket and we've had a few example of where people have maybe left work unexpectedly or their hours have reduced and they're suddenly in the system with no savings and that weight is what causes the problem and when people get the money they're often making choices about bills there was a case in the borders of a family where that happened to them and immediately the money came in it was a significant payment all the bills were paid and they were left with no money and that wasn't a reckless choice it was about the fear of losing their home losing not having power not having paying off debts etc so I think there is an issue about people aren't always in the position when they claim of having the resources to be able to wait that time and manage it and there's a lot of dependency on families and wider support and if that support isn't there it's really causing problems and that's taken a lot of work to recover and we know that the arrangements are available to borrow in advance but they have implications and the feedback from people working on cases in my organisation was very clearly that people often don't understand the complexity and they don't understand the consequences of the loans and the payment arrangements until they actually start coming out Gail Ward, do you want to come in and add to that? No, I would agree pretty much with all the comments Okay, I know that Jeremy Hewyr and Paula Docherty did Jeremy will take you first and then Paula? It is just to follow on from what Paula was saying about the benefit freeze which I think is a factor there's also the factor of sanctions and I think it's a combination it isn't just universal credit Thank you Paula Docherty I was just going on the point of John about the LHE rate and the impact of the LHE rate within Dumfries and Gallow we've got 2,000 customers receiving rent in the private sector 60 per cent of those have a shortfall between the maximum housing benefit the LHE rate and their actual rent to be paid and to quantify that that's £1.2 million of shortfall that's money that these families individuals have to find of their own pocket to top up they will never receive housing costs and universal credit for that that's the same amount as the 16,000 customers for the who are impacted by the benefit cap in the private sector but the private sector is right across the sphere pensioners working age and the whole of the market so the LHA freeze within Dumfries and Gallow isn't actually continually impacting like Glasgow's submission because our rents are remaining quite stable but these customers are having to find that money in their own pocket whether they're on housing benefit in a legacy system or universal credit Okay thank you Aller Stalen before I let were colleagues in was there anything else No Okay, Matt Listen Thanks, convener I wanted to continue some of the lines of question around rent arrears in particular to Highlands Council just because as you said to Highlands I've a far longer experience of universal credit I just wanted to ask on rent arrears debt what has been the profile of that debt did it spike on introduction and tail off has it spiked and remain level or has it spiked and then carried on increasing I think there's the slightly different scenarios based on the different universal credit system so what we've seen is people who went on to live service universal credit at the very start we are now eventually starting to see some of their arrears tailoring off I think because of the third party deductions to help clear some of the rent arrears so we're seeing those arrears gradually start to reduce but with all of the cases there is that an initial spike of rent arrears at the start of a claim it's probably fair to say that we're seeing slightly lower levels of rent arrears for some of the claimants that have gone on to universal credit since April last year when they brought in some of the benefit changes the two weeks housing benefit run on etc so we've got we've got different tenants probably at different levels of rent arrears but I think across the board there is that initial spike it does start to tail her off a little bit but what we do see is that if people go in and out of the benefit system then they're almost like going in peaks and troughs depending on when their benefits start and stop in and we see that quite a lot in Highland because there's quite a lot of tourism and earnings people people going in and out of the sector within tourism etc over the period of year so the Mac going in out of the benefit system quite a lot over the period of year okay and we've heard that the system of payments from usc from the previous system it's still in arrears so nothing has changed there what as an authority with one of the longest experiences of usc what is your what would be your recommendation on changing that to stop that initial spike in arrears happening I think definitely the way the payments are made to landlords at the moment is is an unintended consequence of increased rent arrears we the 13 payments I'm not sure how much you actually know about the system and how it's paid but the individual customer receives 12 payments over a period of a year however a landlord will receive 13 four weekly payments so there's that misalignment straight away so there's people going into increased rent arrears as a consequence of the way the payments are actually made we can quite often wait up to four weeks after the customers had their money before we received the money which is at the very very start of a claim it could mean that we're waiting nine weeks for that first payment to come through if it's a direct payment to the landlord so we are seeing considerable increases that we probably wouldn't say if we'd have retained the payments direct to the landlord at the same point that the customer got them that we saw under live service and that would be our recommendation would be that we would like to see those aligned payments as soon as possible probably help reduce arrears up to four weeks for each individual household depending on how those payments are made okay thank you okay I mean whether you want to extend that to other witnesses for what they think the solutions might might look like I think it's important maybe you all put that on the record Mr Mills I mean I think the obvious thing we would recommend as a landlord is the default should be rent payment direct to landlord and in that way people are still falling into rent today as well the assessment carries out but the rent payment is guaranteed to the private landlord or council or housing association landlord and that would give us certainty and it would certainly give the tenant certainty that the rent payments are taken care of although there is an area that will eventually be resolved so that would take the pressure the risk away from roof of your head just before we ask other witnesses in relation to that because that very specific point because Mr Griffin and myself have raised this a number of times and the conversation eventually comes round to if we have the default position that the rent goes straight to the landlord should that then have an opt out ability for that the claimant to see will actually initially go straight to the landlord but I now want to have the cash myself or should it just go to the landlord Gail Ward I'll take the rest rest of you and to answer that as well I would agree with that with having an opt out because we are seeing people that are working who are managing their payments and are paying the rent on time so I would say that an opt out should be in there that said there still needs to be the safeguards in place around the alternative payment arrangements for those that are maybe unwilling to pay or then struggle to pay at the right time so I think as long as that safety net is left in place for landlord so there is a backstop position that we can go back to a direct payment if the customer is asked for the payment direct but actually they're not paying that over Without oversimplifying things there's nothing simple in relation to any of this but the default position would be rent goes straight to the landlord once that money starts to flow the claimant of the ability to opt out of that and take the cash directly themselves but some safeguarding to follow up after that should rent a rear start to a crew and issues become transparent at that point I'm not trying to misrepresent what you're saying I'm just trying to get clarity around it we'll go from my right to left here, we'll take poladoch to force, we'll work along anyway yes The universal credit has alternative payment arrangements in place I think the main point would be is really when they're making an assessment on where the payments are going they need to be asking the landlord's opinion first now for a customer they don't have to they don't even have to tell the landlord their own universal credit if they're paying their rent there's no issue when we have an alternative payment arrangement and housing benefit and the customer comes to us and asks to revert the first port of call is to check with the landlord that it's okay to revert administratively the DWP seemed to miss that step so customer choice is as easy as updating their journal saying I'd like my housing costs to go to me you know when the Scottish choice comes in would you like your housing costs to pay to your landlord yes I would get a bit short I think they need some money for something else because overall benefit freeze leaves them over short update their journal have their housing costs paid direct to themselves landlord's not requested any information about that they're not checking with the landlord is this a good idea is the customer made an arrangement with you and how they're going to pay their rent payments just directly go back to the tenant landlord then finds out the tenant doesn't pay back background that circle again the alternative payment arrangements are in place to support customers but what we're finding operationally is that DWP are not doing that from the first payment regardless of whether that