Alison McGovern – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Alison McGovern on 2015-02-10.

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what processes his Department has agreed to enable housing associations to be informed when tenants migrate to universal credit.

Mr Mark Harper

The Social Security (Information-sharing in relation to Welfare Services etc.) (Amendment) Regulations 2015 came into force on 13 February 2015 and enable the Department to inform social landlords whenever one of their tenants makes a claim for, or receives an award of, Universal Credit (UC) with housing costs, for the purposes of enabling social landlords to assess which UC claimants may need advice, support or assistance in relation to managing their financial affairs.

The Department will write to social landlords when a tenant makes a claim for UC, or when a UC claimant becomes a tenant of theirs and the Department has confirmed the tenancy details. The letter will identify the tenant and confirm the date that UC has been claimed from. The information sharing with social landlords through these regulations is aimed at maximising relevant support for vulnerable UC claimants, including enabling social landlords to request Alternative Payment Arrangements (APA) for vulnerable claimants if needed. The Department’s proposals for sharing information with social landlords were published for public consultation last year. Apart from the public consultation, we have also been working closely with local authorities and representatives from the housing organisations in developing our plans for delivering this data sharing.

This data sharing is being implemented on a test and learn basis, and initially being introduced from 16 February 2015 in areas where UC has been rolled out nationally for single people.