FISH Health Development Day 18 th February 2014 Inveraray Gillian McInnes Community Development Manger ACHA ACHA owns and manages just over 5000 homes across Argyll and Bute including ten ID: 808499
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Slide1
Rural Poverty, Welfare Reform and ‘FISH’
Health Development Day 18th February 2014Inveraray
Gillian McInnes, Community Development Manger, ACHA
Slide2ACHA owns and manages just over 5,000
homes across Argyll and Bute including tenisland communities. The other 3 local housing associations have around 2,000 properties between them.In 2007 ACHA commissioned a Financial Inclusion Strategy on behalf of a partnership of the 4 housing associations.
The FISH project came from that and was devised and led by ACHA .
Slide3So what has the FISH project done since
2009 …Promotion of Credit Unions (5 in Argyll)School Theatre RoadshowsTheatre production by an educational charity called‘At Home with the Wiltons’ gave pupils in Dunoon,Islay and Campbeltown some financial capability
training …. and some fun.Money Handbooks Easy to read information and advice covering various aspects of personal finance incl. banking, credit, insurance, savings,
pensions and of course debt and budgeting. Local
advice giving agencies in Argyll contributed.
Young persons book aimed at 15-18 year olds and also
includes info on home-making, work, training, study.
Both available on our website
www.acha.co.uk
88% of pupils said they now know more about credit cards, loans and sensible budgeting.
Slide4The Welfare Rights Project:
4 full time Welfare Rights Officers from March 2010 to date Generated almost £6 million in previously unclaimed benefits and tax
credits to date. Assisted
3,100 households
with the
complexities of claiming what they were
due and with appeals and tribunals.
1,308 or 42% are households with
someone suffering chronic health
problems.
There are an estimated 42,000 – 67,000 people under- claiming in Scotland which equates to £81 – 157 million !!
Slide5The Welfare Rights Project
Outcomes .......
Developed a culture of benefits advice within the housing association and the ability of housing staff to ‘spot and refer’
Project was designed to specifically target those in rent arrears, elderly tenants(?) and new tenants. As word of mouth has spread, self-referring has overtaken referrals by housing staff.
An effective housing association linked welfare rights service should:
• Include the provision of support across a range of financial inclusion and
poverty issues, including basic budgeting and money advice, information about
local affordable credit and financial products and energy advice.
Housing Associations & Welfare Rights – Best Practice Guide
(SFHA and Welfare Rights Officers Forum 2011)
Slide6The Welfare Rights Project
Outcomes continued .......
During 2011 we carried out satisfaction surveying with tenants who had received a service from our welfare rights officers;
86% reported less worry and stress.
41% reported an improvement in a mental health condition.
26% reported an improvement in their relationship with
family or their partner.
39% reported that the threat of losing their home was
reduced or removed.
38% were referred to another agency (debt advice, home
energy advice or credit union).
Slide7Money Advice & Household Budgeting
As part of the current Lottery funded project we are working in partnership with Argyll and Bute CAB. A full time Money Advisor (based in Helensburgh but covering the whole area) provides ACHA tenants with advice on debt and money management.Particularly important to protect tenants who are vulnerable to losing their home so we encourage referrals from those in rent arrears as they will invariably have other debts. We encourage all new tenants to get advice on household budgeting to try to prevent problems
arising.
Slide8Some statistics from 2013 report
‘Minimum Income Standard for Rural and Remote Scotland’
Commissioned by 4 local authorities, 3 housing profession orgs, Scottish Enterprise/AIEWeekly budgets (excluding housing costs) range from £198 (urban England) to £277 (Scottish island)
Weekly food basket (single person) range from
£36.91 (English rural town) to £57.44 (Scottish island)
Energy costs can be as important as rent levels
in determining whether households can make
ends meet.
Centre for Research in Social Policy,
Loughborough University
www.minimumincomestandard.org
Cost of living difference for rural Scottish communities is between
10% - 40% more
than English rural settlements
Skye and Lochalsh Housing
Assoc
did research last year and found that their tenants are paying
£1,000 more
on average for household fuel than the
Scottish average
. (Skye & Lochalsh average annual bill £2,218).
Slide9“Poverty is most visible in disadvantaged communities in
urban Scotland, but it is no less real in rural areas”.(Scottish Government, Taking Forward the Government Economic Strategy : a discussion paper on tackling poverty, inequality and deprivation, 2008)
Slide10“Our reforms are about changing the culture of welfare, so that it acts as a springboard rather than a trap”
. Rt Hon Iain Duncan-SmithSecretary of State for Work and Pensions, June 2010
Most of the increase in benefits in recent years has been driven by pensions.
