Guidance

LA Welfare Direct 6/2025

Updated 20 June 2025

© Crown copyright 2025

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This publication is available at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/la-welfare-direct-bulletins-2025/la-welfare-direct-62025

LAWD6/2025: 2 June 2025

Contact

If you have queries about the:

  • technical content of this bulletin then contact details are given at the end of each article
  • general content and distribution of this bulletin, contact lawelfare.correspondence@dwp.gov.uk

Who should read

All Housing Benefit colleagues and wider if appropriate

Action

For information

Crown Copyright 2025

Recipients may freely reproduce this bulletin.

Editorial

Hi everyone and welcome to the first summer edition of the Local Authority Welfare Direct.

You will see within an article that provides details from the recent publication of the Monetary Value of Fraud and Error national statistics.

I wanted to take this opportunity to state that we continue to ask local authorities (LAs) to focus on the highest areas of loss through the Housing Benefit Award Accuracy Initiative (HBAAI) and other business as usual tools such as Verify Earnings and Pensions (VEP). I also wanted to thank LAs for their continued efforts in this regard, as national performance on both HBAAI and VEP is excellent.

There are also several articles too on our various data shares as delivered by the Local Government Data Sharing Transformation team. They’ve made excellent progress on up-and-coming data shares for vulnerability and care homes which will hopefully help LAs in delivery and ultimately the customers we all serve.

Finally, I look forward to seeing many of you at the Welsh and English Spring IRRV (Institute of Revenues Rating and Valuation) conferences over the next few weeks.

I hope you find this edition helpful.

Darren Baker

Head of Change and Communications, Fraud, Error and Debt Team

Updated LA17 form

1. In LAWD4/2024, we issued a revised version of the LA17 form. The LA17 is used to report changes of circumstances to Pension Credit, Employment and Support Allowance, Jobseeker’s Allowance and Income Support. Local authorities (LAs) can also use the LA17 form to request information about these benefits for Housing Benefit (HB) claimants where other data-sharing routes cannot be used.

Updates to the form

2. To improve clarity, we have made some minor changes to Part 3 of the form:

  • Reworded the question ‘Change does not affect HB?’ to ‘Does the change of circumstance affect HB?’
  • Reworded the question ‘HB remains in payment?’ to ‘Has HB been terminated?’
  • Reworded the question ‘HB has been suspended?’ to ‘Has HB been suspended?’

3. Do note, these questions are mandatory. Any explanatory information can be recorded in the free text box ‘Benefit information required or change of circumstance to report’.

4. The updated version 1.1 is attached as a separate appendix and is also available on Glasscubes. LAs must use this version of the form from 1 July 2025 and should destroy any previous versions of the form.

5. For any questions, contact lawelfare.changemanagementoffice@dwp.gov.uk

Update: Decommissioning the Universal Credit Local Council Tax Reduction data feed V1 files

6. As advised in May’s LAWD5/2025, our intention remains to decommission Universal Credit (UC) Local Council Tax Reduction data feed V1 files by the end of September 2025.

7. In the meantime, it is critically important that LAs let us know if there is anything preventing their implementation of V2 files.

8. We would also greatly appreciate hearing from LAs about their experience of moving to V2 files by email to lawelfare.datasharingtransformation@dwp.gov.uk. Any feedback from LAs will be used to improve the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) implementation approach in the future.

Update: Additional UC information on Searchlight date for Phase 1

9. We advised in LAWD5/2025 that whilst work to build and test Phase 1 had concluded, unforeseen wider Searchlight issues unrelated to our project had indefinitely delayed the Phase 1 release.

10. We are pleased to announce that DWP’s digital teams implemented necessary technical improvements to ensure future releases and have been able to replan our UC release for the evening of 4 June 2025.

11. As a reminder, improvements in Phase 1 include: 

  • the amount the benefit cap reduces the UC award by, if it has been applied 
  • details, at an aggregated level, about deductions that are made from the UC award  
  • details, at a household level, about any Limited Capability for Work (LCW), including if it has no monetary value or LCW and Work-Related Activity. 

12. The Local Government Data Sharing Transformation team will continue to update on progress through this LAWD bulletin but, in the meantime, if you have any questions email lawelfare.datasharingtransformation@dwp.gov.uk 

Update: Identifying Local Vulnerability

13. We advised in LAWD5/2025 that we had arranged two LA visits to gain a deeper understanding of LA data needs on Identifying Local Vulnerability and, in particular, to further explore the value of this data share (financial as well as non-financial). We advised we would be meeting with a number of data and digital architects across DWP in May 2025 to identify solution options. 

14. We would like to take this opportunity to thank the London Borough of Wandsworth, Richmond, and Kent County Council for their excellent hosting and invaluable knowledge sharing.