information's there it's probably due to speed but within the law they are obligated to consider the alternative payment arrangements because the landlords very often put that marker straight in when they're verifying the rent don't pay customer direct paid to us just for clarity though would your position be that rather than seeking alternative payments the initial alternative payment would be requesting it to go to yourself but it would go by default initially to the landlord would that be your position polydocracy just for clarity Dumfries and Galloway doesn't have any housing stock I'm here as a benefit representative in the administration of housing benefit and knowledge of universal credit my position would be the landlord would be the default position and the landlord needs to be checked with the landlord particularly in the social sector need to check with the landlord whether or not they're okay with it going to the tenant but remember it is the customer's benefit and it's the customer's obligation to pay their rental liability it's just many customers find that challenging thank you very much generate here I think it is the custom of housing benefit that on the housing benefit application form there is a section that sort of says your rent your housing benefit will be paid direct to your landlord or ticker box if you prefer to receive it directly I think that's exactly what we want the default position would be our preference but tenants should have the option to make a change but the safeguard I think is one of the innovations that the DWP did was when they rolled out the landlord portal was to also make social landlords trusted partners so you would have a situation that if somebody presented themselves I'm wanting housing sorry universal credit and they were given the option to say well does it do you want to pay direct to your landlord or do you want to receive it and they said I want to receive it but there was an issue around them perhaps having addiction problems or something so there was a concern what the DWP term that tier one factors or tier two factors the landlord is part of the verification state we want an alternative payment arrangement put in place from the get go now that in theory will give us a safeguard the trouble is I think in practice it's been rather haphazard it hasn't been as efficient as it should be but if it could be made to be efficient that would be what we would want to see in Julie Malloy thank you I would reinforce what Jeremy said we would support a default payment to the landlord we've had lots of feedback in our case work that that's what people would prefer with that flexibility as existed under housing benefit to claim I think as well the portal could be put to more use again if the system is simple if the payment is coming through then in the more complex places we can put more time and support into those situations that require advice and support and verification we are a trusted partner I think the only thing we can't predict is how people will behave in the system and different people are going to behave differently but by sharing information working together with partners we can manage the risks in certain situations and work preventively to avoid a raise in eviction okay just before I move to the deputy you can leader Mark Griffin do you want to come back in any of that? Pauline McNeill thank you I have a supplement to join and then I want to move on to a more substantive issue about those in work John, I know that you said in your answer to Alistair Allen that the issue of rent arrears was impacting on house building programmes I just wondered if you could just elaborate briefly on that what we depend on as a local authority is a mix of borrowed funding from public sector loans board as well as Scottish Government subsidy to build a new council home a social rented home we've got to work within the parameters of our 30 year housing revenue account business plan and that works to potential limits so we've got to make sure that we get rental income coming into the housing revenue account to fuel services to actually pay back the mortgage for building new homes and any threat to that from a lowering of rental income or an increase in rent arrears we've then got to make other financial provisions within our business plan and report that regularly to elected members through committee so if rent arrears continue to increase at the rate that they are currently increasing in Fife we will reach what we call a tipping point within the business plan where I've got to go to the elected members and say we can no longer afford to borrow at the level we need to build the homes that we've agreed with the Scottish Government in our strategic housing investment plan and housing associations will be in the same point so although we've not reached that point yet it's putting an increasing strain on the housing revenue account and the housing revenue account business plan which will make us more cautious about borrowing new money to not only build homes but improve homes up to the statutory standard so there is that potential risk there that people across the country are analysing through regular reviews of their business plans Thank you and just for clarity the tipping point that you might get to or the increase in rent arrears is that down to the universal credit system or not? No, I think we have to be up front and say that rent arrears before the introduction of universal credit were increasing and that's about a number of reforms not just universal credit but part of the wider position and tenants have been finding themselves in difficult debt positions before the change from housing benefit to universal credit so but what we find with universal credit is accelerated increase of rent arrears overall and has put people that had never been in rent arrears before because it had been covered through housing benefit now into a rent arrears position and that causes clearly stress and mental health issues Thank you, that's helpful Thank you very much I wanted to move on to the submission from the Scottish Federation of Housing Associations Jeremy, there's quite a significant section about when work does not pay I wanted to ask you about so in your submission you say that with a significant number of people as we know are in work and claiming universal credit 32 per cent I think it's a figure that's in your paper You're going to say that in January 2019 the High Court found out the automated assessment process used by the DWP was unlawful Could you just speak to that so I fully understand it This was a case that was brought by the child poverty action group and lead A solicitors and it was to do with I think four single parents who were in monthly in-employment and were paid monthly but it was one of these things where their payment their salary dates clashed with or didn't work well with their assessment dates so I think it's it's this thing that the DWP sort of the way the system has been set up typically at Christmas is that if somebody is paid early that it's disregarded if you like for the period that payment is for it's when that payment comes in so folk were having two monthly payments in one period and therefore they were not getting any universal credit and in fact that universal credit may claim may have been closed down because of the amount of money and this is one of the real if you like running issues with universal credit is I would although the DWP is adamant that most people are paid monthly I would contend well that may be so but I would say significant minority are probably not paid monthly who rely on universal credit there in precarious employment they're in casual employment zero hours contract etc so I think as as Julie said earlier it's very very hard for people to budget because the money the money coming in is erratic and also the point is that if the money comes in and you lose the universal credit because the way you've set up because you have an in-work allowance if you can't use that in work allowance the next month because you haven't got any money in because it was if you like in the previous assessment period you may not benefit so you may lose out so it isn't the case of oh you will get your money eventually you might get your money eventually but perhaps it will be less than it and the child poverty action group has done a lot of research on this they produced a publication called rough justice and this particular court case I think was the decision came out about the end of January this year are you able to tell the committee what the implications of that judgment are if it was I'm not expert enough to say what they are I mean it depends whether I don't even know whether the DWP has decided to appeal it because I think the judgment was the way the DWP was assessing things was unlawful our argument would be that in everything the DWP in doing its assessment needs to take into account if you like when an income comes in now housing associations this financial year or social landlords this financial year are also being faced with a problem because if they charge weekly the next financial year I think is a 53 week year so there's going to be 53 week rent payments now the DWP on one side says because some landlords offer rent free weeks so they may only charge 48 times a year the DWP says ah you're charging 48 times a year so we're going to take that weekly charge multiply it by 48 and divide it by 12 and that's the amount you get so it evens out they're not doing that the other way around though which strikes us as strange just before we move on isn't that I saw Paula Docherty was looking to come in I don't know if you get a bit more information in relation to some of us then the case in question around the single parents is they didn't receive earnings in an assessment period therefore didn't benefit from a work allowance the impact for them would have been 63% of around £192 a month which is the work allowance for a single parent the issue that the DWP has stated is that universal credit is worked on when you actually get paid the money not when you