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Cost of Benefits Scandal!
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Ealing Housing Benefits Scandal continues to cause distress and problems to many of the boroughs poorest families. Benefits claimants have had no end of problems since Ealing's Labour Council privatised the benefits section to try and save money. Vertex the Company now responsible for Ealing's Council tax and Housing Benefits service has a backlog of 4,700 claims. Ever since the service was privatised it has been in crisis, and has regularly been the subject of concern among backbench Councillors, who have seen their caseload increase dramatically! Ealing Council's failure to deal with the situation is causing serious problems for tenants, many, whom have been threatened with eviction for non-payment of rent. For tenants it is not a one off situation, but a problem that has to be dealt with several time a year as the company fails to pay benefits. Many tenants have their rent paid direct to the Landlord and the first they hear about the failure of the benefits system is when they get a notice informing them that they have rent arrears and may be evicted if they are not paid! The stress caused by these problems is great and can often lead to illnesses. Families struggling to get back on their feet need support not harassment. But it is not just tenants who are suffering. Many housing associations, particularly smaller ones are undergoing severe cash flow problems as they are not receiving the income expected from rents. Ealing Council, the Borough's biggest Landlord itself is suffering from the situation. The Housing Department has to use its resources to chase up tenants for non-payment of rents instead of dealing with the issues of marinating its housing stock. A recent report from the local government Ombudsman cited a dramatic increase in the complaints about Housing Benefits across the country. The vast majority of these problems were due to the privatisation of the service to companies with no experience of dealing with this type of service. Companies were offering Council's good financial incentives to privatise, but failed to understand the complexity of Housing Benefits and therefore were all dramatically under-resourced and could not deliver the services for the prices they had quoted. The Council's themselves failed to investigate the tenders properly and were just rushing headlong into any deal that would appear to save money! Queues of up to 270 have been reported in the reception of the new Housing Benefits office in Ealing and it is not unknown for people to have to wait an hour on the telephone before there call is dealt with! Even having recruited more staff only about one third of telephone calls are answered! Edna Louderwon |
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Let Us Know
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do you think about the situation? Have you had problems with the Housing
Benefits service? Or any other Service offered by Ealing Council,
if so we want to hear from you. Please Email us with your Edna Louderwon story: information@ealing-news.net |
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