Goverment Spending Review: your concerns

Old Ford are committed to advising and supporting those customers who are concerned about the Government's spending review and the current economic climate.

Pen And Paper As you will know George Osborne has delivered his Comprehensive Spending Review (CSR) statement to the House of Commons, which laid out departmental cuts and large scale reform plans.

We appreciate that our residents will be feeling the pinch already and worried about their future income and how they will make ends meet. Our income team and benefits advisers are happy to help you talk through what steps you should be making at this stage or point you in the right direction for help.

Our helpline numbers are at the bottom of the page.

We would like to hear your concerns and opinions on this, and how Circle Anglia can best support those most affected by the cuts.

Some top line information about the main impact on housing and welfare.

Housing and Local Government

Social landlords will be able to offer new social tenants new intermediate rental contracts at rent levels between current market and social rent levels; expected to be up to 80% of market levels. Existing social tenancies and rent levels will remain unchanged.

Welfare reform

Drastic reform to the working-age benefit system was central to Mr Osborne’s statement today; which he claimed will deliver net savings of £7 billion a year and ‘create a fairer and more affordable welfare system, improving incentives to work and tackling dependency, while protecting those who are genuinely unable to work’. Measures included:

Confirmation of replacing the current welfare system with a single tapered payment that 'ensures work always pays'
The withdrawal of Child Benefit for families with a higher rate taxpayer
The capping of household benefits from 2013 at approximately £500 per week for couples/lone parents, approx £350 per week for single adults – with the exemption of *Disability Living Allowance claimants, War Widows and working families claiming working tax credits
The time limiting of contributory Employment and Support Allowance for people in the *Work Related Activity Group to one year, improving work incentives but protecting the disabled and those on low incomes
To radically tackle benefit fraud and error spending £900 million across DWP and HMRC
Personalised ‘back to work’ support through the Work Programme by private and voluntary sector providers (who will be paid on the basis of additional savings they secure) for the long term unemployed and the disabled. Funding for adult apprenticeships will increase, helping an extra 75,000 people by the end of the Spending Review period.

For a full "at-a-glance" report of the key areas of cuts, visit the BBC news website >

Affordable Rent

All housing providers receiving funding from the Homes and Communities Agency (HCA) are required to charge an Affordable Rent on a proportion of new tenancies.

An Affordable Rent can be up to 80% of the market rent. New tenancies will be charged through existing waiting list or choice based lettings (CBL) arrangements.

All new tenancies will be offered at Affordable Rent, except:

On allocation of voids where the new tenant was paying a Social Rent immediately before taking on their tenancy with us.
On a mutual exchange: each tenant will inherit all tenancy obligations and rent payment terms of their exchange partner.
On Sole-to-joint or joint-to-sole tenancies: in both cases the tenancy will remain as it was i.e. a Sole Social Rent tenancy will become a Joint Social and vice versa; a Sole Affordable will become a Joint Affordable and vice versa.
On assignment & successions: if the change involves the grant of a new tenancy, an Affordable Rent will be charged for that new tenancy regardless of whether the previous one was Social or Affordable Rent
Survivorship: if the change is a survivorship or requires a succession agreement or licence/deed of assignment then the charge will remain as it was, either Social or Affordable Rent

For more information, please click on our Affordable Rents factsheet. (1.4 MB)