earn the money housing benefit is calculated on when you earn the money this benefits a significant number of customers because if you start work today and monthly paid you may not actually get your monthly pay until the 15th of next month so your universal credit would stay up because you're not earning yet then when you do earn the money then it reduces the DWP's position on this case about being unlawful is universal credit was intended to change behaviour and what they are expecting employers to do is not mess around with the date that customers are paid in Dumfries and Galloway I get paid in the 15th of the month my pay slip always says the 15th of the month if the 15th of the month is a Monday, Sunday or Saturday I get paid on the Friday but it doesn't change that I get paid on the 15th of the month and the employers in this case didn't adhere to that fashion they said we normally pay you on the 30th of the month but because it's Christmas we're going to pay you on the 25th they didn't issue that payment through the HMRC system as being paid on the 30th and just bank the money on the 25th they updated their record and said they're paid on the 25th it's a significant impact for a number of customers the way that universal credit treats earnings just on the point of earnings is their universal credit will adjust as their earnings adjust so for families there isn't a stability in their income whereas just now the housing benefit would probably be an average and we would pay housing benefit on a constant average of their earnings and their tax credits would be a constant position universal credit as their earnings go up was come down and if the earnings go down goes up so that customers are not saying oh I'll get my tax credit so it's £200 and I'll get it on that date they'll not ever really know as their earnings fluctuate how much they're going to get until the day it's paid I understood quite a bit of that what I'm not clear about is what does the judgment mean is it helpful or unhelpful to that? The judgment is requesting that the DWP take a better view on that really in the regulations for universal credit I'm not entirely sure how they can take a better view on that really what they need in their automated system the HMRC sends through a feed around the earnings that have been paid by that customer what they've lost in that is the sense check the sense check that previously existed in an un-automated system on earnings whereas you looked at something and you thought all right that's just because they've had back money that's just because it's Christmas they've asked for common sense we've put but a common sense works when you've got a decision maker at every monthly assessment period when it's an automated system there won't be a decision maker just lastly I mean that the your submission and that certainly the Scottish Federation of Housing Association suggests in that there are top polydocrity describes are incidents where work may not pay for a lot of people I just wondered if you wanted to comment on that that would be one of my primary concerns that universal credit for people who are in work and have been in work may be detrimental to a lot of people customers who are in work generally receive more universal credit than they would have received under legacy because work is treated the 63 per cent taper on earnings is much more favourable to customers when we're doing some initial workings out a customer in employment is generally around 25 pounds a week better off on universal credit than they would have been under legacy systems the difficulty is the fluctuation of that income and the way that universal credit treats earnings is different than the way housing benefit treated earnings there are winners and losers in that method and I think what we find is the cases that are brought forward are the losers whereas you never hear about the winners so does anyone else want to I do acknowledge that there are some winners but there must be quite a lot of losers a lot of losers as well because we've been in work and have been in child tax credit as you know is a big issue in terms of migration they must be big losers for people in work surely I know that Julie Malloy wants to come in on that and just to flag up if you can tie any of this back to housing costs and how social security does or doesn't support housing costs that's helpful in terms of eventual conclusions to this particular inquiry Julie Malloy I am an example of a case that maybe illustrates this and I have to say sitting talking to people who are dealing with cases every day it's an illustration of several cases and it highlights what Gail was talking about in terms of rural areas and seasonal work and it's a young woman on a zero hours contract she applied for universal credit she was pregnant her working hours fell she was told she wasn't entitled to universal credit it turned out she was she ended up with £20 a week to live on and I think we will hear about the worst cases because we are dealing with some really difficult situations so her situation was housing costs couldn't be paid she was borrowing money from relatives out of the area with support and advocacy we could deal with that situation if people understood it and understood the complexity and what their rights were and with consistent information and advice I think we could support people through the system in a stronger way so we do see we have a lot of cases where incomes are going up and down and often the rent can be the last thing on the list and the reliability of that and the changes in incomes are really causing pressure on individuals and particularly families Jeremy Balfour and good morning ladies and gentlemen I've got two kind of clarification questions and then one new area to explore briefly a legal match I think I've forgotten my foot I think it was Jeremy that said that the system is set up that people can DWP will pay that rent on the day that they apply and it then has to be paid off over that 12-month period but you said people don't seem to be aware of that do you think that's because DWP aren't telling people or where's that breakdown of communication happening or are people hearing that but just deciding they don't want to take that system sorry in what context was it so this is when you apply for universal credit in regard to your house and your rent being paid that DWP will make that upfront payment on that day and then you pay that off over that 12-month period and I think that you said that there seems to be a breakdown on communication that people aren't aware of that and I'm just wondering is that because DWP aren't telling people is that because it's too complicated for people to understand or are people hearing it but just choosing not to go down that road probably on three I think that is a failure of communication of understanding what the advance payment covers I think also it needs to be borne in mind that people applying for universal credit aren't coming from a good place necessarily they've either had a relationship breakdown they've had a bereavement they've lost their job and so trying to take it in I mean I've been playing around with universal credit if you like since 2013 and I still find it quite complex as somebody who's coming into it brand new it must be a very very daunting prospect so it's about getting that advice and understandably the DWP wants to try and automate things as much as possible to keep the actual processing costs down to a minimum it's just that I do think that there needs to be more support and I think it's understanding if you like that universal credit is there to support the people who need it it isn't there to as an administrative convenience for those who run it I just wondered if anyone else had an experience do you think it's a lack of information at that first point is the issue I think there's a little bit of all three as Jeremy said I think from my experience initially was people have taken advances and because they've had to pay it back and it's cost and financial hardship over a period of time that message gets delivered out to their peers and then there's maybe a reluctance for people to take up on those advances further down the line I think the impact as well that if they've got other deductions other overpayments that need to be repaid ultimately if they're losing 40% of their income as it is at the moment then that's quite a barrier to stop people from wanting to take those advanced payments in the first place John Mills Did you want to add? Yeah, I mean I think part of the issue here is if you look at housing benefit administration that was actually managed by local authority so even where there was miscommunication or lack of communication it's something that a housing department could actually rectify quite closely because we work very closely with colleagues in local authorities if you're dealing with a call centre at length arms length some arms length away from your local authority even when we apply for direct payments on behalf of tenants we're never told the outcome of that decision so there's no communication back to the landlord and then the tenant is probably unaware of what's happening until they receive their payment we're also aware that we receive payments rent costs or housing cost payments from universal credit that actually belongs to another council so there are quite a number of clerical errors as DWP terms them and DWP requests for that payment back we just simply appeal it because we've no means of tracing it so I think that moras for a council or a housing association would be doubly so for a tenant a new tenant so what we've got to try and do to actually mitigate that loss of a decision taking locally is to put more people on the ground to work face to face much closer with people in a range of tenures but primarily in our own tenancies so that we can actually make sure that we're holding their hand right throughout the process and clearly that's a resource issue for housing organisations so that's the impact not just the human impact on the household in terms of added