FOI Request 25/07/2022 Housing
Dear Doncaster Borough Council,
I am writing to request the following information under the Freedom of Information Act 2000.
Q. 1. i.) Please state the local authority’s expenditure (including use of Government grants) on clearing the arrears of tenants in the following financial years.
a. 2017/2018
b. 2018/2019
c. 2019/2020
d. 2020/2021
e. 2021/2022
ii.) For each of the above years, please provide a breakdown of expenditure on clearing the arrears of council housing tenants, housing association tenants and private rental sector tenants.
Q. 2. i.) Please state the local authority’s expenditure (including use of Government grants) on discretionary housing payments to assist ongoing renting costs of tenants in the following years.
a. 2017/2018
b. 2018/2019
c. 2019/2020
d. 2020/2021
e. 2021/2022
ii.) For each of the above years, please provide a breakdown of expenditure on assisting the ongoing renting costs of council housing tenants, housing association tenants and private rental sector tenants.
Yours faithfully,
Alessandra Berti
Dear Alessandra,
Re: Request for information under the Freedom of Information Act 2000
Thank you for your request for information.
I can confirm your request has been passed to the relevant department who will endeavour to search for any information held and provide you with a response as soon as is possible. This will be within 20 working days and in any case by the 22nd August 2022.
Please note that some service areas within the Council are still working on the response to Covid-19 and therefore may not be available to respond to your request at this time. Should this be the case with regard to your request, please be assured we will contact you to advise you further.
Yours sincerely
Craig Miller
Information Governance Officer
Information Governance Team
Corporate Resources
Doncaster Council
Address Floor Two, Civic Office, Waterdale, Doncaster DN1 3BU Website www.doncaster.gov.uk
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Please treat the content of this e-mail as confidential. If you have received this e-mail and
it is not addressed to you please accept my apologies and inform me as soon as possible.
Dear Alessandra, thank you for your request for information received 25
July 2022 for information about local authority expenditure on clearing
rent arrears and discretionary housing payments for ongoing rent costs.
Section 12 (1) of the Freedom of Information Act allows for a request for
information to be refused where the cost of supplying this information
exceeds the appropriate limit. After carefully considering your request
for information the Council has decided that to respond to your request
would exceed the appropriate limit as defined in the [1]Freedom of
Information (Appropriate Limit and Fees) Regulations 2004. The regulations
allow a request for information to be refused where the cost of supplying
this information exceeds £450 (or 18 hours of officer time).
The cost limit applies in this case because in order to determine the
local authority’s expenditure (including use of Government grants)
on discretionary housing payments to assist ongoing renting costs of
tenants, a total of 10,039 records will have to be reviewed. It is
estimated that each record will require a 15 minute investigation in order
to determine this information and this would result in a total time of
approximately 2,510 hours which would exceed the time limit.
Unfortunately I cannot provide any advice or guidance on how you could
revise your request to bring it below the 18-hour limit as due to the way
the information is stored, the time to review the information will always
return the same outcome as above.
Doncaster Council estimates that it has cost £25.00 to respond to this
request for information.
If you are not happy with this reply you can ask us to review our
response. To do this write to us at the address below or email
[2][email address]
If you do not agree with the review decision you can apply to the
Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) for a decision about our
compliance or otherwise with the Freedom of Information legislation.
Contact details for the ICO are: Information Commissioner’s Office,
Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF. [3]www.ico.org.uk
Telephone 0303 123 1113.
Yours sincerely
Cathy Woods
Benefits Manager
Revenues & Benefits
Corporate Resources
Doncaster Council
Phone 01302 735448
Address Floor Two, Civic Office, Waterdale, Doncaster DN1 3BU
Email [4][email address]
Website [5]www.doncaster.gov.uk
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Please treat the content of this email as confidential. If you have
received this e-mail and
it is not addressed to you please accept my apologies and inform me as
soon as possible.
Doncaster Council
Dear Cathy Woods
Thanks for your response.
Can you confirm that Doncaster Borough Council has no way of tracking the overall amount spent as discretionary housing payments?
In your response you only refer to ‘ongoing renting costs of tenants’ which was part of Question 2.
Please could you confirm whether you are able to provide any further information in relation to Question 1?
Best,
Alessandra Berti
Dear Alessandra Berti, thank you for your email, I apologise for any
confusion caused.
Doncaster Council can track the overall spend on Discretionary Housing
Payments and we submit this information to the Department for Work and
Pensions on a regular basis.
