Council Tax Benefit Research Articles

Austerity, Localism, and the Possibility of Politics: Explaining Variation in Three Local Social Security Schemes Between Elected Councils in England

The Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government abolished the Discretionary Social Fund and Council Tax Benefit in the Welfare Reform Act 2012 as part of their programme of austerity, with powers to design replacement schemes devolved to local authorities in England. Discretionary Housing Payments, which had long been the responsibility of local authorities, were given an expanded role – to soften the edges of welfare reform being pursued by central government. This article presents analysis of a new quantitative dataset constructed by the author detailing variations in these three payments across local authorities in England. This analysis explores the variation in provision that now exists across England and examines the extent to which the political makeup of elected councils, as well as economic and demographic differences, can explain the variations in provision that now exist. We find that there has been substantial retrenchment in the local social security schemes in the period since their localisation, indicating that the devolution of powers alongside budget cuts has proved a successful mechanism for implementing austerity. We also find that the political makeup of elected councils is associated with the degree of cutbacks in these schemes, with Labour-led councils less likely to retrench across all three payments when compared with councils led by the Conservative party, suggesting that politics remains possible even in a harsh financial climate such as that faced by local authorities in England.

Empowering local government or just passing the austerity buck? The changing balance of central and local government in welfare provision in England 2008–2015

ABSTRACTThis paper asks two questions: first, how did the balance of decision-making between central and local government in welfare policy in England change between 2010 and 2015? Second, to what extent has that led to divergence in the extent and manner of such provision? It finds significant areas of policy where local flexibility has been increased (such as council tax benefit, crisis loans, and funding for specialist housing), either through a change in the tier of government responsible, or ‘unringfencing’ of grants allowing local authorities greater discretion in whether to deliver particular services, although in other important areas decisions on welfare remain firmly centralized. It also concludes that in areas where responsibility has been localized, divergence has been immediate and substantial. Localization may well reduce entitlements where local authorities enjoy a financial reward for so doing and political costs are low.

What to expect after the spending review

no bad thing. Some of the saving will come from ending bursaries for student nurses, eventually providing £1.2 billion a year. That, the government argues, will allow the cap on student nurse numbers to be lifted, and there is a logic with the way the rest of higher education is treated in substituting loans for bursaries for student nurses. It remains to be seen, however, what effect the switch in fact has on those choosing to become nurses. Some of the money will come from public health spending, which has already undergone a £200 million reduction since the election. If you believe the public health money is being spent well, then the implications of further cuts are larger demands on the NHS down the line from the very issues—obesity, smoking and alcohol— that the Five Year Forward View said had to be tackled. There is some capital to revenue transfer involved, when, presumably, more capital rather than less will be needed to deliver some of the new models of care—and when it is certainly needed for IT to provide the long promised, way overdue, electronic health record. While the spending review was strong on the rhetoric of integrating health and social care, it was anything but strong on integrating the funding. There is some more money for the Better Care Fund later in the Parliament, but any other additional cash for social care will come only if councils take advantage of their new ability to raise council tax by 2%, ring-fenced for social care. This is yet another example of the last government and this one shovelling difficult national issues—the social fund, council tax benefit and others— down to local government to resolve, often with a cut included. In this case, a form of the inverse care law will come into play—more deprived councils, who are likely to have higher social care costs, will raise least from the levy, if they choose to use it. As all the health think tanks have pointed out, average spending on the NHS over the next five years will be almost identical to that in the last Parliament—around 0.9% a year. The NHS managed that without the roof falling in over the past five years, although the strains are becoming almost daily more evident. Quite how it will manage another five years is highly questionable. Assuming the economy prospers—and in the end everything depends on that—the later years of this spending review will have to be revisited. BJHCM Nick Timmins, senior fellow at the Institute for Government and the King’s Fund, looks at the implications for health and social care following the spending review What to expect after the spending review

The Great Survivor: The Persistence and Resilience of English Local Government

This article is about the persistence and resilience of the form of local government that emerged in England in the nineteenth century and took shape in the twentieth century. English local government has adapted to successive reorganisations and changes to its functions; it has survived centralisation, privatisation, the imposition of quangos, regional governance, elected mayors, performance management and latterly fiscal austerity by responding to opportunities and meeting the continual need for administrative tasks at the local level. The centralised structure to political management in English local government has generated a high level of organisational capacity and a pragmatic sensibility that ensures the institution remains in place even in unpropitious circumstances. Other local organisations, such as voluntary sector bodies and quangos, have less capacity to compete and work to shorter timescales. Such resilience has come to the fore in the period of fiscal austerity since 2009 when local authorities have had to manage severe declines in their budgets whilst taking on additional functions, such as council tax benefit. The organisational capacity and pragmatism of English local government create path dependence as its very efficiency at managing services may have shut off options for democratic renewal and participation.

