Baroness Hollis of Heigham
Main Page: Baroness Hollis of Heigham (Labour - Life peer)Local Government Finance Bill
Baroness Hollis of Heigham Excerpts“Council tax reduction: disabled people
Nothing in this Act shall affect the current eligibility of disabled people to receive a reduction in their council tax liability through the disabled band reduction scheme.”
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
My Lords, this is a probing amendment seeking reassurance from the Minister that the existing system will be retained by which disabled people who have made adaptations to their property do not find their property going up a band. It should stay in the band, or, in some cases, drop a band. I have no reason to think that the Government intend that this should change, but, given the discretion to local authorities, I would be grateful if the Minister would give us reassurance on that point.
Lord McKenzie of Luton
My Lords, we speak in support of my noble friend’s amendment, which is a probing amendment, as she explained. I dug out some of the requirements for getting the benefit of the disabled band reduction scheme. It talks about,
“an additional bathroom or kitchen … a room (other than a bathroom, kitchen or toilet) required to meet the needs of the disabled person, and used predominantly by them … extra space inside the property to allow for the use of a wheelchair”.
It says:
“The room or the wheelchair must also be of major importance to the disabled person's well-being, due to the extent of their disability”.
I hope that that is still available in the system. Is there the potential for an inconsistency in government policy between supporting as we do the disabled band reduction scheme and the consequences of potential deemed under-occupation of social housing, which could lead to the withdrawal of housing benefit?
Baroness Hanham
My Lords, with regard to the very last point, the noble Lord has a very neat habit of putting one last question to which nobody has a clue about the answer—and I have to tell him that he has done it again. If I may, we will write, because it involves an interaction between two bits of legislation. I do not think that I am equipped, and my team behind me look a bit blank. So perhaps I could write on that particular aspect, but I hope to be reassuring on the rest.
Amendment 93A seeks to ensure that any changes made by the Bill will not impact upon the disabled band reduction scheme. The scheme offers a reduced council tax bill, where a disabled person lives in a larger house than they would have needed if not disabled or where the living area for normal use has been reduced. The Council Tax (Reductions for Disabilities) Regulations 1992 set out the qualifying criteria for a reduction under this scheme. No part of the Bill has an impact upon the scheme, nor will any of the subsequent regulations that will be made. The Government regard this scheme as an important form of support to disabled people and have absolutely no wish to make any changes to it. Given that there is no question of any change, I invite the noble Baroness to withdraw this amendment.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
I thank the Minister and my noble friend. I am very glad to hear that, and I am grateful that the Minister was able to give us the reassurance that we sought. With the permission of the Committee, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
“Additional council tax band
The Secretary of State shall consult with local authorities for the introduction of an additional higher band of council tax —“I”— in England, for dwellings with a 1991 property value of £420,000, at a tax rate relative to Band D of 21/9; or its 2013 equivalent.”
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
This amendment will not be debated quite so fast or, I suspect, quite as supported in its intent. It is a probing amendment, and I am very sorry that the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, could not be here at this stage for these discussions, because I know that he supports the issue in general, although he might have particular concerns to raise. I know that he believes that this is something that we should discuss.
I favour council tax over local income tax, let alone the poll tax, because half the charge relates to property and half to a two-person family. The property band on which that half of council tax rests is determined by the 1991 valuations and hinges around the fulcrum of band D, to which I shall come back. The amendment does not try to introduce a new higher rate band I but asks instead that the Secretary of State explore that with local authorities and puts it on the agenda for discussion. That is all that it seeks to do. Why does it propose that? There are two very simple reasons—income and fairness. It would add to local authority income flows, although obviously the amount would vary sharply from place to place. It would be fairer, too. It is not reasonable that a £2 million property, let alone one worth £20 million, should be in the same council tax band as a property one-third or even one-tenth of its value.
When we debated the introduction of council tax to replace poll tax in the early 1990s—and I remember that well—I assumed, like others taking part in the debate, that all future Governments would seek regular revaluation, at something like every 10 years, with boundary reviews. My Government should have done it but did not do so. As the discrepancy from the 1991 evaluation has grown wider, it is less and less attractive to any Government to seek to revalue, even though they should. Obviously, you hear from the losers and not from the winners; as a result, council tax as currently structured can be increasingly regressive.
