Guidance

LA Welfare Direct 7/2025

Updated 4 July 2025

LAWD7/2025 3 July 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, County Councils (see contents) and wider if appropriate

Action

For information

County Councils: Please note the articles at paragraphs 11 to 17, 23 to 25 and 26 to 28 are for your attention.

Crown Copyright 2025

Recipients may freely reproduce this bulletin.

Editorial

As we head further into the summer season, this edition brings a timely mix of reminders and updates; some of which you may recognise from previous LA Welfare Direct bulletins. These include a prompt to ensure National Insurance numbers are recorded for Housing Benefit claimants’ partners and an update on the national rollout plans for the Care Home Information Service.

What stands out in this issue is the sheer breadth of work we’re all engaged in across the welfare landscape. From data accuracy to service innovation, the variety of topics reflects the complexity and importance of the roles we play in supporting individuals and communities.

As always, thank you for your continued dedication and attention to detail. Whether you’re deep in policy, on the front line or somewhere in between, your work makes a real difference. We hope this edition helps keep you informed, aligned and ready for the season ahead.

Wishing you a productive and, hopefully, continued sunny month ahead.

Beck Bryning

Head of Local Authority Grants

Local Authority Partnership, Engagement and Delivery

Applications for Third Party Deductions from Universal Credit: Clarification regarding completion of the Council Tax form

1. In LAWD5/2025 we advised that new versions of the Court Fines, Council Tax and Water (Scotland only) forms were now available on www.gov.uk.

2. As the Universal Credit (UC) Service cannot add more than one deduction at any given time, local authorities (LAs) have sought clarification regarding completion of the new Council Tax form where the total debt liability was bundled up on the old form to show the current outstanding balance at the time of the Third Party Deduction application.

3. So, to clarify, each debt on the new version of the form should be itemised as follows:

• The earliest debt should be detailed in column ‘Request new’.
• Any subsequent debts should be added to column ‘Change existing’ and the balance at the point the liability order was granted should be detailed.
• Columns detailing ‘Name, Address and National Insurance number’ must be included for each entry.

4. This will ensure a correct audit trail on the UC Service should a claimant ask for a mandatory reconsideration or request a Judicial Review for deductions on their UC claim.

5. If you have any questions regarding the content of this article, contact lawelfare.laliaisonteam@dwp.gov.uk

Housing Benefit Matching Service: Reminder to record the National Insurance number of a Housing Benefit claimant’s partner

6. The improvement work across the Housing Benefit Matching Service (HBMS) portfolio of rules is an on-going activity. Several rules have been reviewed over the last six months and, whilst doing so, LA-PED (Local Authority Partnership, Engagement and Delivery) division has identified a repetitive and significant error in the Single Housing Benefit Extract (SHBE) reporting.

7. In some cases, Housing Benefit (HB) claimants’ partners’ National Insurance numbers are not being recorded by LAs on their IT systems and, as a result, are not captured for reporting within SHBE returns.

8. The aim of this reminder is to emphasise the importance of LAs obtaining and recording the National Insurance numbers of HB claimants’ partners on their LA IT systems.

9. The recording of a partner’s National Insurance number on SHBE is imperative for a number of reasons:

• allows LAs to verify partners who are part of the HB claim.
• helps confirm their eligibility to be part of the HB claim.
• helps link partner’s information to other benefits records held by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP).
• ensures that HB claim partner details are included in all fraud and error data matching undertaken by DWP, for example, it may inform additional HBMS referrals.

10. If you have any questions about the content of this article, contact mark.browne@dwp.gov.uk.

Care Home Information Service: National rollout plans

11. DWP, in collaboration with Adult Social Care (ASC) IT software suppliers, continue with the progress of the national rollout of the Care Homes Information Service (CHIS). The CHIS solution is designed to improve data sharing between LAs and DWP.

12. Following our previous update LAWD6/2025, we have now held workshops with LAs using ASC IT systems provided by Azeus, The Access Group and OLM. We are planning additional workshops in July 2025 to engage with those LAs that were unable to attend the initial sessions.

13. If your LA has not yet attended a CHIS workshop and you wish to participate in the further workshops, contact us at lawelfare.ladsdeliveryteam@dwp.gov.uk

14. Please note that sessions for SystemC LAs will be arranged at a later date. Action for LAs

15. National rollout will follow a tranche-based approach beginning in July 2025. In preparation for the rollout, we need LAs to:

• confirm your LAs timeline for upgrading your ASC IT system to enable go-live with the CHIS solution.

16. Please send all details to lawelfare.ladsdeliveryteam@dwp.gov.uk

17. Once you have confirmed your go-live intentions, we will send you the national rollout guidance in alignment with your CHIS onboarding timeline.