We are required to submit a breakdown of spend on the following welfare
reform areas;
• Benefit Cap
• Removal of the Spare Room Subsidy
• Local Housing Allowance Reforms
• Combination of the above
• Not related to welfare reforms
We are further required to record which of the following areas the
Discretionary Housing Payment is for;
• Help to move to alternative accommodation
• Rent help until able to move to alternative accommodation
• Help until employed
• Help with disabled accommodation
• Help with rent for foster carer
• Any other reason
The above reasons are therefore recorded on our system when an award is
made but we have no ability to record what individual costs the award
covers.
To retrieve that information, we would have to look at every individual
decision made to identify if the award covers ongoing rental costs,
arrears, rent in advance, bond, moving costs, other, or a combination of
these to then identify the amounts specifically spent on ongoing rental
costs and arrears.
I hope this clarifies the situation.
Yours sincerely
Cathy Woods
Benefits Manager
Revenues & Benefits
Corporate Resources
Doncaster Council
Phone 01302 735448
Address Floor Two, Civic Office, Waterdale, Doncaster DN1 3BU
Email [1][email address]
Website [2]www.doncaster.gov.uk
Follow MyDoncaster on Twitter and Facebook for the latest news
Please treat the content of this email as confidential. If you have
received this e-mail and
it is not addressed to you please accept my apologies and inform me as
soon as possible.
Doncaster Council
Dear Cathy Woods
Thanks for your clarification.
If I understand you correctly, the figure you do hold is the sum of all Discretionary Housing Payments made by Doncaster Borough Council.
If this is the case, would you be able to provide me with this figure for the following years please?
a. 2017/2018
b. 2018/2019
c. 2019/2020
d. 2020/2021
e. 2021/2022
Yours sincerely,
Alessandra Berti
Dear Alessandra
Re: Request for information under the Freedom of Information Act 2000
Thank you for your latest request for information below.
I can confirm your request has been passed to the relevant department who will endeavour to search for any information held and provide you with a response as soon as is possible. This will be within 20 working days and in any case by the 16th September 2022.
Please note that some service areas within the Council are still working on the response to Covid-19 and therefore may not be available to respond to your request at this time. Should this be the case with regard to your request, please be assured we will contact you to advise you further.
Yours sincerely
Lucy McMahon
Freedom of Information Officer
Corporate Resources
Doncaster Council
Phone 01302 736000
Address Civic Office, Waterdale, Doncaster, DN1 3BU
Email [email address]
Website www.doncaster.gov.uk
Dear Alessandra, thank you for your Freedom of Information request dated
18 August 2022 for information about Discretionary Housing Payments.
Please find below Doncaster Council’s responses to the questions you have
raised.
Question 1
Provide the sum of all Discretionary Housing Payments made by Doncaster
Borough Council for the following years.
a. 2017/2018
b. 2018/2019
c. 2019/2020
d. 2020/2021
e. 2021/2022
Response
a. 2017/2018 = £916,376
b. 2018/2019 = £858,103
c. 2019/2020 = £704,483
d. 2020/2021 = £953,907
e. 2021/2022 = £873,189
I hope this information is useful to you.
Doncaster Council estimate that it has cost £12.50 to respond to this
request for information.
Reviewing any decisions made:
If you are not happy with this reply you can ask us to review our
response. To do this write to us within 40 working days of receiving your
response at the address below or email [email address]”
Freedom of Information Officer,
Doncaster Council,
Civic Office,
Waterdale
Doncaster,
DN1 3BU
You can apply to the Information Commissioner for a decision about our
compliance or otherwise with the Freedom of Information legislation.
Please contact the Commissioner for details on how to do this - telephone
01625 545700, address: Information Commissioner, Wycliffe House, Water
Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF. Internet:
[1]http://www.informationcommissioner.gov.uk/
Yours sincerely,
Cathy Woods
Benefits Manager
Revenues & Benefits
Corporate Resources
Doncaster Council
Phone 01302 735448
Address Floor Two, Civic Office, Waterdale, Doncaster DN1 3BU
Email [email address]
Website [2]www.doncaster.gov.uk
Follow MyDoncaster on Twitter and Facebook for the latest news
Please treat the content of this email as confidential. If you have
received this e-mail and
it is not addressed to you please accept my apologies and inform me as
soon as possible.
Doncaster Council
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