stress and anxiety and detedness but it's actually stressing the whole system so that we feel that we can't support tenants in the way we should we simply just need better communication through DWP and I think the landlord portal has real potential to enable us to do that if it was developed in the way that it should be so there are a number of challenges but there are also a number of solutions that we've already put forward that doesn't seem to be getting traction so that's what we are concerned about as local authorities Jeremy, bring me your other witnesses in for their comments as well I'm conscious you mentioned the landlord portal there and it probably quite helpful to get some information on the record in relation to that when the answer if that's okay but Julie Malloy wanted to come in okay, thank you I think one of the issues in terms of take-up is the consistency of communication and there is a distinct feeling around the contact locally which can be extremely positive we work together we share issues with the local teams the service centres can be more remote and the relationship is very much case work rather than a sort of general relationship dealing with that for 500 people is a challenge when that maybe becomes over 2000 people it's going to be a significant challenge so I think there could be stronger relationship between the service centres and particularly one of the things my colleagues in Berwickshire housing association have raised is most of us are working with the Dundee service centre for people living in places like coldstream and Paxton they're dealing with Middlesbrough so knowledge of the Scottish system maybe isn't as consistent as it could be so I think there could be work to be done there around the consistency of message and localised campaigns according to issues in that area any other comments Paula Docherty do you want to comment? it was just around the advanced payment it's really around customer behaviour and the fact that we've had a significant length of time since 1986 where housing benefit has been administered by local authorities customers are not used to receiving or dealing with the DWP for their housing housing issues housing is a devolved matter and housing benefit is not a devolved matter universal credit housing costs being paid in the advanced payment is something customers are not expecting back to Jeremy's point around there are three reasons why people don't then pay that money over either they don't understand they're just not going to or they've got other uses for the money but they're just not used to receiving money in their hand for housing what they get at the minute in housing benefit is money goes to their landlord for their housing checking the clarification on that and it's really back to I think Jeremy and Paula again let's take the view that the committee took the presumption that the money should go straight to the landlord but still have the opt-out that if you want to I was a wee bit confused were you saying that the landlord would have a veto so if I opt-out to take the money myself are you arguing that the landlord should then be able to say no that they're not paying the rent it should come straight to me even if the claimant says I want that money those are the existing rules at the moment managed payment to landlords can be for one of two reasons one is that there's an excess of two months rent areas the other is if a tenant there may not be rent areas but the claimant has got vulnerabilities and these is what they call the tier one tier two vulnerabilities and the idea is if you've got a tier one vulnerability which is something like addiction problems then the landlord can legitimately ask for that money and even if the individual says no I want the money paid to me direct the DWP will say no you know to protect you your money the managed payment is going to be put in for the landlord I mean I think a lot of the problem is I mean you mentioned I don't know if we're going to be discussing the landlord portal more but it's one of the real inadequacies of the system are the systems underpinning universal credit which are just not fit for purpose at the moment you will have heard about the managed payments how they come in on a four weekly basis and the fact that the money can sometimes be misposted to other landlords and things like that a lot of that is to do with the fact that the systems aren't automated as the way they should should have been by the DWP as yet and you've got two different systems you've got the universal credit system and you've got the third party creditor system and when they were set up there was very little discussion we suspect between the two between the two sides and that's one of the reasons for the incompatibility and our suspicion is that there's a heavy reliance on manual processing which is why you're getting reference numbers transposed you're getting sometimes you're not getting the reference numbers at all you're getting national insurance numbers there's supposed to be suffixes ascribed to each payment mp for managed payment or ar for arrears sometimes they're missing and they're quite frequently in uppercase and lowercase now no computer system decides well shall I use an uppercase or shall I use a lowercase it's because some poor soul in the bills of the DWP is having to type all this stuff in and inevitably there's going to be human error now when it's you know in the early stages of universal credit you could say fine okay you know that's one of the things we'll get round we haven't got that money you know that many cases but we're going to scale now we're going to huge you know huge numbers and ultimately a reasonable assumption is that most social landlords will have about 40% of their tenants will be reliant on universal credit so mediums average size association about 2,000 that's 800 souls on universal credit now are you going to be dependent on ringing up the DWP on each individual ones no you don't want that you want the information on the landlord portal and there's information that the DWP can disclose now without explicit consent and anything if that was all on the portal as a default it would make such a difference it's things like the start date of housing payments being paid to the landlord when the landlord can expect the payment and the amount of the next payment that's coming in which is a very important thing considering that universal credit is also an in-work benefit so the amount of housing costs awarded may vary from month to month to my original question and that is I understand that there is a system that certain individuals even if they don't want it goes to it are you saying that should be for every individual that's what I'm trying to piece you on because you have a moment in those categories where you know if you are not going to pay your rent it definitely you know even if you choose to take my money you don't get that choice but are you arguing that a landlord whoever the individual is whatever the circumstances are should have that right of veto not a right of veto I mean they've got to have reasonable cause for that veto time constraints can I just check because apparently it's not the right of veto is this the safeguarding procedures that you referred to where existing DWP practice is there tier one or tier two vulnerabilities or concerns or issues and if those can be evidenced by the landlord then you can persuade DWP irrespective of the claimants views to have that money go direct to landlords so I don't think you're talking about something new my question is should that be extended should that should we get rid of the categories and should the landlord be able to say whoever the individual is I want that no actually I was just that was just I was on three of those no no they've got that I was saying no so without they've got that good cause the general power of veto but that was what I thought you were seeing and I just wanted to clarify no it's a good cause and also I would emphasise that in those cases they're reviewed that it isn't it isn't sort of forever and ever that DWP would expect well is that person in the individual in the position to take on the responsibility themselves in the studio that my point but the one I just wanted to throw out to everyone in my final point is and this may be an issue more for for Edwin Mulovian is the whole question of having to pay the deposit and is that an issue that you're facing and what ways are Highland or Fife or Dumfries mitigating that is there some way that that you're helping 10 inch who maybe are struggling to get the deposit to pay a private landlord how you've got schemes around that and is that working or not working how could that be helped John, I know you had been keen to come in at the tail end of the last line of questioning so you want to mope that up and then move on to this new question that would be helpful I mean I don't think we are suggesting the landlord whoever the landlord is private or council or housing association that should have a right of veto I think we're just conscious that the housing journey for many families in households in Scotland has transition points so if you're a young care leaver coming out of care through local authority and moving into your first home you need time to adjust to income to expenditure within that household so at key transition points what we're suggesting certainly from a local authority point of view is that there should be a default of that payment to the landlord until you get settled because as part of the annual return on the charter in Scotland all social landlords measure tenants' sustainment over the first 12 months and that's quite a critical measure of how we're getting on with our tenants so that the landlord relationship with the tenant is quite critical we would never overpower or take away the right of the tenant to make a decision once they've got that settled position they know how their housing costs are being covered etc and then of course they can opt out I think if we give people all of the money and they're not exactly sure how to