Contact
If you would like to hear more details around any of our projects listed on this page and ongoing work activity of the NHC, please contact Satty Rai.
We are undertaking a huge amount of activity to ensure that our members get the best support as we face the impact of Welfare Reform. You can read more about our work below.
Real Life Reform
Welfare reform changes are beginning to affect the lives of social housing tenants. As the voice of housing in the North we know that these and future changes will impact our members’ tenants, their families, social networks and their communities and many will struggle to manage. As well as on going advice and support for members and their tenants affected by these changes we wanted to further understand how individuals were managing in their day to day lives.
Benefit Delay Inquiry
In September 2015, the Northern Housing Consortium (NHC) submitted evidence to the Work and Pensions Committee inquiry into the timeliness and accuracy of delivery by the DWP. The potential problems that can arise when benefits are delayed or underpaid include people resorting to food banks for emergency food rations.
NHC members submitted information around the following areas:
• Organisations experiences to date
• Evidence of the impact on claimants as a result of benefit delays and/errors
• How DWP are delivering benefits and Universal Credit payments and problems/issues that claimants and organisations are experiencing.
• Case Studies
The NHC submission can be viewed here.
The Impact of Welfare Reform on Housing Employees
NHC were pleased to support Straight Forward who have undertaken this important research to capture the impact of welfare reform on front line staff in housing organisations. The findings demonstrate increased feelings of stress in the workplace, dealing with more complex and emotionally charged situations and the potential for tensions to emerge between senior managers and front line staff. We hope this research enables organisations to ensure their services are and remain properly supported as the impact of welfare reform changes continue to be felt. Straight-Forward can be found at www.straight-forward.co.uk.
APPG Inquiry
The NHC is the Secretariat for the APPG and supported the inquiry alongside working closely with Members. The inquiry sought to explore the impact of Welfare Reform in its widest sense, including the cumulative changes and not just the direct housing elements.
Welfare Reform - Good Practice Briefings
The NHC have produced a series of good practice briefings as the roll out of welfare reform continues, providing opportunities for members to share the innovative approaches that they have/are adopting to lessen the impact across their business and tenants, and for members to learn from one another.
- Click here for the first good practice briefing on ‘Communication and Awareness’
- Click here for the second good practice briefing on ‘Tackling Financial Exclusion’
- Click here for the third good practice briefing on ‘partnerships’
- Click here for the fourth good practice briefing on ‘Digital Inclusion’
- Click here for the fifth good practice briefing on ‘Tackling Worklessness’
- Click here for the sixth good practice briefing on ‘Tackling Poverty’
- Click here for the seventh good practice briefing on “mitigating the impact of welfare reform on staff”