The unfairness grows. In Kensington—in W8, for example—the average property is worth £1.87 million. In Knightsbridge, Chelsea and Notting Hill, the average is around £1.4 million. In one street in Kensington Palace Gardens the average property value is over £22 million. So up to half of all properties—these figures come from the Times, which did not reveal whether they were mean or median figures—will be above that figure.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
My Lords, I thank the Minister for her courteous reply and my noble friends and others for their support, qualified as it may be.
At the heart of this, which the Minister did not touch on, is that the current bands are based on 1991 valuations and that, since then, there has not been even growth. If there had been, nothing would have changed, because we would be in a zero-sum game, but because of uneven growth, in the south-east and London in particular, property values have raced away in comparison to others. There has been a huge increase in unearned wealth, including that of my house, compared to other places, which in no sense is making an appropriate and proper contribution to the local economy through the council tax levy. It is because of that growth of unevenness that the consensus around the Room—with the obvious exception of the Minister, who might agree in her heart that this is the right thing to do—is that council tax bands no longer fairly reflect property values in this country. The noble Lord, Lord Shipley, the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, and others made this point, and they were absolutely right.
The Minister’s reply was twofold—Scylla and Charybdis, if you like—that on the one hand it is not possible to do a full revaluation; and on the other that you cannot possibly do a partial revaluation. I agree that the first, although desirable, is a major undertaking and would need a lot of preparation, but unless we are going to have 1991 valuations in 2091, at some point there will have to be a revaluation. The truth is that the more frequently you do it, the less acute are the losers and winners in the equation. My Government were equally to blame—no Government want to tackle it. But the point is that it is, bluntly, cowardice to walk away from this issue knowing that you could be bequeathing an even larger problem to the generation following you, as housing property values continue to develop in different proportions to their bands.
The Minister is worried about full revaluation. In an argument against full revaluation, she said that in Wales there were large movements with properties going up several bands. The point here is not the shock at properties going up several bands—is it not right that they should have done? Is that not right when the value of that property can be such that the owners of a property have enjoyed to some extent a more repressed contribution to council tax than they should have made if their property had been fully valued from day one? I believe that to be the case. If they are not paying their full share, other people have to pay more. It falls particularly on properties in the lower bands A and B; if you do not have enough higher band levies, it means that the band D reduces and properties below band D have to pay more to get the levy in.
The Minister went on to say that, given that a full revaluation is not possible, neither would it be possible to revalue only within band H. I agree that it is not the most desirable outcome, but I assure her that I have talked to three separate valuers on this, none of them as far as I know connected to each other, and they all assured me that it was entirely possible because they do it now. The point that I was trying to make was that, particularly if it was phased in over three years, the extra workload in reviewing band H properties would not be so great. We know where they are; there are only 60 in the entire city of Norwich. You could go round them in a week, so we are not talking about a major increment in workload here. If you spread the process over three years it would mean revaluing 20 properties a year in addition to the properties that are valued each year because they are new-build and those revalued each year to go up or down because of alterations made to them or to the environment. So as an addition to the workload it is relatively modest, though not insignificant. As a practical possibility they are doing this now with properties scattered across all the bands all the time. If they can do it to see whether a property in band D should go to band F or one in band F should go down to band E, and they can do it now with properties scattered across the full range of bands, they can certainly do it with the discrete number of band H properties that there are in most local authorities. So I simply do not accept the Minister’s statement that it could not be done.
Baroness Hanham
This is fine as regards revaluations, but it takes no account at all of the people in the properties. Can you just imagine the number of appeals that there would be against this form of rebanding? The noble Baroness speaks as if it is just a matter of getting a revaluer to come and say, “We charged that last year, and this will be all right this year”, and it will go up and down. You cannot do that, because people who live in the properties are not going to allow a movement to take place if they do not think it is satisfactory.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
I perfectly accept that there may well be appeals to valuations. There are appeals now, which is often why individual properties are revalued. That is a perfectly proper element of the process. But the Minister cannot persuade me that people in band H properties, worth £22 million on average in Kensington Palace Gardens, and on average—with equal numbers below and above—worth around £800,000 in Virginia Water, and so on, are going to be financially so embarrassed by their council tax going up by an additional two-ninths over what they pay, given the valuation of those properties. We are not talking about pensioners who are eligible for council tax discount on band C possibly going up to band D. We are talking about the very top and about people who have property worth millions, who will have an income commensurate with it. I am arguing that they should pay their way fairly because otherwise to a degree they are free-riding on the council tax levies of those who live in lower banded property.