portion that in terms of our household budget and recognise the priority of or the requirement of having to pay for the rent then that's where things get into a downward spiral and from a variety of reasons maybe eviction or maybe they just abandon the tenancy it ends up in failure for everyone and they go on the homelessness cycle in terms of rent deposits I mean I think most housing organisations certainly local authorities support voluntary sector rent deposit schemes and those schemes work pretty well and good relationships of private landlords are sustained but as ever we need to put more money into that as more people seek to access the private rented sector Okay, any else? Gail Ward, do you want to add anything? I was just going to reaffirm the Highland position we've got a deposit guarantee scheme which we are currently reviewing as part of our rapid re-housing transition plan so it's probably been quite underutilised over a period of time because there's been the reluctance from the private rented sector to engage with people on benefits so we're currently reviewing that at the moment to see what we can do going forward And see just before other witnesses come in because I think Jeremy for a member rightly a line of question we had over the last few weeks was about the moneys that's actually in the social security system whether that's UK Government, Scottish Government, moneys local authorities are putting in and in terms of some of the constraints on rent deposit schemes in terms of the available houses the sealing on the amount of deposit that can be given to potential applicants and whether there's a better or more innovative use to get money out of the system that's been spent anyway to better support the use of the private sector and better support rent deposits so whether you've got changes you'd like to suggest just now or reflect on we'd really welcome to look at that because it's not just about mitigating and addressing concerns it's about is there different ways we can just do things as well I think is really important so I think what Gail Ward mentioned there Julie Malloy and we'll go along the line if there's any additional comments you want to make No, I'm fine, thanks We have a rent deposit guarantee scheme within Dumfries and Galloway but the discretionary housing payment regulations also allow landlord local authorities to pay rent deposits and rent in advance under existing legislation the difficulty with that is rent in advance by design is something that they should get back later whereas the discretionary housing payments don't come back so there's a restriction on the value of that when we were paying rent deposits and rents in advance it ended up being a significant amount of money going to customers to pay their rent deposit and rent in advance and then they would move on to their next tenancy and come back for another one whereas really you should have had that one back and your rent in advance you should have now back in your hand so the policy decision in relation to the constrained fund is that we don't currently do that unless there are exceptional circumstances rent deposit guarantees where we send customers over there Thank you, do you want to add anything? Nothings to that Okay, Jeremy Balfour? No, I'm done Thank you, convener Okay, Michelle Ballantyne Morning everybody and thank you it's been interesting so far Just so really for clarification because obviously I think Julia is yourself that said you know you deal with the most vulnerable element of our society who where things go wrong they really do go wrong for them but so that I can just get a handle on what volume we're talking about in terms of your tenants I think that you gave us some figures I think that one in ten was claimants, is that right? We've got about five hundred and fifteen out of just over five and a half thousand at the moment Right, and a third of those have got arrears new arrears coming in Sorry, I'll get my statistics of the new arrears We have 50% of the people who receive universal credit have a debt and a third of the debt that we have related to them is new arrears Right, so that's Okay, so 50% of the one in ten have arrears and a third of them So around Is new arrears Yes, around a third have And of that then 40% was technical and 60% was failure to pay for whatever reason Or that claims that sometimes it's not necessary that people are keeping the money and what we're actually finding is it's people who maybe are in circumstances where they haven't claimed at the right time or that there's been a problem with claims so we carry quite a high case load of debt that may get paid but we're not quite sure there's a lot of uncertainty You're not referring so that you don't include that in the technical debt then where there's been a The technical debt is where we know there's a claim and we can see it on the portal Right, okay, and it's just a delay We have other cases where maybe people have been told they're not entitled but they are some sort of odd cases where maybe income's been misread like a monthly income was misread as an annual income which meant people were classed as not entitled so there's quite a lag there but there's not certain and I think that comes back to the portal and information and the broader information the more we can kind of risk manage those situations and understand whether that is a technical debt or a real debt Okay, so the tenet you're having difficulties in terms of the management of the benefits what does that work out at sort of in value 1% to 2% I think it's around £60,000 No, a minted percentage of your tenets Percenturies, it's around 1% about 1% of your tenets and is that the same for all of you roughly ballpark We've got 3,000 tenets on universal credit out of 14,000 housing stock 60% of those give or take or in some level of rentory so we would deem all of those as being vulnerable in some way, shape or form The actual impact on individual tenets is probably considerably lower of that 60% who need a high level of input and resource to be able to resolve some of the issues that are going on for them and the others We've given you a submission I mean the current figures we've got at the end of February as we have 6,226 tenets five council tenets on UC with a total of a rears value of £1.537 million Now we believe that another 8,000 tenets will move on to universal credit over the next period which will be about 45% of our teneted stock of about 30,000 homes so we anticipate rentory is increasing doubling certainly due to universal credit What I'm trying to establish is what level of what percent of your tenets have that support need that vulnerable support need because what I want to go on and then ask is around the support that's actually in place because obviously we're moving over to the new help to claim programme which will change the way people are being supported maybe for the better may not be I've had mixed views from different quarters on it and I'm just wondering what your view is in terms of that support given the percentage that you potentially have what's the impact of all The help to claim process is around getting the claim into payment where it's really what we find is that customers once their claim is in payment have difficulty so it's at a later point putting the claim in and getting the payment their first payment is generally not the difficult time for customers it's managing their income as they go forward and the help to claim process isn't designed to help those customers on because Michelle's mentioning you helped to help to claim process will this address the five-week wait will it address payments not going to landlords will it address the doubling of rent arrears that John Mills suspects may happen in his local authority area John Mills I mentioned you it should take you first I suppose I mean we have a really good relationship with citizens address advice rights five and clearly they change to the way that Clements are helped we will try and do our best with the citizens advice bureau across Scotland I'm sure what we are doing is we can't take risk with us so what we've actually done is Dundee I believe have got a and they call it a tenant hardship fund for the first period of universal credit I don't particularly like that term hardship but we've now developed and just about to implement a million pound scheme in five so that the housing revenue account helps new universal credits with the first two weeks of rent payment so if they get a follow-through on housing benefit of two weeks we will pay another two weeks rent so that they're not getting into so serious arrears during that first period but again that's still less rental income that we're bringing in so we're wanting to target that to people who we know already having assessed their support needs we'll find it more difficult to keep budgeting Will that flip in effect the rental payment to an advanced payment rather than an arrears payment Yes, it's us trying to ameliorate the fall into rent areas which is really stressing for a lot of people so that will be a it's not an advance which we ask back it's a grant basically it will be paid as an allowance through their rent account Will you make it universal credit and pay the rent they'll be paying in advance as opposed to arrears so it in effect flips that What we would prefer is for the first payments of housing costs to default to the landlord so that we can maintain that better management with the tenants but we've not got that yet so we're taking steps to try and help tenants who are falling into arrears for the first time through universal credit Will you use perhaps a relation to that, Gail Ward? Do you want to come in? I think from my personal perspective of the last five years is the more investment that we can put into the start of the claim then the more successful it's likely to be at the start because going back to Paula's comment about people not being used to having money for their rents we see a huge amount of cases where people just cannot let go of that legacy while I claim my help towards my rent through