Authorities poised to mount legal challenge over benefit policies

29/08/2008 | By Emily Rogers

Law Lords agreed that Daniel Heffernan’s benefit had been unfairly reduced because of the new way it is calculated.

Thousands of tenants across the country have also seen cuts since the controversial revision of rental areas was finalised in April. This is because the payments are calculated based on averages in different ‘localities’, meaning residents in areas with high rents lose out. Mr Heffernan argued that the locality used was too large to be fair. Many councils feel the same way and could use the case to mount their own challenges.

John Frost, Cambridge Council’s head of revenues and benefits, wrote to the government’s rent service earlier this month, asking it to ‘urgently reconsider’ the rental area it had devised for the city.

“This is about people on low pay, who may be forced out of city environments because they can’t afford to live there.”

John Frost, Cambridge Council

The ruling ‘clearly indicated a flaw in the Rent Service approach to the locality review,’ his letter said.

He told Inside Housing: ‘We’re still looking at whether we should make a more robust challenge against them.’

Martin Walmsley, benefits manager at Lincoln Council, said the Heffernan judgement ‘said exactly what I’ve been trying to say for the last one-and-a-half years. One of the options would be a judicial review, but there are obviously costs involved in that.’

Mark Edmondson, revenues and benefits manager at Ribble Valley Council, said he would consider a judicial review, but it depended on what changes the rent service came up with.

‘We’d like to have a Mr Heffernan in our area,’ he said.

The Department for Work and Pensions is carrying out a review of rental area boundaries following the judgement.