As for the Minister’s point about the money and where it would go, I do not have a view about that. It would be a matter for consultation. It could stay within the individual borough, if that was thought appropriate; it could be used for redistribution across London, going from the wealthier boroughs to the Hackneys or Tower Hamlets. Or it could, as I would prefer, be taken account of in the equivalent of the equalisation and revenue support grants that go to local government. That would be the fairest way; in that way, some of the gain would go to places like Wigan or Hartlepool, which are severely hit by the current system because they have to levy much higher increments on bands A and B as a result.
I will not take this any further now. However, in answer to the first argument which the noble Baroness raised—that we cannot have revaluation across the board—I think that at some point some Government will have to have the courage to have those discussions and engage with local government. The longer you put it off, the worse the problem will be. As for the noble Baroness’s second argument—that it cannot be done on a partial basis—that is simply untrue according to the evidence available to me, although the Minister will have been advised differently. Her third argument is that it will come as an unfair and unreasonable shock to those who are occupying properties worth £5 million, £10 million or £15 million that they might pay a further two-ninths a year on their band D council-tax bill of perhaps £600. I do not think that that is a valid argument. None the less, with the support of the Committee, and with my grateful thanks for the discussion that we have had, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Baroness Sherlock
My Lords, I want to take this opportunity to ask the Minister a question. I do not want to add to the very important issues outlined by the noble Lords, but I am prompted by the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, to ask what is happening to ensure that advice agencies are able to give the appropriate advice to people who may find themselves in the kind of debt described in this amendment to make sure that they avoid having enforcement action taken against them, or to get advice in dealing with it if it does happen. I am very conscious that there have been cuts to advice agencies nationally and locally and that social welfare law has been taken out of the scope of legal aid in its entirety. Given that and the speed with which this change is being introduced at the same time that the entire benefit system for working-age people is facing a revolution, what steps has the department taken to satisfy itself that advice agencies will be up to speed in time and will be sufficiently resourced to enable them to advise clients to make sure either that they do not face enforcement action or that they have somewhere to go for advice if it is applied to them wrongly?
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
To reinforce my noble friend’s point about advice agencies, my local Norwich CAB, whose income for the current year will be £1 million, will find a fall of £400,000, down to £600,000 next year, because every penny of the £400,000 it gets from the Lord Chancellor’s department is being withdrawn. As a result, people are not going to be able to use its services, staff will be laid off and the very issues that my noble friend has raised will impact on those who most need help.
Lord Best
My Lords, sadly, I have to accept that there are cases where local authorities have acted in an insensitive and inept manner in using bailiffs to pursue the debts of vulnerable people who owe council tax. However, I fear that local authorities are the victims too. They have no desire to be sending bailiffs to hound poor people to pay their debts.
The very worst aspect of this Bill is the expectation that councils will have to start collecting council tax from the very poorest households—the 20% or so of those of working age. They will be asked to find the money from their extremely low incomes, which have been provided mostly through benefit for other essential expenditure. The Bill means that councils are bound to face more arrears and more wasted expenditure in trying to extract small sums from poverty-struck people who simply do not have the money to pay. It is no fun for local authorities to be sending in the bailiffs when they feel that they must pursue these debts.
I support this amendment to protect vulnerable households from the heavy-handed action of unscrupulous bailiffs and I am grateful to the Zacchaeus 2000 Trust for bringing these matters to our attention today. However, the solution to the problem of these cases growing in number is to allow councils to avoid having to start taxing the poorest by giving councils the flexibility to raise the funds required by the Treasury in other ways—for example, as I suggested last week, through the painless reduction of the single person discount from 25% to 20%, on average. Councils are victims in this matter too.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
What the noble Lord is saying is important. As we are in Committee, can he give the Committee any detailed information of the actual cost to a local authority and the alternative charge given in addition to the debt to be recovered from the individual, so that we have some evidence that local authorities are to some extent profiteering from their bailiff actions?