P92 Isabel hospice benefits advisor partnership

Isabel Benefits Advisor and East Herts Citizens Advice Service Partnership and supported by the Big Lottery Fund.The partnership between the Isabel Hospice and East Herts Citizens Advice Service (EHCAS) was...

Universal Credit: A Preliminary Analysis of Its Impact on Incomes and Work Incentives*

AbstractAlongside a series of cuts that will reduce welfare spending by £18 billion per year by 2014–15, the UK government announced in November 2010 plans to integrate and simplify means‐tested welfare benefits and in‐work tax credits for working‐age adults into a single programme, to be known as Universal Credit and to be phased in from October 2013. The aims were to make it easier for claimants to claim benefits, to make the gains to work more transparent and to reduce the amount spent on administration and lost in fraud and error. More households will see entitlements rise from the move to Universal Credit considered in isolation than will see entitlements fall; in aggregate, entitlements will rise by nearly £1.1 billion a year. Low‐income families will see their entitlements rise by more than high‐income families, on average, and couples will gain more from the reform, on average, than single‐adult families, especially if there are also children in the family. In general, those facing the weakest incentive to work at all, or the weakest incentive to increase earnings, see their incentives strengthened, including those with very low earnings and hours worked per week and those who at present experience simultaneous withdrawal of multiple means‐tested benefits and tax credits. But a Council Tax Benefit that operates separately from Universal Credit, and that has rules that vary across English local authorities, could easily undermine many of the supposed advantages of Universal Credit.

Are English local authorities' practices on housing and council tax benefit administration meeting race equality requirements?

This paper investigates the extent to which the national and local state are meeting the requirements of race relations legislation in the area of means-tested housing and council tax benefits. Compliance with the prioritized duties is assessed in the context of both the wider issues driving the race equality agenda and more detailed arguments about managerial regimes and the central role of data. Two specific examples are pursued: the capacity to monitor take-up of benefits through an examination of ethnic monitoring on claims forms at different tiers of local government and an evaluation of progress through an analysis of the Benefit Fraud Inspectorate's reports. The evidence indicates that compliance with the Act is patchy and piecemeal and that in many local authorities, even the basic building block for assessing impacts, ethnic monitoring of claimants, is not available. Alternative sources are evaluated, including pooled data from government social surveys and eligibility for free school meals, collected in the annual pupil census. Given the evidence for continuing differentials in the incomes of people from minority ethnic groups, prompt action is needed to ensure that race equality is mainstreamed in benefit administration.

Social Insecurity: Children and Benefit Dynamics

This article uses administrative data to explore benefit dynamics for children in Britain's second largest city, Birmingham, over the period January 1998 to June 1999. As the benefits in question (housing benefit and council tax benefit) are means tested, the dynamics are also informative about moves in and out of low income. The article is original in its use of quarterly data to provide a comprehensive picture of benefit dynamics, in treating the child rather than the benefit claimant as the unit of analysis, and also in including ethnic group differences in its analysis of benefit exit and re-entry. It provides a picture of substantial ‘welfare dynamics’: that is, movements in and out of benefit support. Living in a low-income family in receipt of benefit can be seen to be a part, and sometimes a recurring part, of the experience of a large proportion of children. It argues that policy needs to investigate and take account of the impact of insecure income as well as poverty when considering the welfare of children.

How to help people pay local tax: abolish Council Tax Benefit?

Council tax featured as a significant issue in the 2005 General Election and with ongoing debate about the reform of local taxation, council tax benefit is receiving increasing attention. This article examines the developing debate and argues that while the current focus is largely on improving take-up of council tax benefit, there is an opportunity for new thinking about ways of assisting people on low incomes to pay local tax.

