Welfare reform and Housing Benefit changes – the essentials

Major changes are on the way for social housing tenants and their landlords.

Do your managers and staff understand how these changes will impact on tenants and on your whole organisation?

Social housing providers need to start preparing now so that that their organisation, staff and tenants are ready when the changes start. They will affect all those working in the social rented sector and in particular:

• Rent collection and arrears
• Allocations and transfers
• Financial inclusion.

This half-day course provides social housing staff with the information they need to understand, prepare for and survive these changes.

What the course covers

• An introduction to the Welfare Reform Bill, including Universal Credit and the Personal Independence Payment
• The impact of the HB changes for social landlords and their tenants including;  under-occupation, capping, direct payments to tenants, the claimant commitment and the work-related requirements, sanctions.
• Exercises for the participants to check their understanding of the changes
• Opportunities for participants to raise their own HB changes/welfare reform issues and to discuss solutions.

Who should attend?

All managers and staff – in particular those dealing with housing management, housing benefits/welfare benefits advice, rent income/arrears, financial inclusion, customer services, homelessness prevention and housing advice, welfare teams, money management, homelessness, housing options, housing strategy/policy, lettings/allocations, resident or tenant involvement, plus frontline and call centre staff and managers and supervisors.

Our Trainer

Sue Beasor has 20 years of senior experience in welfare and housing benefits. She is a knowledgeable trainer and consultant whose work includes delivering both benefits training and management development training for local authority benefits services and social landlords. She is an acknowledged expert on welfare reform legislation and policy and its application for social landlords.

She is an HQN Associate and a regular speaker at Rent and Income Excellence Network (RIEN) events. She is the author of HQN’s Housing Benefit toolkit for social housing providers, and the RIEN quarterly HB newsletter. She has also written a number of HQN briefing papers.

HQN has a track record of helping organisations achieve real and lasting performance improvements. If you are interested in accessing this training package, please contact us by emailing training@hqnetwork.co.uk