Scottish Discretionary Housing Payments

18. Discretionary Housing Payments (DHPs) are payments made by LAs (funded by DWP) to help people receiving HB or UC housing cost element who are struggling to meet their rental commitments. These payments are disregarded when assessing entitlement to HB. DHPs have been fully devolved in Scotland since 2017.

19. The Scottish scheme for DHPs was established under Part 5 of the Social Security (Scotland) Act 2018 as of 1st April 2024.

20. While Scottish DHPs are not explicitly a disregarded payment in legislation, they are considered to be payment of Local Welfare Provision which is already disregarded in HB.

21. This means Scottish DHPs continue to be disregarded and should not be counted as income or capital in the calculation of HB and ensures that Scottish DHPs are treated consistently with DHPs awarded in England and Wales.

22. If you have any questions regarding the content of this article, please email housing.policyenquiries@dwp.gov.uk

Important reminder about checking State Pension age for those born between 6 April 1960 and 5 March 1961

23. The Pensions Act 2014 set out the timescale for the increase in State Pension age from 66 years old to 67 years old and will first affect those born between 6 April 1960 and 5 March 1961. Anyone born between these dates should check their State Pension age to find out the earliest point at which they’ll be eligible for their State Pension.

24. We want to encourage everyone to check their State Pension age so we’d appreciate your help sharing this message with your residents and stakeholders as widely as possible.

Ways you can raise awareness

• Share official @DWPgovuk (Twitter/X.) and @DWP (Facebook) messaging on your social media channels
• Share this information in internal and external newsletters
• Tell colleagues, friends and family members who will be affected and signpost them to check the State Pension age calculator

25. We are grateful for your support in raising awareness and ask for any queries to be directed to chiltonmannion.jobshare@dwp.gov.uk

Invitation to the Crisis and Resilience Fund Co-design Introductory Event on 15 July 2025

26. Following our letter to Chief Executive Officers (copied to Revenue and Benefits managers) on 18 June 2025 announcing the Crisis and Resilience Fund (CRF), an invitation to a CRF Co-design Introductory Event on 15 July 2025 was sent directly to LA’s single inboxes on 2 July 2025.

27. This session marks the beginning of a collaborative process to shape the design of CRF with key delivery partners and stakeholders, ensuring it reflects community sector expertise and insights. Your participation will be instrumental in helping us develop a CRF that is both effective and responsive to community needs.

28. We strongly encourage your attendance at this session, which will run from 10:30am to approximately 12 noon.

Practitioners’ Operational Group and Local Authority Welfare Steering Group   

29. The last Practitioners’ Operational Group meeting took place on 19 June 2025. Agenda items included the June 2025 Spending Review, supported housing, LA funding, bringing the administration together for HB and Pension Credit, Move to UC, HB fraud investigations and joint working, the Memorandum of Understanding (between DWP and LAs) and Cost of Living. 

30. Both groups’ meetings are held bi-monthly (and alternately), so the next Local Authority Welfare Steering Group meeting is scheduled to take place on 17 July 2025. 

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

HB Decisions by the Upper Tribunal

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

33. 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.

34. 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

35. Decision Making and Appeals (DMA) Leeds have been made aware of the following HB/CTB case that is awaiting decision by the UT, since our previous LAWD entry in April 2025.

• UA-2024-000904-HB – The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions has been added as second respondent to the appeal concerning HB and the question of whether different ownership structure of tenants in common makes any difference to the application of the principles established by Commissioner Poynter in CH/1578/2006 and if a tenant in common can be said to be the owner of a property for the purpose of regulation 2(1) and 12(2)(c) of the relevant HB regulations.

New Legislation

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

• 2025 No. 652 – The Local Audit (Modification of Financial Reporting Requirements) Regulations 2025, made on 4 June 2025
• 2025 No. 706 - The Allocation of Housing (Qualification Criteria for Victims of Domestic Abuse and Care Leavers) (England) Regulations 2025, made on 17 June 2025

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

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

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

LA Welfare Direct 5/2025 lite

Content type: LAWD bulletin

Link: LAWD5/2025 lite

Contents

1. HB debt recovered by the Department for Work and Pensions’ Debt Management: New cap on deductions from Universal Credit.

LA Welfare Direct 6/2025

Content type: LAWD bulletin

Link: LAWD6/2025

Contents

1. Editorial

2. Updated LA17 :form

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

4. Update: Additional UC information on Searchlight date for Phase 1

5. Update: Identifying Local Vulnerability

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

7. Improving Housing Benefit Award Accuracy and related performance information: Planned questionnaire and temporary pause of performance letters

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

9. Fraud and Error in the benefit system statistics

10. Practitioners’ Operational Group and LA Welfare Steering Group

11. HB Decisions by the Upper Tribunal

12. New Legislation

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

A8/2025

Content type: Adjudication bulletin

Link: A8/2025

Contents

1. Housing Benefit operational information, performance support and engagement for the financial year ending March 2026.