Lord Lucas
My Lords, is the process of getting a liability order, which costs £100, really 10 hours’ work for somebody? That is ridiculous. It is something that is done in bulk; the requests are sent to the magistrates’ court in bulk and signed off in bulk. Doubtless the council can argue that there are associated costs, but if it is spending £100 a time on these things it is being grossly inefficient. It should be able to do the business for £20 a head; that would be a fair estimate of what it should cost a council, if run well, to get a liability order, rather than the £100 that they charge. There is nothing that I am aware of in the legislation requiring them to be slower about it than that, but because there is no statutory limit on these things it has become a practice to charge a large amount.
The other destructive thing that councils are doing is that when somebody falls behind for a month or two with council tax payments, they say that they will not accept instalment payments any more—the whole lot is due. That is daft. As the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, was saying, the right way in which to deal with these things is to agree proper staged payments. To withdraw that and put the debtor through the whole business of bailiffs and additional charges, in order to come out at the other end with some kind of agreed staged payment, is ridiculous. It is a great injustice to the person who has fallen behind with paying the council tax, particularly if they find themselves in positions of hardship rather than just forgetfulness.
Councils should be taking a more sensible and rational attitude to this. They should look at the citizens who they have charge of and say that if those people are in difficulty, they will work with the sort of organisations that the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, represents to enable them to pay their bills over a sensible period or to otherwise get out of the difficulties in which they find themselves. It should not be necessary immediately—without question and without thinking—to go to the bailiffs. I can encourage the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, because I think that we will get bailiff legislation and reform. I saw the Minister a few days ago and have committed to give a half-hour speech on the subject in November. I am seriously optimistic that I will have something to say when we get there, but it has been a long road. I quite agree with the noble Lord.
However, councils are the employers of bailiffs and it is terribly important that when they employ them they have a care for the people whose—
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
Nobody wants to see bad practice, but I have not experienced councils behaving in that way in my time as a local councillor. Using bailiffs was the last, not the first, thing you did. I am perfectly willing to believe that there may be bad councils in this field or that one or two cases may be badly handled. Obviously, that may well be the case. If there has been impropriety in that way at all it should obviously be remedied, but I hope that if the noble Lord is coming back with that argument he will back it up with some information and not just broad assertions about how local authorities behave. I do not recognise his description of that. Certainly, before I sent in any bailiffs we would have gone through hoops to see whether we could have gradual repayments or otherwise help those people through their hardship, perhaps by getting them into a debt counselling agency. To send in bailiffs and make that person homeless is the last thing that a housing authority wants, because then it would have to send them to a B and B.
Lord Lucas
My Lords, my experience of this comes entirely from the bailiff end of things and in particular from the complaints that people make when the bailiffs come through. The complaints are not necessarily about the bailiffs but about the process that has led to them finding the bailiffs at the door. The level of liability or of the charges is a matter of public record, as is their volume. The policy of councils to make the whole debt due immediately if there is a failure over a couple of months to pay instalments is there on council websites. Both of them are fundamental injustices. The council may be good-hearted in the way that it deals with things. I do not have data on which councils are good or bad; I am merely looking at the overall practice, and I am conscious of the level of complaint and anguish that reaches those who deal with complaints against bailiffs, which is where my understanding comes from.
However, coming back to the basic figures, if you charge £100 for a liability order, it seems to me that you are grossly overcharging, and if you say on your website, as councils do, that if you miss a couple of payments the whole lot is due, that is a fundamentally mistaken way to deal with debt. I therefore like this amendment because I read it as putting some of the onus back on councils, which is where it should be.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
My Lords, I strongly support the amendment moved so powerfully by my noble friend Lady Sherlock. I want to add two further points to the admirable way in which she raised the concerns that I think we all share. The first was the implication for social workers and the second is the implication for certain local authorities. I will glare at the noble Lord, Lord Tope, when we come to the second point as he will guess where I am going on that.
