Breaking News! Poor people not to be trusted with money

[otolith]

sfp said:

The bedroom tax

Classic!

Takes some chutzpah to call not being given a bigger house than you need a "tax".

[turbobloke]

Deva Link said:

turbobloke said:

PS

As you said 'goes to pensioners' rather than specifying pension and pension-related payments, I should add that total benefit payments for elderly people amount to 42.30% of the £200bn benefits bill - but as such, my original comment is still valid as that's not 'most' either.

No - the 42% figure is about right for the state pension alone for 2012/12 - £87Bn out of £208Bn total.

Add in significant amounts like pension credit, housing benefit to pensioners and Attendance Allowance, not to mention things like bus passes, free TV licences and winter fuel payments, and it's well past the halfway point.

If so the change in one year has been hefty...one remaining confusion is your mention of 2012/12. Was that 2011/12 or 2012/13?

This pdf file is a November 2012 publication from IFS looking at the benefits system.

www.ifs.org.uk/bns/bn13.pdf

Page 6/88 has Table 2.1 which puts Basic State Pension at 28.88% of the total £200bn annual benefits bill, and the total Benefits for Elderly People is given as 42.30% and as such if the state pension alone now accounts for over 40% it would be surprising to say the least - the most up-to-date file I have is the one at the link, if you have a more recent one and can provide a link then that would be helpful.

The reason why I still suspect you're not right is that the figure in the IFS table for Total Benefits for Elderly People at 42.30% represents £85.01bn which corresponds reasonably closely to your figure of £87bn which you claim is state pension only.

Have a look and see what you think.

[tescorank]

The problem with Housing Benefit directly payed to the Landlord if the tenant is working on the side, months can pass while being discreetly investigated then HB is stopped and the claw back rule because of non-entitlement comes into force and said Landlord has to return monies back to council..meanwhile housing advice department will then instruct tenants they must wait for the Landlord to go through legal eviction before they will rehouse...you could not make this up and that's why L/L will not take HB claimants locally-whilst the council cry out for more private sector housing.

The problem with HB paid to tenants is they like to spend it, imagine a juicy lump turning up just before Christmas, once again housing advice department will then instruct tenants they must wait for the Landlord to go through legal eviction before they will rehouse.

Meanwhile council housing is fekked as in this case 16,000 on list and it's taken years to start on 29 houses, that's 550 per house..

http://www.theargus.co.uk/news/10283847.Waiting_fo...

[MiniMan64]

I never really get this accidental children thing, the wife and I were shagging away like rabbits for 10 years before we decided to have kids and never once had "an accident".

What is it? Laziness? Incompetence? Ignorance? The Mental?

[dunmow70]

MiniMan64 said:

I never really get this accidental children thing, the wife and I were shagging away like rabbits for 10 years before we decided to have kids and never once had "an accident".

What is it? Laziness? Incompetence? Ignorance? The Mental?

You've missed the important bit of this thread haven't you? Accidents happen when you're smashed on booze that you bought with the Housing Benefit.

[chrisw666]

otolith said:

sfp said:

The bedroom tax

Classic!

Takes some chutzpah to call not being given a bigger house than you need a "tax".

I'm glad at least one other person has said that.

I feel sick every time some borderline stupid lefty hack uses the term 'tax' to describe a reduction in the amount of free money people are being given.

I do disagree with the way it has been implemented (but that's what happens when the people in charge lack life experience) but I don't disagree with the principles behind it.

[scdan4]

(Anyone know what's happened to groak? I'd be interested to hear his take on this and the bedroom 'tax' but he seems to have stopped posting of late. A shame, I enjoyed his contributions.)

[hornetrider]

scdan4 said:

(Anyone know what's happened to groak? I'd be interested to hear his take on this and the bedroom 'tax' but he seems to have stopped posting of late. A shame, I enjoyed his contributions.)

He's too busy chasing his HB tennants who've pissed his rent up against the wall.

[Deva Link]

turbobloke said:

If so the change in one year has been hefty...one remaining confusion is your mention of 2012/12. Was that 2011/12 or 2012/13?

I meant 2012/13, but everywhere you look the breakdown of the figures is different.

There is a general theme in articles about welfare spending that just over half of it goes to pensioners. For instance, quoting someone from the same source you linked to: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/9787324/I...

[Deva Link]

scdan4 said:

(Anyone know what's happened to groak? I'd be interested to hear his take on this and the bedroom 'tax' but he seems to have stopped posting of late. A shame, I enjoyed his contributions.)

He has posted in the past about it and said the letting agency had already had to take on extra staff and (paraphrasing) it was set to be an unmitigated disaster.

