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DWP abandons Universal Credit rent change ‘bulk uploads’
Ministers have abandoned plans to allow social landlords to update the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) about changes to tenants’ rents in bulk after testing the system for 18 months.
The ‘bulk upload’ system, intended to save providers the massive administrative task of verifying each tenants’ rent change individually, has been deemed unsuitable for deployment across the sector.
Housing associations have said the news is “disappointing”.
But the DWP has promised to pursue a new approach to updating information about the rental costs of tenants receiving Universal Credit which “offers significant improvements for both landlords and claimants”.
Currently, the DWP requires individual claimants to declare changes to their rent and service charges in their Universal Credit online journals.
Landlords must then verify the changes reported by tenants to ensure they receive the right amount of benefit.
There are concerns that some tenants do not know about the requirement and so fail to register the changes, leading to them being paid the wrong Universal Credit housing costs.
With the vast majority of housing associations and councils across the UK due to increase rents in April, this could mean these tenants end up receiving less benefit than they are entitled to.
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Social landlords have also warned that the existing process represents a huge admin burden which diverts resources away from helping tenants who are struggling to use the Universal Credit system.
The government initially told the sector that bulk uploads – allowing landlords to record rent changes for their tenants en masse – would be introduced in April 2019. But it did not begin tests on the system with a selection of landlords until August of that year.
A sector-wide solution was still not available in time for the rent changes in April last year, with the DWP pointing to “unique challenges” preventing bulk uploads being rolled out to all landlords.
The DWP informed social landlords through the Universal Credit landlord portal last week that bulk uploads would still not be ready for this year’s rent changes.
A spokesperson for the department told Inside Housing: “Ahead of 2021 annual rent changes, we have looked again at the end-to-end process and will be writing to landlords to share details of a new approach, which we believe offers significant improvements for both landlords and claimants.
“Testing with landlords to bulk upload rent changes via the portal showed that it was not suitable to use at scale with large numbers of landlords and claimants.”
Sue Ramsden, policy leader at the National Housing Federation, said: “It is disappointing that this couldn’t happen in time for this April, as this important change will mean that residents are getting the right amount of Universal Credit to pay their rent and reduce the amount of extra work for landlords.
“Housing associations will continue to work with residents until this comes into effect, so they are aware of the importance of telling DWP once their rent has changed.”
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