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222715

registered interest
date	23/02/2015
answering body	Department for Communities and Local Government
answering dept id	7
answering dept short name	Communities and Local Government
answering dept sort name	Communities and Local Government
hansard heading	Council Tax Benefits
house id	2
legislature	25277 pref label House of Lords
question text	To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the answer by Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon on 6 November 2014 (HL2301), whether they will now publish the detailed terms of reference for the review of the impact of abolishing Council Tax Benefit.
tabling member printed	Baroness King of Bow
uin	HL5056
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 09/03/2015 answer text <p>The Department is currently working with the Council Tax Partnership Forum and local authorities to identify appropriate and proportionate data for the independent three-year review of the local council tax support policy.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>The timetable, coverage, process for data collection and detailed terms of reference for the review will be agreed and published in due course.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Spending on council tax benefit doubled under the last government, costing taxpayers £4 billion a year – equivalent to almost £180 per year per household. Welfare reform is vital to tackle the budget deficit left by the last Administration.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Our reforms to localise council tax support now give councils stronger incentives to support local firms, cut fraud, promote local enterprise and get people into work. We are ending the last Administration’s “something for nothing” cultures and making work pay.</p><p> </p> answering member printed Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon question first answered 09/03/2015 16:53:09 answering member 4210 label Biography information for Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
tabling member	143 label Biography information for Baroness King of Bow

222716

registered interest
date	23/02/2015
answering body	Department for Communities and Local Government
answering dept id	7
answering dept short name	Communities and Local Government
answering dept sort name	Communities and Local Government
hansard heading	Local Government Finance
house id	2
legislature	25277 pref label House of Lords
question text	To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the Written Statement on 3 February by Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (HLWS223), whether they will provide a breakdown by local authority of the additional £74 million for local welfare, health and social care in the 2015–16 local government settlement.
tabling member printed	Baroness King of Bow
uin	HL5057
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 09/03/2015 answer text <p>In December 2014, the Government identified £129.6 million within upper-tier local authority budgets for local welfare provision funding.</p><p> </p><p>The additional £74 million to assist with dealing with wider pressures on local welfare and health and social care has been distributed to upper-tier local authorities in line with their settlement funding assessment formula. A breakdown of the figures is set out within the attached table.</p><p> </p> answering member printed Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon question first answered 09/03/2015 16:47:55 answering member 4210 label Biography information for Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon attachment 1 file name 150302 PQ807286 table -final.xlsx title Local Gov Settlement 2015-16
tabling member	143 label Biography information for Baroness King of Bow

222717

registered interest
date	23/02/2015
answering body	Department for Communities and Local Government
answering dept id	7
answering dept short name	Communities and Local Government
answering dept sort name	Communities and Local Government
hansard heading	Local Government: Debt Collection
house id	2
legislature	25277 pref label House of Lords
question text	To ask Her Majesty’s Government which local authorities have announced plans to establish in house bailiff teams to recover outstanding Council Tax and other debt; and whether they will issue guidance to local authorities on such an approach.
tabling member printed	Baroness King of Bow
uin	HL5058
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 09/03/2015 answer text <p>Collection and enforcement is a matter for local authorities, who are best placed to decide on the appropriate way to manage their collection and debt recovery operations.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>In our Department for Communities and Local Government’s best practice document, “50 ways to save”, we listed improving council tax collection rates and reducing arrears as a key way of making sensible savings to help keep overall council tax bills down and protect frontline services. Every penny of council tax that is not collected means a higher council tax for the law-abiding citizen who does pay on time.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>It is important that councils are sympathetic to those in genuine hardship, are proportionate in enforcement and do not overuse bailiffs (we have published guidance for councils to stop unjustified, aggressive collection practices; this guidance is available at: www.gov.uk/goverment/publications/council-tax). However, these figures show that there is a significant potential source of income for councils, which councils across the country could use to support frontline service or freeze council tax bills next year.</p> answering member printed Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon question first answered 09/03/2015 16:53:37 answering member 4210 label Biography information for Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
tabling member	143 label Biography information for Baroness King of Bow