[Deva Link]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

Perhaps I'm missing something, but why don't they rent a 3 bed (and they'd qualify for 4 bed as the kids get older) property privately? If they did qualify for housing benefit then the local council would pick up the tab.

[Digga]

I could use some extra pocket money.

How much could I rent my top bunk out for?

[anonymous-user]

Deva Link said:

JagLover said:

I am relying on my wife to keep me in retirement

I can't say I'm looking forward to having to rely on the £250/mth my former civil servant wife gets.

zzz not again. how many years did she work full time to be entitled to that i wonder? incidentally it would take the rest of us 100k to buy 3k a year indexed annuity

[Guybrush]

LHRFlightman said:

Cap rents at £100 a week. That will cut the £21 billion pdq

Why should tax payers fund private landlords profits?

Envy and resentment politics has never worked - check the history of the world, particularly the economies of communist countries and what happens when, say Labour gets into power for a while.

If you cap rents, pretty soon there won't be anyhere to rent; of course the left don't really care about this, they just want to destroy the system.

[mph1977]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

I'm not aware of any council that runs a linear 'waiting list' vs a combination of 'choice based' and 'needs based '

much of the issue with long waiting times for social housing are the people who only bid when properties in a small chosen area ( their small chosen area usually based on some fantasy that everything will be wonderful if they get a house on a certain road in a certain estate) come up rather than bidding on all suitable properties

[Deva Link]

mph1977 said:

anonymous said:

[redacted]

I'm not aware of any council that runs a linear 'waiting list' vs a combination of 'choice based' and 'needs based '

I was thinking that too - at 1,000 he might as well not be on the list as so many people will keep coming in ahead of him.

..but surely having 6 people in a 2-bed house is over-crowding and would give him a significant amount of priority?

[uuf361]

I've never really understood the 'full rent' term when used for council housing - and would be genuinely interested if someone could explain.

As an example, a former member of our team (combined income approaching £50K, plus one child aged 18) were living in a 2 bed EOT house in a nice area and said they were paying full rent of £80/week. My confusion was that the same houses (i.e. her neighbours in an identical house next door being rented on the open market) were paying £900/month.....

This may not be the case everywhere of course, but I was perplexed as to why they thought less than half the open market rent was full rent (unless this is the maximum the council is allowed to charge ?), and I can't understand why the council wouldn't be allowed to charge the market rate.

[mph1977]

Deva Link said:

mph1977 said:

anonymous said:

[redacted]

I'm not aware of any council that runs a linear 'waiting list' vs a combination of 'choice based' and 'needs based '

I was thinking that too - at 1,000 he might as well not be on the list as so many people will keep coming in ahead of him.

..but surely having 6 people in a 2-bed house is over-crowding and would give him a significant amount of priority?

assuming he actually bids on properties and doesn't restrict himself to a tiny area - i've seen a lot of this on another forum where people moan about 'waiting lists' for the housing provided by the ALMO that manages the 'concil ' houses but it turns out the moaner only wants to live on the same street / next street as their mum / auntie/ best friend rather than bidding on any suitable property in a sensible radiius

[mph1977]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

resists and fails to not say ' if you call 60 years ago recent' ... I rarely believe anything i'm told about the background of people in this kind of scenario unless I hear it from their own mouths. the guilibility of the masses is the main thing the BNP et al take advantage of.

[rover 623gsi]

uuf361 said:

I've never really understood the 'full rent' term when used for council housing - and would be genuinely interested if someone could explain.

As an example, a former member of our team (combined income approaching £50K, plus one child aged 18) were living in a 2 bed EOT house in a nice area and said they were paying full rent of £80/week. My confusion was that the same houses (i.e. her neighbours in an identical house next door being rented on the open market) were paying £900/month.....

This may not be the case everywhere of course, but I was perplexed as to why they thought less than half the open market rent was full rent (unless this is the maximum the council is allowed to charge ?), and I can't understand why the council wouldn't be allowed to charge the market rate.

Paying full rent just means they are not receiving any HB. For quite a long time social housing rents have been set at around 60% of the open market rate – there is a fairly complicated formula which councils and housing associations follow to enable them to reach that target while allowing for local and regional variations. The Coalition introduced two rent levels ‘social rent’ – still at 60% or open market rate - and ‘affordable rent’ – set at 80% of open market rate.

Social housing providers are now able to offer their properties at ‘affordable rent’. The don’t have to, but the reality is that nearly all providers are now only offering new tenancies at affordable rent (more income for them, so why not?). This, of course, is putting an upward pressure on HB.

...

an aside to this is that as private rent levels have shot up the rents in the public sector have not been able to keep up because while there is a target of 60% of open market value we are only allowed to increase the annual rent by a maximum of RPI + 0.5% + £2 per week.