I have been writing about Discretionary Housing Payments almost from the start of this blog. I have occasionally written to councillors about them and have generally been fairly unimpressed with their responses, especially when taking into account the lack of real results from their interventions.
And of course I am just a lone sweary blogger with a chip on his shoulder so they can afford to ignore me. But the local election is on next May and if people wrote to their councillors to raise their concerns about the lack of action over DHPs and their concern about the post benefit cuts future they might take a bit of notice.
So I have drawn up a little toolkit below should you feel inclined to write to your local councillors on the subject and here it is -
List of local city councillors including contact details
Suggested standard letter - you are encouraged to adapt it to your own style and preferences
Link to table of DHP stats in case you wanted to include it
Full history of DHP articles on the blog
Shorter history if you're in a hurry
Shelter information on DHPs
Shelter information on proposed Housing Benefit cuts
Remember, with the cuts to Housing Benefit more people will be relying on Discretionary Housing Payments in order to be able to afford their rent. If NCC's system isn't improved from its current basket case status then a horrible situation will be a whole lot worse.
Our local representatives don't seem to know this. Please tell them.
Don't know if you've seen it but this story may be of interest.
ReplyDeletehttp://nchbulletin.blogspot.com/2010/11/housing-benefit-hardship-fund-would-be.html
It is interesting.
ReplyDeleteMind you if NCC doesn't even spend the allocation it gets now the level of any increased allocation may become a secondary issue.
You might want to feature NCC's ineptitude at administering DHPs.
DHP was something I requested back when my benefits ceased and was still entitled to benefits yet the request for a DHP was declined and NCH decided to collect the rent despite the fact I was still on benefits (Manual payments) from some cockup with the DWP.
ReplyDeleteI ended up paying £180 of rent I was not liable for. This is not the first time I have been robbed in this fashion. You find going through the mill a few times with ATOS healthcare examination for the DWP find me thrown off benefits and having to claim again but in the interim period, I get hammered for rent and no, they never back pay it either, some lame excuse that they can only take it from the day of the award bullshit.