On the implications for social workers, they are being asked to undertake a role that is not consistent with their current responsibilities. Their work towards helping children with occasional financial support is based on Section 17 of the Children Act 1987, under which they are expected to intervene when children’s health and development is seriously at risk. That may involve issues of abuse or when children need to go into grandparents’ care, and so on. It was never intended to meet basic needs of relieving poverty, providing family housing or accommodation for children separately from the parents unless it was necessary to promote and safeguard their welfare. As a result of the Social Fund—whether ring-fenced or otherwise—going over to local government, social workers will be asked to do two additional things as well as trying to deliver the purposes of Section 17 of the 1987 Act.
First, it is feared that local authorities will not inevitably budget for sufficient funds. Money might run out in January, which is always a problem with cash-capped grants, or the amount will be so low that the Section 17 work will be drawn on, which will diminish the work that we are currently doing to help children who face abuse. Secondly, and more worryingly, social work time will be taken up with assessing whether a child whose parents cannot meet their basic needs is being neglected or is in need according to the Section 17 definition. They will be saying no frequently as poverty alone, or lack of accommodation, does not fit the Section 17 definition. That was taken away from child protection and other work with families with complex needs. It will create friction with families that they are trying to help, as they will frequently have to say that they do not fit the legal criteria and will appear heartless.
Asking local authorities to now be the gateway to cash handouts for cookers, tables and chairs, bedding, and so on, is inconsistent with the role that social workers actually have, which is trying to help families to develop. The same will apply equally to local authorities and council tax benefit. There is a real problem for council social workers. Although I cannot speak for the British Association of Social Workers and do not have its views, social workers I have talked to, including eminent professors of social work, are deeply concerned about what they regard as the deforming and warping of the role of social workers. They will now be guardians of the gateway to cash handouts in a way they have not been before and do not wish to be now.
My second problem is the implication for two-tier authorities. Providing social services is a county function and housing is a district council function. They are splintered because of the two-tier structure that we have in this country. Social services will have discretionary Social Fund moneys, often for claimants for whom they have not previously worked, across a county-wide area—40 miles by 60 miles, perhaps, or with a million people living in it. They will have to make judgments about who to help with a limited budget that is not ring-fenced and which may be used for child protection or social care for the elderly, which has increasing dominance and a higher priority in most county council budgets—and perfectly reasonably so.
Housing authorities, of course, have responsibility for discretionary housing. My authority in Norwich has enough to support 50 families. In the previous year it ran out in November. Some of those families in distress will be the same families; some of them will be dealt with by county council social workers and the Social Fund, and many of the same families will possibly be dealt with by the local authorities at the district level, handling the housing discretionary payments. They are often likely to be the same families in the future. For unitary authorities, I hope that there will be a cohesive service as they should be able to manage the local connection issues. For cities such as mine where we are stuck against our will in a two-tier system, it will not be easy to handle. There will be costly duplication and even more profound problems about the localisation issue; the county might be helping people who live in one district where they have a local connection whose housing needs may be experienced in a different district. The same family may get help simultaneously from welfare rights people at district level as well as social services at county level.
As the measure stands, it is a mess. As noble Lords will know, if they know about two-tier authorities, I cannot see how it can work, when you have county council social workers trying to dish out cash hand payments to a proportion of 1 million people at county council level while simultaneously the district authority is responsible for discretionary housing payments which may have been engendered by the same crisis and is supposed to maintain a separate fund, also not ring-fenced. This is costly and it is duplication. At the very least it should be ring-fenced; at the very least there should be issues of guidance—and, at the very least, central government should require county social services to work closely with district authorities to try to overcome what this Government in a previous incarnation splintered—I refer to housing from social services—which affects the most vulnerable people in our communities.
Lord McKenzie of Luton
My Lords, we have just heard a compelling and comprehensive case from and on behalf of my noble friends, with which I wholly agree. As my noble friend Lady Sherlock said, it does not cost any money and it would provide some protection for some of the most vulnerable members of our community. If we could unite around this issue, it would be a good way in which to conclude our Committee deliberations.
