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UC direct payments - pilot extended for further 6 months
Why am I not in the least surprised!
Latest report ‘Direct payments demonstration projects: Learning the lessons six months in’ makes very interesting reading
full report at http://research.dwp.gov.uk/asd/asd5/rports2013-2014/rrep839.pdf
Hmmm ... or is it because there will be delays in introducing UC nationally - extend the pilot projects to make it look like there is no problem with the intro. of UC, just a need to learn a bit more first?
As we are in one of the pilot areas (and for one of the UC claim support pilots too) it is interesting to note that despite the Oxford landlords having a comparitively small total housing stock (compared to Southwark for example) the pilot here involved a higher proporition of tenants compared to the bigger landlords.
Given that a key finding was the high resource input for landlords in providing neccessary support to tenants in the project (and Oxford also has comparitively well resourced advice and other support agency provision) this would suggest there will need to be a high level of tenant support (i.e. additional funding) when UC is introduced (and responsibility passes to DWP from LAs) otherwise many claimants will simply be left to sink!
What will be the resourse implications for big landlords (and others) when direct payment goes national?