The Take‐Up of Multiple Means‐Tested Benefits by British Pensioners: Evidence from the Family Resources Survey

AbstractNon‐take‐up of means‐tested benefits among pensioners is of long‐standing concern. It has assumed increased importance from October 2003 with the introduction of the new means‐tested pension credit to which about half of pensioners are expected to be entitled. We use Family Resources Survey data from April 1997 to March 2000 to investigate patterns of pensioner take‐up of income support (IS) (subsequently renamed the minimum income guarantee and now subsumed in pension credit), housing benefit (HB) and council tax benefit (CTB). Although 36 per cent of pensioners in our sample failed to claim their entitlements to at least one of these benefits, only 16 per cent failed to claim amounts worth more than 10 per cent of their disposable income. Generally, take‐up is high where entitlement is high. But there are exceptions which may reflect the claims process and/or a greater degree of social stigma associated with IS than with HB or CTB.

Council Tax: who benefits?

This article takes as its starting point the local government White Paper of December 2001 in which the government expressed its willingness to listen to views about Council Tax. The role of Council Tax Benefit is considered, but is located within the context of the underlying structure of the Council Tax scheme. It is argued that the principal issue that should be debated is the extent to which Council Tax itself favours the rich over the poor.

Occupational pensions and social assistance

Means tested benefits, including minimum income guarantee, housing benefit and council tax benefit, are payable to bring persons with low incomes up to a specified statutory level and to assist with rent and council tax liabilities. This paper describes current UK means-tested benefits payable to pensioners and outlines the effect on entitlement to such benefits of receipt of an occupational or personal pension. It examines the aggregate income of lower income pensioners and considers whether, and in what circumstances, low-paid workers achieve a net gain from participation in occupational and personal pension schemes. The paper also refers to the impact on means-tested benefits of occupational and personal pensions not claimed. The paper goes on to examine the Government's proposals for pension credit and their potential impact on low-income pensioners with a small occupational or personal pension. It concludes that the proposals would overcome much of the current disincentive to participation in supplementary pension arrangements by ensuring that those who participate in, and contribute, to such schemes would receive in aggregate higher income than their colleagues who had not joined such a scheme.

Housing and Housing Benefit change

‘Improving work incentives’ heads up one chapter of the Government’s Green Paper Quality and Choice: A Decent Home for All, which was put out for consultation earlier this year. By November we should know which of the proposals have been implemented (as some do not require legislative changes) and which are contained in the Housing White Paper. Elizabeth Bray, who is a campaigning colleague, has sent a response on behalf of disabled people. She recommends that work incentives are improved by raising the Housing Benefit disregard (at £15 since 1983) and reducing Housing Benefit and Council Tax Benefit tapers of 85 pence in the £1. She urges the politicians to disregard the Disabled Persons Tax Credit for the assessment of Housing Benefit and thereby to tackle the marginal deduction rate of 93% in the £1 for disabled people (yes, that is not a misprint, 93 pence of every £1 earned is lost in the combined DPTC taper of 55% and subsequent Housing Benefit and Council Tax Benefit tapers).The Green Paper does not propose to address this matter. The summary states:

A Tale from the Sharp End of the Benefit System

Jim describes the chaotic administration of Housing and Council Tax Benefit in wealthy South‐East England today. He doesn't detail his feelings and the impact on his aspiration to work again. The Welfare Reform Bill contains absolutely no reform whatsoever on Housing Benefits. How can the Government believe they are tackling disincentives to work where a change of benefit name (not even a month in work) takes eight months to resolve?

Central Control of Local Expenditure: Feasible Changes in the UK Controls on Local Government Expenditure

Local government finance has recently been the subject of a review, three consultation papers, a White Paper and major reports from both the House of Lords and House of Commons. This article examines current and feasible changes to the system of local government finance with particular reference to the effects they have on marginal and average accountability. Council tax capping, council tax benefit subsidy limitation, business rates and capital expenditure are among the topics discussed.