housing benefit so we see a lot of cases that don't actually claim housing costs at the very start so I would like to see that the help to claim helps reduce some of that and actually we're getting claims right from the very very start which then lessens the resource requirement further down the line to try and put things right However, in saying that I do think the issue about that ongoing support is one of the biggest issues that we face I also oversee housing support provision for Highland and we've probably got three to four hundred people that receive ongoing housing support and anecdotally the information that's coming back from those commission services is the requirement to help people maintain the universal credit claim as opposed to dealing with other issues that seems to be the biggest challenge at the moment so hopefully the earlier investment that we've got will help lessen some of that going forward Can we just mob up some other views before I let you back in Michelle of course any additional views Jeremy Hurr? I think that help to claim having a more holistic approach to supporting claimances is welcome however there are two big caveats one is that the money that's gone in to help to claim has been taken from the universal support delivered locally and there were some services there that were quite good and they're now no longer funded the other thing is and it's been emphasised is the ongoing support as a colleague inclusion Scotland said to me if somebody's got vulnerabilities their vulnerabilities do not suddenly disappear when they get the first payment and that it's about maintaining the claim and I think that's if there has been some research done down south with with Kiro housing association which is based in Bath which was looking at the issue of arrears and universal credit and one of the things they found out was that there was a break in time before when somebody may have been eligible for universal credit and they're actually claiming it either because sometimes they thought well I'm going to get a job next week so I won't bother to claim or as I said it was a family breakdown or something if you like got in the way of making the claim and because there's no backdating really as such with the universal credit that if you like set the tone for the subsequent claim so if help to claim can prevent that that will be great but I think there's concerns about some bureau aren't open all the time in areas so there's a heavy reliance I think on web chat and phone and perhaps some of the claimants web chat and phone is perhaps not the best medium for them and we're also getting anecdotal feedback from associations that there's a long waiting list for folk to see for a face-to-face interview with cab so it's how if you like the existing cab services and the help to claim cab services are meld committee can better understand help to claim nothing's really important you've raised it Michelle is I think you must say Mr Hewer that some of the funds that's going to support the partnership with citizens advice were being given previously to local authorities so therefore it's not necessarily a new service it's a new service partnership so there might be nothing in itself new in relation to this I think that's important to establish and the second thing it's important to establish would be whether help to claim in itself actually does anything to change the structures that you've raised concerns with as welcome as help to claim will be I think it's just important to to make sure you understand it properly can you just confirm some of that Mr Hewer as I understand it the £39 million that was given to set up help to claim that that was coming from the universal support delivered the money that had previously gone to universal support delivered locally it's helpful and just to Mr Mills to want to come in for you I mean that's exactly what's happened from April 2019 DWP have removed 182,000 from Fife County because we had put that into local services for budgeting and support so that's how help to claim is being funded really is that kind of challenge to local services so what we're doing in Fife is actually putting those services back into additional cost obviously we wish it well we'd rather Fife still had that money but we wish help to claim well does it change the structures that you've been raising concerns about here this morning in any way Julie Malloy I think it is that gateway of a message and there's a lot of fear about this system some people don't claim because the new stories the image of it is very negative and I think actually the words help to claim are a very different message to some of the messages that have come out historically so that is an important step it may alleviate if it is a genuine addition it may alleviate the pressure on the financial inclusion type services that we all offer in terms of immediate claims however it still doesn't deal with the issues we've talked about in terms of the whole system and there's something here about the connection of the system the initial claim is really important but how different benefits connect with each other how the responsibilities that are with other organisations connect with each other you were talking earlier in the meeting about school meals we've had discussions around DHP and particularly the bedroom tax and the connections there are all important so yes advice to claim is important but structurally, fundamentally there needs to be shifts in the system that help people through it It's good that a committee is finding out more about about the list of Michelle Ballartyne do you want to follow up on some of that? Yeah on the other side of the fence I've been to a lot of job centres across the country now and observed what goes on at their front end and talked to obviously the teams behind them and I wondered what kind of relationship you have with the job centres with DW3 through the job centres and the support mechanisms in there because they pretty much all of them that I've been to now have a myriad of support going on within the centre and their view is that they try to actively encourage people to come in and sit down with them and have these conversations and get budget management support all this sort of thing so I'm wondering whether your experience in that whether you have contact with them what's the relationship like? Oh, I'll take Paul Dock to first fall by Gail Ward We have a strong local relationship with our local job centre plus they provide us a significant amount of support to customers who need to claim universal credit What Jeremy was mentioning around the date of claim is the difficulty with the customer they've got to get to claim and while they're waiting one, two, three, four, five days they're not going to get any universal credit for those dates it's going to start when they make their claim there's no backdating provision to the same level as we would have done with housing benefit We have an excellent working relationship because Highland was thrown in from day one we had no choice but to do that and that's continued and that's been really really good work in practice we meet every six to eight weeks and look at local initiatives that were in place to help to support people I think one of the big difficulties we have is the rural context and it's not always easy for people to be able to get into access to those services and that's one of the difficulties that we have had I do have quite large concerns about protected date of claims which won't be there under universal credit legislation so that if people are struggling to get that face to face contact because of rurality etc they will genuinely miss out on benefit entitlement and I think that is quite a difficult one and we are putting in our own services to try and ensure that that doesn't happen I said earlier we had strong relationships at a local level there's engagement with the community planning process there's working groups we're able to feed issues and themes through and I think that that is really helpful often those themes that we can't resolve with the service centres we're working at a local level to try and resolve so that is a really useful channel I think it comes back to for many years having housing benefit managed locally we've built up information sharing protocols we've built up relationships local knowledge and I think that the job centre has the potential to kind of replace that in some ways if that's the way things remain so yeah it's great it works well the commitments that we still have issues but at least we have a local connection to be able to work with we might have John Mills is the final comment on this just I want to give members a time check and witnesses as well got me 20 minutes left and I've got Alice and Johnston Keith Brown still wanting to come in and raise some lines of questioning but John Mills do you want me to answer something? Just to answer your question a very positive relationships with local job centres it's really the DWP at arm's length which is the issue here so I think we do joint training we actually do joint visits indeed in tenants home so really positive and staff are really motivated to do the best they can so there's no criticism there at all but it's actually dealing with contact centres at some length and the communication issues that arise that's where the main difficulties are okay Alice and Johnston thank you thank you convener and thank you it's been an interesting session I'd kind of like to continue on that theme of the support that exists for tenants I think very early on in this committee's work it feels like a long time ago now we took evidence I think it was from East Lothian council with regards to implicit consent and the issues around that and I see that the Fife council in your written submission say that the DWP needs to reconsider the issue of consent and allow councils to have implied consent because obviously that would help council officers assist people more easily so I'd just like to understand to what extent the arrangements for explicit and implicit consent are an