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"Housing Benefits": The Campaign for a Fairer System

Between September 2010 and March 2012, the SFHA ran a major campaign on the UK Government's proposed changes to Housing Benefit, which we believe will impact negatively upon tenants and housing associations and housing co-operatives across Scotland.

While the Welfare Reform Act became law on 8th March 2012, SFHA will continue to work with housing associations and co-operatives right across Scotland to help support them and their tenants to respond to the changes that this Act will bring forward.

Our Campaign

Between September 2010 and March 2012, the SFHA ran a major campaign on the UK Government's proposed changes to Housing Benefit - changes which we know will impact negatively upon housing associations and co-operatives, and their tenants, right across Scotland.

SFHA was pleased to be able to work collaboratively with our sister UK housing association federations in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.  By working right across the UK with housing associations, tenants and nearly 80 organisations concerned with housing, family issues and disability we have campaigned to make the Welfare Reform Act fairer.

Working collaboratively meant we were able to be at the forefront of the debate in Parliament on a number of the most controversial measures that featured in the Bill, and also play a major role in winning a number of important concessions on issues that will affect the lives of millions of social housing tenants across the country.

We also played an instrumental role in persuading the Scottish Parliament to take the unprecedented step of withholding Legislative Consent on certain aspects of the Welfare Reform Bill, and we will continue to work with the Scottish Parliament's Welfare Reform Committee to help them understand what steps can be taken by the Scottish Government to help mitigate the impacts of the Act.

We would like to thank all of you who signed our Housing Benefits campaign petition - which expressed concern about the unfairness of the proposals - these signatures were combined with those of our Welsh sister organisation Community Housing Cymru (CHCymru) and submitted to Parliament. We would also like to pay tribute to the significant contribution of housing associations who via their own lobbying activities, particularly in writing to local MPs and MSPs and generating media coverage, played a significant role in raising awareness of the unfairness of the proposals.

During the course of the Bill's passage through the Parliamentary process, SFHA produced a number of briefings for MPs and Peers. You can still access these here.

Our wins include:

Bedroom tax
•    An extra £30 million per year in Discretionary Housing Payments pledged for foster families and disabled people living in adapted properties hit by the bedroom tax
•    A commitment from Government that people in supported and sheltered housing ‘will not be affected’ by the bedroom tax
•    A robust independent review into the impact of the bedroom tax on social housing tenants

Direct payments
•    Retaining direct payments to landlords for older and vulnerable people (although 'vulnerability' is yet to be defined, via the direct payments demonstration projects)
•    A trigger for arrears at which point payments will be made direct to landlords
•    Demonstration projects to evaluate the impact of the removal of direct payments

Overall benefit cap
•    An additional £130 million for Discretionary Housing Payments for those who are not able to move immediately after being hit by the cap.
•    A nine month grace period, where the cap will not apply, for those who have been in work for the previous 12 months and lose their job through ‘no fault of their own’.

We also successfully campaigned for the Government to drop its plan to cut housing benefit of the long-term unemployed.

With your help we have achieved these important concessions and while we have not been able to persuade the UK Government to accept the amendments that we worked hard to develop and put forward for consideration, we have made (as a sector) made ourselves heard, loud and clear.

SFHA will now work hard to support you and your tenants respond to the changes the new Act will bring, working with the UK Government, Scottish Government and other agencies as appropriate.

Briefings and Resources

Further information

For further information on the Housing Benefits campaign, contact David Ogilvie This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it