In a joint letter to Lord Freud (right), Welfare Reform Minister, Shelter Scotland, CIH Scotland and the Association of Local Authority Chief Housing Officers have urged the Westminster Government to exempt local authority owned temporary accommodation from the under occupation penalties or the so-called ‘bedroom tax’.
The three bodies say that some tenants face losing more than £100 a week if the reforms go ahead as planned in April 2013. The letter says that the consequences will be disproportionate in Scotland because over 50% of temporary accommodation is council owned, compared to the rest of the UK where most temporary accommodation is leased from the private sector or from housing associations (leased property is not affected by the bedroom tax).
According to official statistics from the Scottish Government, over 5,000 households in Scotland will be affected.
The letter is published below.
The organisations argue that that majority of council-owned temporary accommodation is family-size housing, often with two or three bedrooms. They point out that this means the choice for homeless families and individuals to take a smaller property is severely limited. They add that, under the proposed reforms households deemed to have a spare bedroom in council-owned temporary accommodation will lose up to £100 per week in housing benefit, while those who under occupy non-council owned temporary housing will not. They suggest that this is grossly unfair and will have a devastating impact on thousands of homeless households already living on a knife-edge.
They therefore urge the Minister to take immediate action to mitigate this “expensive and ill-conceived change. We’re saying to Lord Freud that at the very least this measure should be delayed while more information is gathered on the full cost implications and possible solutions.”