The proposal concerning local connection rules is at the very least something that the Government should accept. They are prepared to give central direction to protect pensioners whom they see as vulnerable when it comes to council tax support schemes, so why do we not have some central guidance to protect those fleeing domestic violence, those leaving care, the homeless and those leaving institutional care? My noble friend Lady Sherlock quoted assurances received from Ministers during the passage of the Welfare Reform Bill to the effect that funding for what was the Social Fund, now transferred to local authorities will be part of a special revenue grant accompanied by a detailed settlement letter. Can the Minister deal specifically with the inquiry made by my noble friend on that point? We know that there will be a revenue support grant for the first couple of years of the business rate retention scheme, but the position after this is a little opaque. In any event, can the Minister confirm that the funding in question will be provided by central government in addition to the central share of the business rate, on top of the central share?
We know that councils will try to do the right thing for those who most need their support, but life has been made incredibly difficult for them by prior cuts, the cuts in this Bill and more cuts to come. In all the near impossible judgments that councils will have to make, we can provide just a small voice for those who might otherwise not be heard. I support my noble friend’s amendment.
Baroness Hanham
My Lords, this has been a short but interesting debate. I thank the noble Baroness for raising this on behalf of the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, and I should say how delighted we are about her honorary degree. I hope that it is in something associated with what we are doing here—but, if not, it is none the less a great achievement.
Amendment 97 relates to the Social Fund. As the noble Baroness said, this is provided for in the Welfare Reform Act, for which the Department for Work and Pensions is responsible. It states that:
“Any grant paid to local authorities under section 70 of the Welfare Reform Act 2012 … shall be expended by the local authority only for said purposes”,
and that:
“Any such grants will be made under the guidance of the Secretary of State with regard to the application of any ‘local connection rules’ … so that any such rule does not apply to”,
various categories of vulnerable people.
Proposed new subsection (1) of the amendment may be based on a confusion, as Section 70 of the Welfare Reform Act 2012 relates to the winding up of the Social Fund and transfer of money into the consolidated fund, rather than the transfer of money to local authorities. However, I believe that the intention behind the amendment is to guarantee that grants allocated to local authorities for local welfare provision, following the abolition of community care grants and crisis loans from April 2013, are used for the purpose intended.
I reassure the Committee that the settlement letter to which the noble Baroness referred will accompany that funding. I am not yet sure when that letter is due, but I will make inquiries and let her know. The settlement letter will set out what the funding is to be used for, the underlying principles and the outcome that must be achieved—although not the method that should be used to achieve it. It will state that the funding is to concentrate resources on those facing the greatest difficulty in managing their income and to enable a more flexible response to unavoidable need.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
How will social workers who have never dealt with those families know? There may be a million people in the area. How will they know which of the 100, 200 or 300 families might need and be entitled to help under what used to be the Social Fund?
Baroness Hanham
My Lords, that is something that the settlement letter will make clear and local authorities will have to make clear to their social workers how they are to administer it. That comes with any legislation: people have to take up the baton and carry out what is asked of them.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
So the Minister accepts that, in addition to child protection work, social care and all the rest of it, there is to be a new tranche of social work activity at a time when they are very hard pressed to do what they currently have to. They will have to be the gateway or the monitor of the cash handouts under the Social Fund.
Baroness Hanham
My Lords, the applications will be made to the local authority, which will presumably decide whether they are warranted or not.
The letter will make explicit that the funding is make new provision for when community care grants and general living expenses—crisis loans—are abolished. It will explain what community care grants are awarded for and why the crisis loans were awarded. Without curtailing the freedom of local authorities to tailor provision, the settlement letter will ensure that the money intended for vulnerable people goes to them. In addition, the Department for Work and Pensions plans to conduct a review in 2014-15 of a cross-section of local authorities to ask them to report on how they have used the funding for the new local provision. That will be aided by the fact that the funding is through a separate, identifiable grant.
I assure noble Lords that the Government are committed to ensuring that the funding goes to help the most vulnerable. That is why we have put the provisions in place. I therefore urge noble Lords to conclude that the amendment is not required to meet that aim.
Baroness Hanham
Directing local authorities to use funding in a particular way would go against one of the fundamental principles of this reform. The policy gives local authorities the freedom to deliver for the public rather than central government and to do what is right for people in their area. We think it important to resist any attempts to curtail those freedoms or dampen down local innovation, so I urge that the proposed new subsection (1) in the amendment be rejected.
