The government has published its response to an inquiry into localisation issues in Welfare Reform by the Communities and Local Government Select Committee.
The Welfare Reform Bill, if passed, would abolish elements of the discretionary Social Fund and Council Tax Benefit, replacing both with localised schemes run by local authorities, and would see Housing Benefit, a current local authority responsibility, centralised within the Universal Credit.
The government believes that the integration of housing costs into a centralised Universal Credit will provide a suitable level of support and
be a major simplification that will greatly help claimants to take responsibility for their finances.
It is important, says the goverment, that the design of Universal Credit contains safeguards to help protect social landlords’ income streams. For this reason the government will run a number of demonstration projects (beginning in Spring 2012) to test out elements of a direct payment process and to gather the information necessary to design safeguards in Universal Credit.
The independent evaluation is to be led by the Centre for Regional Economic and Social Research at Sheffield Hallam University, and the government is currently in the process of deciding on volunteer local authorities and housing associations