issue when you're supporting tenants with their claims I mean I think that point's made by the head of revenues and commercial services whenever we're made aware of someone say moving from housing benefit to universal credit we will go and pay a visit or a tenancy start we will actually go and pay a visit so we've just employed another set of new revenues officers staff and they're in post now so that they can actually go and get that explicit consent from the tenant at that point to then assist with the claim now FADWP accepted that we were a trusted landlord in terms of a local authority why wouldn't we actually get that implicit consent because the tenant has signed a tenancy contract with the council so I think it's just getting over that kind of issue around being trusted that we've got the consent of the tenant because we're actually acting on their best behalf and we're trying to sustain their tenancy so I think that that's the point that Lesley's making in the paper so it actually increases our resource requirement in terms of face-to-face contact with the tenant and that's something that we'd rather spend on other areas of support Is that a view shared by others? I think implicit consent makes it so much easier to resolve issues on the customer's best interests explicit consent by definition means that you have to go to the customer you have to actually make contact with the customer with some customers with significant vulnerabilities that's very challenging and resource intensive then by the time we do get the customer they have to say they want somebody to contact to deal with the issue this is all time and delay and stress and it just makes it very difficult in the environment to do best to support those customers various nodding heads there I want to just get what on the record now yeah I just like to understand why this change you know came about why did we move to explicit consent when it seems to be so resource intensive and unhelpful I think it was around data protection because it was about getting the customer's consent to share that information with a third party Universal credit and legacy benefits are customer money you know when the housing cost is customer money it's ultimately to come to the landlord but really it's the customer's responsibility to deal with it it's just when you're dealing with a general population then their consent is welcomed and ensuring that they are supported to manage their money in the best way possible but when you have customers who are significantly vulnerable then the worst thing that will happen is if they have to do all of these things and they don't do it they will be evicted they will not pay then money will not come through and the customer cannot then access the support that they need what can we do about this? Gail Ward I think the comments that John Midd about the trusted partner that seems to be the trick that DWP of missing in relation to all of this is because if we are a trusted partner then that definitely works both ways and we're signing up to that commitment to say we are there to represent our most vulnerable clients and therefore if we've signed to that status and if that means signing a legally binding agreement to say that we will be that pattern status then that should get us over that barrier of this explicit consent I think going historically going back Jeremy and I had the very very first meeting with DWP colleagues back in 2013 and they didn't even see a role for the landlord within the universal credit environment at all so I'm pleased to say that we've made leaps and bounds over that period of time but although they've taken that step forward to engage more with landlords I just don't think they're bringing the consent the explicit implicit consent along with that and I think that's quite disappointing because ultimately with implicit consent we could do a lot better and help resolve quite a lot of the issues that the universal credit system has so it's clear you'd like to see some change here definitely I iterate that if a landlord portal could be developed to actually have information that we can get anyway you know that we can legitimately get so we don't have to landlords don't have to go pestering the DWP for it it would ease up a lot of logjams thank you can I just check for the purposes of the record there was again the official report doesn't pick up on on nodding heads but for those two underlying points is there agreement amongst all five witnesses in relation to that thank you Alice sorry Keith Brown yeah thanks very much for the evidence so far I suppose the question I've got relates in particular to I think Julia and Paul are really interested to hear Julia mention the bedroom tax I don't believe it or not there's been some discussion in the committee as to whether the bedroom tax exists or not but leaving that to one side I'm conscious of what's been said there are different things which apply in your areas to just across the border and I think in both areas you don't have counsellising stock neither in Dumfries or Galloway borders just over the border so it's just your awareness of any differences is the various things which are done in Scotland so you could see the different tax rates which now apply I don't know if that impacts council tax reduction bedroom tax mitigation or the Scottish choices that were mentioned what's been as you can best tell that the impact both in terms of homelessness ar ears and so on but also in terms of the complexity of the system that you have to develop but it must be more complex and it is on the other side of the border are you aware talking to colleagues in those councils across the border of what the impact of these differences is question sharing from best practice given the close proximity who wants to take up the cudgels of that one slightly reluctantly I think polydocrity might be volunteering reluctantly I think in Freeson Galloway council just touches on the border so I'm going to the other side to answer the rest of the question one of the major issues that we had is we don't have an awful lot of cross-border traffic although I do have a member of staff who moved to Carlyle and was told six months later that it was time she moved her GP because she was continuing to benefit from free prescriptions when she should no longer be doing so she didn't get a lot of prescriptions so don't panic about that one the job centre from the position of Gretna it's often easier for a customer to go to Carlyle to the job centre where it's for universal credit and Scottish choices they have to come to Annan so that they're no longer able to move around job centre and that's an issue for universal credit customers generally in Sanka we had the same issue as they previously used to go to Cumnock now because they were a Dumfries and Galloway resident we went live at a different point they had to go to Annan or Dumfries so that hopefully as we are now all full service then customers will start to be allocated a job centre which is closest to them but certainly that won't happen over the border they won't ever go to Carlyle we don't have direct contact with the local authorities over the border because we are working in a different system but we did in the development of our preparations for implementation of welfare reform generally and over the years I've made sure we've attended events down south alongside in Scotland so we can keep up with the impact of roll-out in different places something which we are in discussions with at the moment is a piece of research on the impact of areas that's been undertaken with the DWP on with eight landlords south of the border and we're looking at participating in that at the moment which maybe will develop our understanding I think we just looking at the housing sector generally down south it is very different some of the challenges are very different we've managed to significantly mitigate the impact of under occupation by working with the local authority and through changes in funding that's been really beneficial I think for us it is about the joining up of all the rules around under occupation the localised benefits and the UK wide ones I did mention earlier about the call centre that some of the tenants living in the southern end of Berwickshire were dealing with Middlesbrough that has caused issues because understanding isn't there so there's clearly differences in the system for people looking for the Scottish benefits that maybe aren't available south of the border it's interesting there is so little evidence of any comparative effect of different policies whether for good or bad I mean if you're going to mitigate things you'd like to know if it's having an effect I suppose and it's perhaps a little bit surprising there's not that kind of comparative evidence available but on a different question if I can convener the various things which have been mentioned about different things which have had an impact I think John Mills talked about a further million pound going into other services to try and help this situation there was the proposed changes to the HRA account that you mentioned there's a Dundee example of what they are doing and the impact on other services because of what might be termed either the shortcomings of universal credit or the problems associated with transitioning to universal credit all this seems to be adding a lot of complexity and expense to the system and on the other side you've had the benefit cap you've had sanctions you've had a couple of other things which I think Jeremy Hew mentioned which are pushing down or seeking to push down the cost of the taxpayer and yet this it's having another effect in terms of the costs which are being associated with trying to deal with the system and those are falling on different public bodies whether the councils are Scottish Governments so just be interested in any comment to any of the panel members who'd have on that Take Jeremy Hew or first then I'll take John Mills Thank you chair I was just going to say but on your original question I do get the opportunity to swap notes with