I turn to proposed new subsection (2). It is intended to ensure that certain particularly vulnerable groups are not rendered ineligible for support on the basis of a test for local residence or connections. The Department for Work and Pensions has discussed that issue with local authorities—who, of course, are already familiar with it. It is not an issue limited to the Social Fund, as local authorities already deal with boundary issues in the delivery of other services, such as housing the homeless.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
My Lords, that pertains to district councils. The Government are assuming that they are dealing with unitary authorities that therefore have a body of experience, but half the country is in a two-tier structure and they are asking social workers to do what they have never done, whereas all the expertise is at district level. It would be much more sensible if the money had been aligned and it was for district councils to allow for the discretionary housing payment.
Baroness Hanham
The noble Baroness makes her point. I cannot comment any further on that.
Local authorities already have many duties to provide assistance to vulnerable people under existing legislation and frequently co-operate with other local authorities in doing so. For example, there are differences in what they will be asked to do. A London local authority might be dealing with a large transient population, while a local authority on the south coast of England might be dealing with an older population. That is one of the reasons why each local authority will need to have flexibility to design its own scheme to meet its appropriate requirements.
Furthermore, we will encourage local authorities to link support across boundaries. This already happens in places such as Wandsworth, Hammersmith and Fulham, and Kensington and Chelsea, which already work together to provide joint services. This is done across the country where they may not link up in quite the same way as this group, but they are already working together. The groups referred to in proposed new subsection (2), including young homeless people, those fleeing domestic violence, young people leaving care and people returning to the community from institutional or residential care, already receive assistance from local authorities and central government. Local authorities have, for example, a number of existing responsibilities in relation to the provision of emergency and longer-term accommodation. They have particular responsibilities in respect of those with a priority need, such as those who are vulnerable because of age, mental illness or disability and those with dependent children.
Section 199 of the Housing Act 1996 sets out what constitutes a local connection in relation to people who are homeless. There is also statutory guidance for local authorities from the Department for Communities and Local Government to which local authorities must have regard. The effect is that people initially receive help from the local authority to which they apply whether or not they have a local connection. However, those with a local connection to another area may be referred there, unless they are at risk of violence if they return. A local authority which houses someone would be in a good position to provide help through the new local provision, for example, with furnishing the accommodation that it arranges. I gather that the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, does not agree with that.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
My Lords, the Minister makes my point for me. How much easier it would be if housing and social services were aligned.
Baroness Hanham
This is an example of how the new local provision will allow local authorities to deliver a more comprehensive service as they can use the new provision alongside already existing support. As regards young people leaving local authority care, local authorities have a duty to safeguard and promote the welfare of a child, and have duties until the child is 21. Local authorities also have duties to support disabled people or those who are destitute. They must make arrangements for promoting the welfare of those with a disability or mental disorder, including the welfare needs of people leaving hospital, having received in-patient care for a mental disorder.
The National Health Service and Community Care Act 1990 requires local authorities to prepare a plan for the provision of community care services in consultation with relevant bodies and to assess the needs of people who may be in need. Local authorities are therefore already required by multiple legislative duties to provide support to the most vulnerable. I think that one would accept that they have a moral duty to do so. They will be able to use this experience to deliver the new local provision, so there is no need for local connection eligibility rules to be published. They already have duties to the most vulnerable and are familiar with dealing with boundary issues. I also remind the Committee that the new local provision is not the only support that will be available. There will also be a national payments-on-account scheme to replace budgeting loans and crisis loans for alignment. This will cover need that arises as a result of the benefit system, such as a change in circumstances or a delay in receiving benefit. It will also enable those on the lowest incomes to access interest-free advances of their universal credit as budgeting advances.
In conclusion, the safeguards to which I have referred will ensure that money intended for vulnerable people goes to them. The most discretionary support will be better tailored so that they receive what they need when it is delivered locally. The new local provision and the national provision of payments on account will complement each other. Taken as a whole they will provide more effective and better targeted support. I hope that with that long explanation the noble Baroness will withdraw her amendment.