15. We met with architects and are bolstering resources in that area to ensure solution work progresses well.

16. We have also invited LA working group members to a meeting in June 2025 so we can feed back the results of the discovery work and make sure LAs can influence the design of the solution.

17. Whilst our main source of information is the working group, the Local Government Data Sharing Transformation team welcomes input from all LAs in building and strengthening the financial and non-financial case for investment in this new data share. LAs can help shape this by telling us about the difference it would make to their authority to receive UC information that identifies various cohorts of vulnerability, including those:

  • in severe financial hardship 
  • at risk of homelessness 
  • 16 to 18 year-olds not in education, employment or training. 

18. LAs can help inform future iterations of the DWP business case by writing to lawelfare.datasharingtransformation@dwp.gov.uk

Update: Care Home Information Service national rollout plans and workshops for LAs

19. DWP is working with Adult Social Care (ASC) suppliers to commence national rollout of the Care Homes Information Service (CHIS) over the coming months.

20. To introduce the CHIS solution to LAs, we have scheduled the following workshops grouped by individual LA ASC suppliers for LAs to attend on the following dates:

  • The Access Group LAs – Tuesday 3 June 2025 at 10.00am
  • OLM LAs – Thursday 12 June 2025 at 10.00am

21. These sessions will include:

  • a presentation by LA Data Sharing Team, outlining the CHIS background, anticipated benefits and current rollout status
  • a planned visual demonstration on CHIS functionality within your ASC systems (subject to confirmation)
  • a step-by-step walkthrough of the CHIS API (Application Programming Interface) onboarding process for LAs
  • request for volunteers to consider going live in the first tranches
  • an open question and answer session to address any queries and take feedback

22. Please note: SystemC LA workshops will be arranged at a later date.

Next steps

23. Invitations to the LA engagement workshops have now been issued to LA ASC managers and other contacts previously notified to us directly. We strongly encourage all invited ASC LAs to attend and engage in these sessions. If you have not received the invitation and wish to be included in one of these sessions, please contact the email address given below.

24. Additional sessions are being planned for those unable to attend on these dates and further dates will be communicated shortly.

25. Ongoing updates regarding CHIS national rollout will continue to be shared through the LAWD bulletin and Glasscubes. In the meantime, if you have any questions, please contact lawelfare.ladsdeliveryteam@dwp.gov.uk

26. DWP is currently reviewing how we share Housing Benefit Award Accuracy and related performance updates.

27. The Performance Development Team is committed to continuously improving how we support LAs. So, in response to feedback from authorities about the timeliness of performance letters we are currently reviewing the method by which we provide information to LAs to support and enhance the delivery of HB services to the public. As part of this review, we have temporarily paused the issuing of individual performance letters.

28. To help guide these improvements, we will be reaching out to all LAs in the coming weeks with a short questionnaire to gather your feedback. Your input is important and will help shape future improvements.

29. We will continue to provide LAs with HB performance related information in our regular Performance Relationship Manager calls.

30. Thank you for your continued cooperation.

31. If you have any questions, contact lawelfare.pdtprm@dwp.gov.uk

Publication of HB speed of processing statistics for October 2024 to December 2024

32. The department published the Housing Benefit speed of processing statistics and associated data for quarter 3 (Q3) of the financial year ending (FYE) March 2025 on Wednesday 30 March 2025.

Some key points

  • During the latest quarter there were 100,000 new claims processed. This comprises:

    • 75,000 (72%) for Working Age claimants
    • 29,000 (28%) for Pension age claimants
  • Overall, this is a decrease of 630 (1%) since last quarter and an increase of 6,900 (7%) when compared to a year earlier

  • During the latest quarter there were 1 million changes of circumstances for existing HB claims processed. This comprises:

    • 650,000 (*63%) for Working Age claimants
    • 310,000 (*31%) for Pension age claimants
  • Overall, this is a decrease of 150,00 (13%) since last quarter and an increase of 50,000 (5%) when compared to a year earlier

*Do note, the volumes for Working Age and Pension age cases do not sum to the total volume for processed cases. The remaining 6% could not be matched to Searchlight to extract missing date of birth and sex of claimant information.