Hard choices for single parents as welfare cuts bite

Thousands of babies born to single mothers this year will be welcomed to the world by a swingeing cut in social security benefits available to lone parents. Women who become dependent on Income Support will each be about five pounds worse off a week because the lone parent premium is being abolished. All working women who become single parents will lose the extra Child Benefit that single mothers currently receive, and if they are in low paid work, they will lose lip to £10.70 a week each through additional cuts to Family Credit, Housing Benefit and Council Tax Benefit. On top of this, everyone will now have to claim Child Benefit within just one month of their baby's birth, or face losing some of the benefit — whether or not they are coping with postnatal depression, a baby in Special Care, or their own recovery from a Caesarean.

Janet Allbeson, Failing the Test: CAB Clients' Experience of the Habitual Residence Test in Social Security, National Association of Citizens Advice Bureaux, London, 1996, ii + 67 pp., £7.00 paper.

There was a time, not so very long ago, when policies could be understood as instrumental attempts, influenced no doubt by ideology, at practical problem solving. Recently, however, it has frequently been more to the point to see policies as expressions of ideology which create as many (if not more) problems than they solve. The habitual residence test, which restricts eligibility for income support, housing benefit and council tax benefit to those who are deemed to be ‘habitually resident’ in the United Kingdom, the Republic of Ireland, the Channel Islands or the Isle of Man, is a case in point not least because it embodies no less than three components of Conservative Party ideology: scepticism towards Europe, disdain for the so-called ‘dependency culture’ and enthusiasm for further public expenditure cuts.

Identifying deprived areas using indices from the 1991 census and information about the recipients of community charge and council tax benefit.

To assess the level of agreement between those small areas selected as materially deprived by indicators derived from the 1991 census and those indicators derived from local authority benefit data. Census indices of deprivation and local authority benefits data were collected, compiled, and correlated for three districts in Yorkshire at enumeration district (ED) level. The composition of the "most deprived" quintiles of pairs of indicators was compared. Data were obtained from the 1991 census for the Bradford, Kirklees, and Rotherham districts. Community charge benefit and council tax benefit data were also obtained for all claimants in the three districts. Correlation coefficients between indicators of deprivation from the census and from the benefits data were shown to be quite high. However, the composition of EDs in the highest quintiles of pairs of indicators showed marked differences. Census indicators of deprivation and local authority benefits data select broadly similar groups of "deprived" EDs. Where deprivation indicators disagree is in the composition of specific quintiles which is due partly to methodological differences in the construction of the indicators, partly to deficiencies of the benefit data, and partly to the different aspects of deprivation which the various indicators measure.

Pensioner Income Inequality

One-and-a-half million pensioners are dependent on the minimum means-tested benefit, income support. But the numbers on income support have barely changed in two decades despite substantial increases in its value and that of its precursor, supplementary benefit. At least another 2 million receive means-tested housing benefit or council tax benefit. At the same time, in 1992-93, 3 million pensioners paid over £5 billion in income tax, a small minority at the higher rate of income tax. Pensioners are poorer than the working population, and some are on very low incomes, but they are not uniformly poor.

Book reviews

Policy Evaluation in the Public Sector: Approaches and Methods. By Colin Palfrey, Ceri Phillips, Paul Thomas and David Edwards. Avebury, 1992. Pp. 176. £32.50 hb. Managing for Service Quality. By Chris Skelcher. Managing Local Government series, Longman, 1992. Pp. 125. £16.95 pb. Working Together for Better Community Care. By Randall Smith, Lucy Gaster, Lyn Harrison, Linda Martin, Robin Means and Peter Thistlethwaite. School of Urban Advanced Studies, University of Bristol, 1993. Pp. 228. £11.95 pb. Citizen Involvement: A Practical Guide for Change. By Peter Beresford and Suzy Croft. Practical Social Work series edited by Jo Campling. Macmillan, 1993. Pp. 240. £32.50 hb, £9.50 pb. Implementing Housing Policy. Edited by Peter Malpass and Robin Means. Buckingham, Open University Press, 1993. Pp. 199. £37.50 hb, £12.99 pb. In Support of Education: The Functioning of Local Government. By Philippa Cordingley and Maurice Kogan. London, Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 1993. Pp. 122. £11.50 pb. Tourism, Museums and the Local Economy: The Economic Impact of the North of England Open Air Museum at Beamish. By Peter Johnson and Barry Thomas. Edward Elgar, 1992. Pp. 160. £29.50 hb. The A‐Z of Council Tax and Council Tax Benefit: A Citizen's Guide. Association of District Councils, December 1992. £8.00.