Breakdown of households affected by the reduced overall benefit cap

The request was successful.

Dear Lewisham Borough Council,

1) Within the London Borough of Lewisham how many families, broken down by family size (number of children) within family type (single/couple) within housing type (private/social) have been notified that they will be subject to the reduced overall benefit cap? Within this breakdown, please also provide the average benefit deduction.

2) What is the Lewisham Borough Council's budget for Discretionary housing payment for 2016/17, and how much has been spent to 31 December 2016, and how much has been committed beyond this?

Yours faithfully,

Anthony Bairstow

Foi, Lewisham Borough Council

Dear Mr Bairstow

 

Re: Freedom of Information Act 2000

Environmental Information Regulations 2004

Reference No: 391343

 

Thank you for your recent request. Your request is being considered and
you will receive a response within the statutory timescale of 20 working
days, subject to the application of any exemptions/exceptions. Where
consideration is being given to exemptions/exceptions, the

20 working day timescale may be extended to a period considered reasonable
depending on the nature and circumstances of your request.

In such cases you will be notified and, where possible, a revised
time-scale will be indicated. In all cases we shall attempt to deal with
your request at the earliest opportunity.

 

There may be a fee payable for the retrieval, collation and provision of
the information requested where the request exceeds the statutory limit or
where disbursements exceed £10. In such cases you will be informed in
writing and your request will be suspended until we receive payment from
you or your request is modified and/or reduced.

 

Your request may require either full or partial transfer to another public
authority. You will be informed if your request is transferred. If we are
unable to provide you with the information requested we will notify you of
this together with the reason(s) why and details of how you may appeal (if
appropriate). Please note that the directorate team may contact you for
further information where we believe that the request is not significantly
clear for us to respond fully.

 

Kind Regards

 

Maria Kaminski

Corporate Information Team

 

show quoted sections

Customer services, Lewisham Borough Council

Dear Mr Bairstow,

Freedom of Information request: 391343.

Thank you for your request for information held by London Borough of
Lewisham, in regard to benefits.

We can respond as below to the questions you have raised.

1) Within the London Borough of Lewisham how many families, broken down by
family size (number of children) within family type (single/couple) within
housing type (private/social) have been notified that they will be subject
to the reduced overall benefit cap? Within this breakdown, please also
provide the average benefit deduction.

We only hold limited information on the above, but we are able to
confirm-  

* 312 households are affected by the benefit cap, of which 59 are single
people and 253 single parents / families with children. We do not hold
the number of children at this stage.  
* In terms of the housing types, 79 are in council accommodation, 183
are in the private-rented sector and 50 are housing association
tenants.
* The average weekly loss is £36.95.

2) What is the Lewisham Borough Council's budget for Discretionary housing
payment for 2016/17, and how much has been spent to 31 December 2016, and
how much has been committed beyond this?

The Council has a DHP budget of £1.489m.

£880k has already been spent, and a further £151k is the projected spend
to March.

We are now looking at targeting support to those households newly affected
by the benefit cap.

We hope you will find the above information helpful.

You are free to use the information provided for your own purposes,
including any non-commercial research you are doing and for the purposes
of news reporting. Any other re-use, for example commercial publication,
requires the permission of the copyright holder. You may apply for
permission to re-use this information by submitting a request to
[email address]

You have a right of appeal against this response. If you wish to appeal
you must do so in writing to the Corporate Information Manager at the
following address:

Corporate Information Team
London Borough of Lewisham
1st Flr, Town Hall Chambers
Rushey Green
Catford
London, SE6 4RY

or

[1][email address]

Yours sincerely 

Hanna Gibson
Casework Team- Customer Services
London Borough of Lewisham

Address 5th Floor Laurence House, 1 Catford Road, London, SE6 4RU.
Phone 020 8314 6097
Email [email address]

show quoted sections