Updated 1 April 2013

Housing Benefit – Information for local authorities

Targeted mainly at local authority (LA) staff, this site aims to be the definitive source of information, guidance and good practice on all aspects of Housing Benefit (HB) including the Local Housing Allowance (LHA).

Other HB practitioners, advisers and landlords should also find the site useful.

Important note re: Council Tax Benefit (CTB)

This site includes many references to CTB as this welfare benefit was delivered by LAs alongside HB through to March 2013. In April 2013 CTB was replaced by LAs’ own council tax support/reduction schemes, removing DWP’s involvement and, consequently, they are not covered by this site. Readers will need to consider references to CTB on this site in the light of this information, as it is not possible or appropriate, to remove/amend all the references to CTB it contains.

Information for LA staff about:

• Universal Credit
• Benefit Cap
• Local Welfare Provision
• Personal Independence Payments

Housing Benefit RSS feed | What is RSS?

Site structure

The contents of this site are summarised below.

Any comments or feedback would be welcomed and can be sent to housing.correspondenceandpqs@dwp.gsi.gov.uk

• HB - What's new
• User communications
  • HB Direct
  • HB Circulars and relevant HB/CTB Circulars
  • HB Bulletins and relevant HB/CTB Bulletins
  • Publicity materials
• Claims processing
  • Operational manuals
  • Claims guidance
  • Local Housing Allowance (LHA)
  • Closer working with DWP
  • Local Authority Data Share Programme
• Security

  These pages are temporarily closed while the contents are being updated.

• Performance and good practice
  • HB/CTB Good Practice Guide
  • Data sharing: guidance for local authorities
  • Secretary of State reports
  • Subsidy guidance manuals
  • FAQs
• LA consultation groups
  • Local Authority Associations (LAAs) Steering Group
  • Practitioners Operations Group (POG)
  • Security Operation Group (SOG)
• HB contacts
• Useful links

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Material from the old Housing Benefit website

If you need to refer to documents from the old site, then we have created a reference archive where you can identify and request those documents. Visit our Publications archive for more information.