New claims

  • The average time taken to process an HB new claim during the latest quarter was 20 calendar days. This is 1 day lower than last quarter and 2 days higher than a year earlier and comprises an average time of:
    • 18 days for Working Age claimants
    • 23 days for Pension age claimants

Change of circumstances

  • The average number of days taken to process a change of circumstances to an existing HB claim during the latest quarter was 7 calendar days. This is 1 day lower than last quarter and 1 day lower than a year earlier and comprises an average time of:

    • 6 days for Working age claimants
    • 7 days for Pension age claimants

Fraud and Error in the benefit system statistics

33. The Monetary Value of Fraud and Error National Statistics for the FYE March 2025 were published on 15 May 2025:

Summary for all DWP benefits

34. The following table shows the comparison to the FYE March 2024 for all DWP benefits. Do note, for HB the client group reviewed in the FYE March 2025 was Working Age passported claims which was last measured in the FYE March 2019:

DWP benefits FYE March 2024 FYE March 2024 FYE March 2025 FYE March 2025
Estimate of the total rate of overpayments 3.6% £9.7billion 3.3% £9.5billion
Rate of Fraud overpayments 2.7% £7.3billion 2.2% £6.5billion
Rate of Claimant Error overpayments 0.6% £1.6billion 0.7% £1.9billion
Rate of Official Error overpayments 0.3% £0.8billion 0.4% £1.0billion
Estimate of the total rate of underpayments 0.4% £1.1billion 0.4% £1.2billion
Total unfulfilled eligibility rate 1.2% £3.1billion 1.3% £3.7billion

35. The HB overpayment rate was 7.2% (£1,100million(m)) for the FYE March 2025, compared with 6.4% (£980m) for the FYE March 2024, which breaks down into:

DWP HB FYE March 2024 FYE March 2024 FYE March 2025 FYE March 2025
Overpayments due to Fraud 3.7% £570million 4.1% £630million
Overpayments due to Claimant Error 2.2% £330million 2.5% £390million
Overpayments due to Official Error 0.5% £80million 0.6% £90million

36. Do note:

  • Under-declaration of financial assets (Capital) was the main reason for the increase in total HB overpayments. At a total level, Capital increased from 2.2% in the FYE March 2024 to 3.2% in the FYE March 2025, which was a statistically significant increase.
  • The HB underpayment rate remained at 0.4% (£60million) in the FYE March 2025, the same as in the FYE March 2024.
  • The HB unfulfilled eligibility rate in the FYE March 2025 was 1.2% (£180million), compared with 1.1% (£180million) in the FYE March 2024.

Practitioners’ Operational Group and Local Authority Welfare Steering Group   

37. The last LA Welfare Steering Group meeting took place on 15 May 2025. Agenda items included bringing the administration together for HB and Pension Credit, Move to UC and Cost of Living. 

38. Both groups’ meetings are held bi-monthly (and alternately), so the next Practitioners’ Operational Group meeting is scheduled to take place on 19 June 2025. 

39. If you have any questions regarding topics raised at these consultation groups, email lawelfare.correspondence@dwp.gov.uk    

HB Decisions by the Upper Tribunal

40. Decision Making and Appeals (DMA) Leeds is not aware of any cases that have been decided by the Upper Tribunal (UT):

41. A selection of decisions of the UT are published on their website. Do be aware that there is an undefined time lapse between decisions being issued and their appearance on the website.

42. If you have any queries about cases before the UT Judges or courts, please contact us by email at quarryhouse.dmaleedscustomersupportservices@dwp.gov.uk

HB cases awaiting decision by the UT

43. DMA Leeds have not been made aware of any HB case that is awaiting decision by the Upper Tribunal.

New Legislation

44. The following Statutory Instruments (SIs) have been laid:

  • 2025 No. 580 – The Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Act 2023 (Social Security Co-ordination) (Compatibility) Regulations 2025, made on 13 May 2025
  • 2025 No. 590 – The Childcare (Fees) (Amendment) Regulations 2025, made on 15 May 2025

45. Copies of SIs can now be downloaded from legislation.gov.uk

What’s new on our HB pages on www.gov.uk

46. The following items can be found on the website link shown:

LA Welfare Direct 5\2025

Content type: bulletin

Link: – LAWD5/2025

Contents

1. Editorial

2. Local authority action to take when a claimant is required to Move to Universal Credit

3. Applications for Third Party Deductions from UC

4. Change of tax year for HB Matching Service self-assessment

5. LA funding for DWP’s requirements provided by Adult Social Care IT software suppliers

6. LA funding for DWP’s requirements provided by LA IT software suppliers

7. Ending of the UC Rapid Reclaims process

8. Revision to previous guidance: How the underpayments of State Pension are treated for HB purposes

9. Update: Pension Age Disability Payment and Scottish Adult Disability Payment managed case transfers

10. Update: UC data sharing

11. Response to LA requests for Veterans Agency data

12. HB Award Accuracy Initiative for the financial year ending March 2026

13. The Verify Earnings and Pensions Initiative

14. Update: Move to UC

15. Secondment opportunity on the LA Funding Team

16. Reminder: Have your say on the future of supported housing

17. Practitioners’ Operational Group and LA Welfare Steering Group

18. HB Decisions by the Upper Tribunal

19. New Legislation

20. What’s new on our HB pages on www.gov.uk

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