the other federations in England, Wales and Northern Ireland and to meet with social landlords from England and I think they will be very envious they are very envious of the provisions that we've got up here it has been a very positive you know impact that's been made sorry your second question was about Just about the costs of trying to deal with the change in the system and where they're falling I think I would love to be able to quantify that because I think there have been inevitably increased costs for social landlords either through the direct provision of more financial inclusion welfare support services but also things like increasing the provision for bad debt and that's a hit on the budget as well I think it was in another meeting of this committee when you've had Bill Scott from Inclusion Scotland on he coined the phrase it isn't cost saving it's cost shunting and I think there is there is a lot of that and also the concern is I think from the national audit office report on universal credit that came out in June last year you know the unit costs for universal credit are still pretty horrendous I mean they're nowhere near their target figure yet and until they've actually got the systems again to go on about this to underpin that the administration of universal credit they are still going to be costly because not only is it costly to do the initial thing but there's also costs about rectifying the errors the you know the incidents of errors that are coming up mispostings that money going to the wrong landlords which you know hopefully will end be cured when they have the systems to prove that but we'd be nice to see those systems in place yes I think we can and we are collating evidence the moment I think Highlands done the same where we're actually looking at the additional costs caused by this implementation of universal credit and the push from centre to local administration costs now I've only mentioned the HRA I reckon it's 3.5 million additional costs since the implementation of universal credit but there'll be other knock-on costs to not just council services not just housing but to the voluntary sector and other services because they are being more skewed towards helping people through the system of universal credit implementation so we will be writing to the DWP and say there's the bill for it you know I mean we're quite clear that that additional cost should not be borne by council rent payers or council tax payers and I think that's an important issue that we would want the committee to certainly be aware of I don't know in terms of homelessness if the committee is already aware and have looked at the homelessness monitor for Scotland and just published a few weeks ago and there's a lot in here in welfare reform impacts on vulnerable households and the additional costs that are having to be put in by local authorities and partners to try and sustain those households and whatever accommodation they're in to try and transition them in to more settled accommodation so you know there are a number of impacts direct costs to tenants and council tax payers but also costs that we've not yet evidenced to support vulnerable households to prevent them becoming homeless so that has to be looked at in the whole and the kind of not just the human cost but the financial costs arising from that as well I just last thought a point to say that that's increasing costs and interested in unit costs and that increasing complexity seems to be two things which were at odds with what universal credit was meant to achieve I don't think it's that controversial to say about earthworm position as 5 as you take housing costs out of universal credit and that is in a lateral position as well in terms of housing so you know I think is it about trying to improve a system which is really difficult to improve and is not simple it is complex or you just revert to housing benefit support and I think that's something that's locally administered although it's not devolved as yet to Scotland and that's another argument but certainly it's locally administered and we can sort out a lot of the issues locally through good joint working between housing associations, councils and local job plus centres I apologise because of time constraints but you have now put on the record what was in the written submission in relation to housing costs when taking cost when taking out universal credit time constraints because we can't really have a discussion around that but you've made your position clear here this morning we should just gauge whether or not other witnesses agree with that or otherwise and I'm sorry we can't really let you expand on your points because of time constraints but I'm just wondering would others agree that housing costs should be taken out of that and already put a submission in that I guess just for the record that all five witnesses would support that there are a couple of things we didn't get around to this morning that we should really at least mention and if there can be a brief response or even just come back to us in relation to it the on-cost sales swear was mentioned by Mr Mills one of the things we've explored in other witness sessions has been concerns around the cost of temporary furnished accommodation for those escaping homelessness and look for pathways of homeless into permanent accommodation there has been some concern about the costs particularly for the in-work homeless people who are almost been priced out of the cost of temporary furnished flats which would appear punitive and the committee can't quite understand why they are so significantly expensive and also when you add on the cost of having your furniture put in storage as well I'm aware of my constitution case of the families who will simply be seriously overcrowded sofa surfing with other family members rather than take up a temporary furnished solution so any observation she would have in that even if I can't give you the opportunity just now to respond to that but those are costs when the issues that are all picked up somewhere by a social security system be it local authorities be it Scottish Government be it UK Government so just better ways of doing this there's a lot of money in that system that I don't think we're particularly always using effectively any observation you give we're committed back on that would be very helpful and also Edinburgh was in Edinburgh gave us some comments in relation to what they thought the use of discretionary housing payments and making year-long awards in some cases because they felt that the sufficiency of funds the committee probably feels that it varies right across the country it really depends where you are in the country perhaps the sufficiency of funds so any a brief amount of time just to allow you to put on the record just now what you think of the funding situation is in relation to DHPs I think that we would find that quite helpful so we'll just go from even left to right if you don't have to make a comment on it but I think the committee would find it helpful Gail Ward he wanted temporary accommodation on DHPs no I think if you've got anything on temporary accommodation could you maybe say that to the committee but I think it's important for a consistency of questions that we asked at each evidence session that we put that on the record here this morning so in relation to DHPs I think would be helpful I think there has to be probably an increase in the DHP funding to mitigate some of the issues that I'm taking the bedroom tax aside we're having to look at everything on a case-by-case basis and probably seeing some things around temporary accommodation maybe not being awarded when the possibly should be because we're too busy mitigating other welfare reform changes thank you I don't expect to expand any further it should we have to get a balance of evidence and what a local authority was suggesting was a sufficiency of funds and it will vary across the country John Mills do you want to absolutely no flexibility in our application of DHP it's mainly to mitigate bedroom tax okay thank you Julie Malloy I'd rather come back on that one okay Jeremy here I just think DHPs have done a wonderful job in mitigating the bedroom tax with housing benefit but probably at the expense of being a kind of cooker in the nest and shoving to one side all the other needs for for DHPs and the sooner that bedroom tax can be mitigated at source which is what we're Scottish Governments hoping the DWP can do the better thank you Paula Dawson my manager also manages homelessness within Dumfries and Galloway as a stock transfer landlord and we utilise the DHP regulations to support customers in a wider sense to prevent homelessness I think that's quite a local a local position and it's funded generally by the local authority there is cost to that obviously because the money that's paid in discretionary housing payments is a cost and it's hopefully to be a spend to save because we would hope that then these people don't end up in temporary accommodation which is a cost to the local authority I think the amount of money we've got you can be sufficient but obviously the local authority is in a cash strap situation so more is always helpful but I think the wider use of discretionary housing payment has an administrative cost because the cost of administering a DHP for a universal credit customer is significantly higher than a housing benefit customer okay thank you I know those were too quite substantial issues thrown at you in the dying seconds of our evidence session but just wanted to put some of it on the record we are about to move into private session in a second can I first all thank all of you for your contribution here this morning please do keep in contact with the committee any additional thoughts any additional evidence you want to give us please feel free to do that and of course it's the up-to-date with the committee inquiry and we'll keep that relationship going so thank you very much that ends agenda item 3 when I moved to agenda item 4 which will be in private so I move into private session thanks everyone