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DWP research report 728
30 March 2011
This report analyses the housing benefit (HB) sanctions pilots carried out as part of the Welfare Reform Act 2007.
The report suggests that the threat of HB sanctions for anti social behaviour, as run in the pilot areas, was largely ineffectual.
In part 2 of the Welfare Reform Act there was provision for a pilot scheme where claimants could be sanctioned for anti social behaviour.
Under the pilot scheme housing benefit could be reduced in circumstances where a person has been evicted from his home on grounds of anti-social behaviour and then refuses rehabilitation and support services offered by the local authority to help address any problem behaviour.
It was up to the local authority to decide the appropriate course of action for a particular case. If a housing benefit sanction was considered the authority would have to do a risk and vulnerability assessment of the claimant.
There was a right of appeal against any decision to sanction a claimant.
The pilot areas were:
The sanctions were piloted in these local authority areas from 1 November 2007 to 31 October 2009.
No sanctions of a reduction of HB were applied to any individual in any of the eight pilot local authority areas during the pilot period. In all but one pilot area, no cases were considered for a sanction by a sanction panel.
In five of the pilot areas, no potentially eligible cases were identified during the period of the sanction pilot (i.e. no individuals were identified who had been evicted on the grounds of anti-social behaviour and subsequently made a new claim for HB from an address within the pilot area).
A total of 41 evictions on the grounds of anti-social behaviour were identified during the period of the sanction pilot (based on information provided by seven of the pilot areas).
There were three views expressed, by pilot area practiioners, about the impacts of individuals being warned about a potential future sanction of HB.
The majority of practitioners expressed disappointment in the operation of the sanction pilot and believed that it had not had any real impact. The local practitioners were divided about whether a pre-eviction HB sanction would be more effective and appropriate. Most practitioners did not believe that the sanction scheme should be continued in their area.
The majority of local practitioners stated that it was not possible to recommend that the sanction be rolled out nationally as there had not been any assessment of the actual processes and outcomes of applying a sanction.