2013/14 Benefits:
Pensions £110
bn
Working age and child benefits £94
bn
Prof Paul
Spicker
,
RGU Aberdeen
Author and Blogger
Image courtesy of Neil Alexander
Slide11Welfare Reform – the first year
The Bedroom Tax began in April last year and in the first 12 weeks generated an additional £400,000 of rent arrears across Scotland.There are around 500 ACHA households affected and we have attempted to make contact with all of them. We have assisted 80% of them to claim the temporary ‘Discretionary Housing Payment’ where it was demonstrated that they were in financial hardship.
Our welfare rights officers work hard to make sure anyone affected by any of the other changes is claiming all they can and fully understands their position.
What has ACHA done?
Directly lettered and spoken to affected tenants
Training for Staff and monthly updates for our Board
Website briefing papers on Bedroom Tax, Universal Credit and PIP
Articles in all tenants newsletters - archived on our website.
Reviewed Allocation Policy to assist those under-occupying, to move
house.
Risk assessments for our business plan, lenders and housing Regulator.
97% of those affected by Bedroom Tax (UK) could not move to a smaller home. Only 13 ACHA tenants have moved.
Slide12How are tenants being affected?
Bedroom Tax Case StudyJoe is a young unemployed man who under-occupies a £75 per week home by two bedrooms and is now expected to pay £18.75 from a total income of £71.70 (job seekers allowance). There are no one bedroom flats available for him to move to.
This equates to a 26.4% cut in his income!!
The typical bedroom tax deduction for ACHA tenants is
£9 a week (14% deduction) and £19 a week (25% deduction)
Salami Slicing!
This is the term used to describe how the welfare reforms are taking a thin slice of cash from lots of different welfare benefits which add up to major financial hardship, for example;
Non dependent deductions
Reduction or removal of tax credits
Reductions in benefits uprating capped at 1%
(pensions uprating increased to 2.5%)
Slide13Cont/d
How are tenants being affected?Bedroom Tax We conducted a survey of tenants in Mid Argylland Kintyre last year who were affected by the Bedroom Tax:
94% of people had a bank account which is good news71% said that they would make up the shortfall in rent by reducing household budgets - principally from food and household fuel (this was prior to the 9% energy price rise in late 2013)
BUT
57% also had other debts to consider and the average weekly income
from the group was £116
Slide14Universal Credit
Westminster announced recently that it will not begin to roll out Universal Credit in Scotland (outwith Inverness) before late 2014.
Lord Freud further suggested that those claiming sickness benefits may not be transferred to UC until 2017 (post general election).
It is very important that we continue with preparations.
ACHA has created a risk questionnaire to map who among the 1,500 tenants that are likely to be affected, will be most at risk of failing to meet the challenges of Universal Credit:
Must have a transactional bank account
Must change to monthly budgeting regime
Must cope with being ‘paid’ in arrears
Must learn to pay rent to ACHA from monthly UC
Must claim on-line
(
smartphones unlikely to interface with DWP
)
From our survey of tenants in Mid Argyll and Kintyre last year we asked a question about internet use - almost 62% of those asked said that they would have to use a publicly available computer or someone else’s.
Slide15Universal Credit - outcomes from the Scottish pilot
The only pilot of ‘Direct Payment’ in Scotland was through
Dunedin
Canmore
Housing Association in
Edinburgh in 2013.
The
results from that were fairly telling:
They were given ‘significant’ financial resourced by the DWP to mitigate any negative impacts.
They were allowed to focus almost entirely on ensuring that impact was dealt with and other areas of their business has suffered badly.
The pilot group was not exactly ‘hand picked’ but known problem tenants were removed.
Of the 1,000 tenants in the test group, 67% of rent payments had a time lag of 4-6 weeks with evidence of tenants delaying rent payment to juggle other financial commitments.
20% of tenants required long term support and intervention to ensure that rent was continued to be paid – clearly this has a huge resource
impact with a knock on effect for other parts of the landlords’ service.
Slide16The Future
George Osborne has announced that a further £17 billion will be cut from the benefit bill this coming year (2014). As pensions are not only protected, but increased, that means the cuts will come from working age and child benefits.Another £20 billion to be cut next year (2015) and £25 billion further across the two years after that That’s cuts of more than £60 billion in total !!!!!!!
Nothing concrete from the Governmentyet on how they intend to tackle the annual£15 billion of corporate tax avoidance!
Slide17“Happy to try to answer questions”
or contact me at any time:Gillian McInnesCommunity Development ManagerArgyll Community Housing AssociationDalriada House, Lochgilphead PA31 8ST
gillian.mcinnes@acha.co.uk01546 605801