Government Ministers to Make Council Housing Allocation Fairer

Austerity drive to mean home swaps?
Council house tenants in properties bigger than they need could be forced to move into smaller accommodation under the Government's austerity drive.
Ministers vowed to make the "absurd" housing benefit system fairer, with housing swaps potentially affecting hundreds of thousands of people.
A total of 234,000 households in the social tenant sector are overcrowded while 456,000 are under-occupied, meaning people have more than one extra spare room, according to official figures.
Welfare reform minister Lord Freud said: "We cannot continue with this absurd situation where some of our poorest families have to live in overcrowded conditions while others are subsidised to live in big homes with plenty of spare room.
"It's not fair on those families struggling to get by and it's not fair on the taxpayer. That's why, after the benefits free-for-all of the last decade, we are putting fairness back at the heart of the system."
More than three million tenants - 70% of housing benefit recipients - live in the social sector at an annual cost of well over £12 billion.
A Work and Pensions Department spokeswoman said: "From April 2013, we will restrict housing benefit for working age tenants in the social rented sector. This will apply where people live in a property that is too large for their needs.
"We will work with local authorities to ensure that the housing is more sensibly allocated and that entitlement to social housing reflects family size."
The move is likely to prove controversial for older couples who have lived in council houses for decades since their children have left home.
But the spokeswoman added: "Specific policy detail is yet to be agreed but the principle would be that working age housing benefit claimants who are living in a property that is too large for their household size will have their benefit capped."

What do folks think about the Government's idea to move people about like this ?
(Sorry, but I am useless at posting the link and photograph but I noticed it on a.o.l. this moring)

Re: Government Ministers to Make Council Housing Allocation Fairer

I think I would agree - it's crazy if some people are living in council houses that are too big, and some too small.

Re: Government Ministers to Make Council Housing Allocation Fairer

Having worked in the Council's Housing Division for nearly 30 years, before I took early retirement and voluntary redundancy, I am very interested in how this is going to progress. We had a Financial Voluntary Transfer Scheme in operation, where the Council would pay for those living in under-occupied accommodation to move to smaller accommodation to free up properties for those living in over-crowded properties.

Some took advantage of the scheme, but others we approached flatly refused to move and there was nothing we could do because they had Secure Tenancies. Some were prepared to move but only if they could have a certain bungalow or property when it became empty-that could have been years down the line. Some of those who didn't want to move were older people who had lived in their property for years, and that was understandable-it was their family home.

Going to be very interesting how many will want to move once their Housing Benefit is capped........

Re: Government Ministers to Make Council Housing Allocation Fairer

What they should remember and take into account is that some of those people living in houses too large for them - in the councils eyes - is that they may have been the family home and the person left in it will not want to move. I know that to be the case - there was talk of it years ago that they would force people to move out what was their family home but it fell thru'.

Bad idea! They should encourage people to go out and get a job - cut off the money they get and perhaps by doing that, they may go out and try to find work!

Re: Government Ministers to Make Council Housing Allocation Fairer

A nasty piece of social engineering IMO. So your kids leave home and you get evicted? To where - a high rise flat? Not the best place for the elderly.

Re: Government Ministers to Make Council Housing Allocation Fairer

My thoughts on this (for what they may be worth) are that on the face of it it seems a good idea and aappears to make sense, but if you are not on benefit, and pay your full rent why should you have to move out when your circumstances change. You may have put resources and have spent many years in what is your home. Like Claire says social engineering and why should older people move out. People who don't buy their home and don't live in a council house often use private landlords (remember Rachman in London). Unless there is firm and fair legislation to control private landlords I think some people could become very vulnerable as far as their housing needs are concerned.

Some people choose to live in council houses and people living in council housing may become totally stigmatised and whole areas and the people living there may become marginalised not much more than ghettos - used purely for the disadvantaged, poor and single parent. It makes me a bit uncomfortable and I don't like "exclusively for" or "separate from" at all.

So I have my concerns.

Re: Government Ministers to Make Council Housing Allocation Fairer

I agree people should move into smaller properties but thier feelings must be taken into account and they must be offered a place and area they are happy in not just chucked in a high rise block of flats.
On the other side of the coin since my sons moved out there has just been my daughter and I living in our largish 3 bedroom home that has a seperate dining room that can be used as a 4th bedroom. I have offered on numerous occasions to move into a 2 bedroom house as long as it was in a rural area so that a larger family that is desperate can have my home.
They have refused every time saying I have housing adequate to my needs. Its absolutly absurd.

Re: Government Ministers to Make Council Housing Allocation Fairer

They haven't considered the fact, when children grow up and move out that often in a few years time grand children come along and may just want to stay with their grandparents odd weekends or school holidays. Nor have they considered the amount of support some people receive from their close neighbours.
I am sick of this govt. making life even harder for people, I am still waiting to see what plans they have for the rich and foreign, it all seems to be aged, ill, vulnerable or the lowest of income that is being kicked from pillar to post.

very grumpy tonight