Flexible working complicates benefits

Increased employment is causing the number of people claiming housing benefit to drop, but flexible working patterns are making the benefit more complex to administer, the Local Government Association has said.
Figures released by the Department for Work and Pensions show that the total number of claimants in May 2001 was down by 3.9 per cent at 3.8 million.
It is part of a continuing downward trend as a result of increased employment opportunities.
But Gwyneth Taylor, programme manager at the Local Government Association, said the nature of ‘flexible' working contracts had made the benefit more complex to administer.
‘The difficulty is that the claims that are left become more complicated,' she said, ‘and there's an issue about more flexible employment practices, people are moving jobs more frequently so they are coming off benefit before having to go back on [after their employment has finished].'
Some claimants were discouraged from taking flexible employment because of the complications associated with having to re-apply for benefit when the employment ends.
‘Often people will decide not to take a job rather than risk losing their home,' she added.
Housing benefit and council tax benefit statistics: final results of
the May 2001 annual summary
statistics, 0191 22 53960,
judith.norman@dwp.gsi.gov.uk