Benefit Changes

The Government are planning some changes to Housing Benefit.  We know exactly how some of these will work but others are still being talked about in Parliament. If you want to know more about this you can look at the Directgov website. This is the official government website and gives the most up to date information.

The changes will come in over the next five years. There are three main changes that all Derby Homes tenants need to know about. They are shown in the table. The table explains what this means for you. There are separate pages for each year from 2012 to 2017. We will put more detail on planned changes on those pages.

Planned change What this means
Non dependant deduction rates The new rates for 2012 are now known. These are shown in detail on the 2012 page. The rates will also go up in 2013 but we do not know how much yet.
Universal Credit The Government plans to join up a number of separate benefits to make one single benefit. This will include Housing Benefit. The big difference is that Universal Credit will be paid straight to the tenant rather than to Derby Homes. This means that people who get Housing Benefit will have to pay that to Derby Homes themselves. There will be some exceptions to this and the exact way this will work is still be looked at by the Government. At the moment the Government plans to for this to affect new claims and changes to existing claims from October 2013. The rest of the people who are already claiming Housing Benefit will move over to Universal Credit between October 2015 and 2017. These dates may still change. 
Link between number of bedrooms and amount you can claim The Government plans to put a limit on the amount you can claim depending on the number of ‘spare’ bedrooms you have. This is still being talked about in Parliament and may change or not happen at all. At the moment though, the Government plans to pay less benefit to people who are living in homes that have more bedrooms than they need. This will only affect people who are of working age (below 61 years of age). It will not affect people with disabilities. If this goes ahead as planned, it will not happen any earlier than April 2013.