Evictions and Out-of-Area Rehousing of Council Tenants affected by Welfare Reform

 

Cyfarwyddwr Strategol: Rheoli Gwybodaeth/
Adnoddau
Information Compliance
Strategic Director: Resources
Neuadd Y Sir / County Hall
David Powell
Spa Road East

Llandrindod Wells

Powys LD1 5LG
  If calling please ask for / Os yn galw
gofynnwch am
 
 
 
Tel / Ffôn:  01597 82 7543         
 
Fax / Ffacs:  01597 82 6215      
 
Email/Llythyru electronig:
  [1][Powys County Council request email]

Our ref / Ein cyf:  F2018-0081

Date / Dyddiad:   24/01/18

 

 

Request Accepted

 

FREEDOM of INFORMATION ACT 2000

Reference No: F2018/0081

 

Dear Mr Morrison

 

Thank you for your request for information, received at this office on
23/01/2018, in which you requested details of the following:

 

Evictions Due To Welfare           

 

The above is a summary of your request. The full details of the
information sought is provided to the officer to whom the request is
tasked.

 

Your request will now be considered and you will receive a response within
the statutory timescale of 20 working days as defined by the Act, subject
to the information not being exempt or containing a reference to a third
party. In some circumstances Powys County Council may be unable to achieve
this deadline. If this is likely you will be informed and given a revised
time-scale at the earliest opportunity.

 

There may be a fee payable for the retrieval, collation and provision of
the information you request. If this is the case you will be informed and
the 20 working day timescale will be suspended until we receive payment
from you. If you choose not to make a payment then your request will
remain unanswered.

 

Some requests may also require either full or partial transference to
another public authority in order to answer your query in the fullest
possible way. Again, you will be informed if this is the case.

 

The due date for responding to this request for information is 20/02/2018.

 

Should you need to discuss this further please contact the Information
Compliance Team on 01597 827543.

 

I would like to take this opportunity to thank you for your interest in
Powys County Council.

 

Yours sincerely,

Carl Bryden

 

Information Compliance Officer

 

 

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1. mailto:[Powys County Council request email]

Cyfarwyddwr Strategol: Rheoli Gwybodaeth/
Adnoddau
Information Compliance
Strategic Director: Resources
Neuadd Y Sir / County Hall
David Powell
Spa Road East

Llandrindod Wells

Powys LD1 5LG
  If calling please ask for / Os yn galw
gofynnwch am
 
 
 
Tel / Ffôn:  01597 82 7543         
 
Fax / Ffacs:  01597 82 6215      

Email/Llythyru electronig:
[1][Powys County Council request email]

Our ref / Ein cyf:  F2018-0081

Date / Dyddiad:   02/03/2018

 

Reference No: F2018-0081

 

 

Dear Alex

 

Thank you for your request for information dated 23/01/18 concerning
Evictions

 

This is to inform you that your request has been considered and I can
provide the following response:

 

The Request:

I am seeking information about the potential impact of central government
welfare reform policies on eviction rates and geographical displacement of
households with council housing tenancies. My information request relates
to three welfare reform policies:

 

- Under-Occupancy (also known as Removal of Spare Room Subsidy / Bedroom
Tax)

 

- The Benefit Cap

 

- Universal Credit roll-out

 

I understand that under Section 16 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000
there is a duty to assist and advise the requester. I would appreciate
your advice if you think my request needs any clarification in order to
get the information that I am looking for, or if it would exceed the cost
limit in its present form.

 

1. Please provide an annual breakdown since April 2010 of the total number
of unique council tenancies - including the total number of people
recorded as living in them - that have been evicted due to the non-payment
of rent arrears.  Please see spreadsheet for numbers in the household

 

2010/11: 11 Evictions due to non-payment of rent

2011/12: 11 Evictions due to non-payment of rent

2012/13: 1 Evictions due to non-payment of rent

2013/14: 10 Evictions due to non-payment of rent

2014/15: 7 Evictions due to non-payment of rent

2015/16: 7 Evictions due to non-payment of rent

2016/17: 12  Evictions due to non-payment of rent

2017/18: 3  Evictions due to non-payment of rent

 

2. For each year of this annual breakdown since April 2013, please
disclose how many of these evicted households - including the total number
of people recorded as living in them - had at some point been affected by:

 

a. Under-occupancy

 

b. Under-occupancy and the Benefit Cap

 

c. Under-occupancy and the Benefit Cap and Universal Credit roll-out

 

Whilst Powys County Council can state that every household evicted since
2013 was not in receipt of Housing Benefit at the point of eviction (so
therefore they were not affected by Under-occupancy or the Benefit Cap at
that time)  We cannot state that those households were never in receipt of
Housing Benefit, Under-Occupancy or Universal Credit “at some point”. To
check the back history of each eviction for the presence of Universal
Credit, Benefit Cap or Under-Occupancy would require us to cross reference
each of the 62 records above with all benefit applications made at those
addresses. We estimate that this would take at least 30 minutes per record
equating to 31 hours of work. 

 

Section 17 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 requires Powys County
Council, when refusing to provide such information (because the
information is exempt) to provide you the applicant with a notice which:

(a)  states that fact;

(b)  specifies the exemption in question and

(c)  states (if that would not otherwise be apparent) why the exemption
applies.

In this instance the relevant exemption is Section 12 of the Freedom of
Information Act.

 

Section 12 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 makes provision for
public authorities to refuse requests for information where the cost of
dealing with them would exceed the appropriate limit, as detailed in the
Freedom of Information (Fees and Appropriate limit) Regulations 2004.

The limit for public authorities is set at £450 which amounts to a maximum
of 18 hours of search and retrieval time charged at £25.00 per person per
hour.

The Regulations set out what may be taken into account when public
authorities are estimating whether the appropriate limit has been
exceeded. The costs are limited to those that an authority reasonably
expects to incur in:

·         determining whether it holds the information requested

·         locating the information or documents containing the information

·         retrieving such information or documents

·         extracting the information from the document containing it
(including editing or reformatting information)

 

We are therefore not obliged to provide a response to this part of  your
request, as the time required for officers to locate, retrieve and extract
the data from information held would exceed the appropriate limit.

In accordance with Section 12 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 I am
unable to provide you with the details you have requested.

 

3. How many of the evicted households affected by a, b, or c - including
the total number of people recorded as living in them - went on to make a
successful homelessness application to the local authority?

 

Powys County Council are unable to determine the answers to A, B, or C as
indicated above but can state that:

 

From April 2015, 5 of the eviction cases referenced in question 1 went on
to make homeless applications.

 

4. Of these successful homeless applications, please disclose how many
households - including the total number of people recorded as living in
them - were placed in temporary accommodation in a different local
authority area and disclose the destination local authority area in each
case. 

 

None

 

 

We regret the delay you have experienced with this request. We acknowledge
that Powys County Council has failed in its obligation under the Freedom
of Information Act 2000, to provide you with a response to your request
within the statutory timescale of 20 working days. Please accept our
apologies for this and for any inconvenience this may have caused.

 

 

 

 

We believe that this request is now complete and shall be closed
immediately. Should any further information be requested regarding this
topic, a separate request will need to be submitted.

 

We would like to take this opportunity to thank you for your interest in
Powys County Council.

 

Yours sincerely,

 

Information Compliance Team

 

 

The supply of documents under Freedom of Information does not give the
person or organisation who receives them an automatic right to re-use the
documents in a way that would infringe copyright.

 

You are free to use any information supplied for your own use, including
for non-commercial research purposes. The information may also be used for
the purposes of news reporting. However, any other type of re-use, for
example, by publishing the information or issuing copies to the public
will require the permission of the copyright owner.

 

The copyright of most of the information that we provide in response to
Freedom of Information Act requests will be owned by Powys County Council.
The copyright in other information may be owned by another person or
organisation, as indicated in the information itself.

 

For HMSO Guidance Notes on a range of copyright issues, see the Office of
Public Sector Information(OPSI) website.

[2]http://www.opsi.gov.uk/advice/crown-copy...

 

If you are dissatisfied with the service you have received in relation to
your request and wish to make a complaint, please contact Information
Compliance. Our complaints procedure is available on request or on our
website.

 

If you are still not satisfied following this, you can make an appeal to
the Information Commissioner, who is the statutory regulator. The
Information Commissioner can be contacted at:

 

Information Commissioner's Office

2nd floor

Churchill House

Churchill way

Cardiff

CF10 2HH

Tel: 029 2067 8400

Email: [3][email address]

[4]www.ico.org.uk

 

 

 

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References

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