222718

registered interest
date	23/02/2015
answering body	Department for Communities and Local Government
answering dept id	7
answering dept short name	Communities and Local Government
answering dept sort name	Communities and Local Government
hansard heading	Homelessness
house id	2
legislature	25277 pref label House of Lords
question text	To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to ensure that those local authorities currently breaching the maximum six-week limit on the placement of homeless families with children in bed and breakfast accommodation established by the Homelessness (Suitability of Accommodation) (England) Order 2003 are prevented from doing so.
tabling member printed	Baroness King of Bow
uin	HL5059
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 09/03/2015 answer text <p>The Government has been clear that the long term use of bed and breakfast accommodation for families with children is both unacceptable and unlawful. The law is very clear on this matter. It says that bed and breakfast accommodation should only ever be used to house homeless families in an emergency, and then for no longer than six weeks.</p><p> </p><p>Further legal protections also give households the right to challenge an authority’s use of this accommodation. Under section 202 of the Housing Act 1996, households have the right to challenge an authority’s decision to place them in such accommodation for longer than six weeks. Statutory homelessness guidance which local housing authorities must, by law, have regard to says that when using bed and breakfast accommodation the authority should notify the family of the effect of the law. In particular, that it is unlawful for the authority to continue to secure bed and breakfast accommodation for families with children any longer than six weeks. <br> <br> Recent figures show a significant reduction (38 per cent on the same quarter as last year) in the numbers of families with children in bed and breakfast accommodation for longer than six weeks.</p><p> </p><p>We have kept up the pressure on this issue. Actions included housing Ministers writing to those authorities with the highest numbers in bed and breakfast accommodation, challenging them to take action and calling them in to hear their plans to reduce the numbers.</p><p> </p><p>We invested almost £2 million to support local authorities to develop innovative and sustainable solutions to prevent unlawful bed and breakfast use for families with children. The seven funded authorities have achieved and sustained 96% average reduction in the number of households with children in bed and breakfast for longer than six weeks. Lessons learned from this funding have been used to develop a comprehensive training package to help those authorities who were not funded to develop the same successful approaches. <br> <br> This investment comes on top of over £500 million this Government has provided to prevent and tackle homelessness. Homelessness acceptances remain lower than in 27 of the last 30 years, and homelessness is around half the average level it was under the previous Government. Households now spend on average seven months less in temporary accommodation than at the start of 2010.</p><p> </p> answering member printed Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon question first answered 09/03/2015 16:53:01 answering member 4210 label Biography information for Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
tabling member	143 label Biography information for Baroness King of Bow

222719

registered interest
date	23/02/2015
answering body	Department for Communities and Local Government
answering dept id	7
answering dept short name	Communities and Local Government
answering dept sort name	Communities and Local Government
hansard heading	Housing Ombudsman Service
house id	2
legislature	25277 pref label House of Lords
question text	To ask Her Majesty’s Government how many complaints the Housing Ombudsman Service has dealt with in each of the past four years; and how many of those were upheld or refused in each year.
tabling member printed	Baroness King of Bow
uin	HL5060
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 04/03/2015 answer text <p>It has been a number years since the Housing Ombudsman Service had a system where complaints where upheld or refused. The terms of reference for the Housing Ombudsman Service were changed on the 1 April 2013 to reflect the Localism Act 2011 and in preparation for this the Housing Ombudsman Service changed the dispute handling process, which now focuses on local and early resolution.</p><p>The table below shows the data from 2011 to the 31 March 2013, categorised as follows:</p><p> </p><table><tbody><tr><td> </td><td><p>2011</p></td><td><p>2012</p></td><td><p>January to March 2013</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>Number of Complaints Received</p></td><td><p>5,739</p></td><td><p>6,757</p></td><td><p>1,675</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>Number of Complaints Investigated Formally</p></td><td><p>641</p></td><td><p>577</p></td><td><p>77</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>Maladministration</p></td><td><p>147</p></td><td><p>123</p></td><td><p>10</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>No Maladministration</p></td><td><p>371</p></td><td><p>316</p></td><td><p>44</p></td></tr></tbody></table><p>The table below shows the data from 1 April 2013 to December 2014, categorised as follows:</p><p> </p><table><tbody><tr><td> </td><td><p>April to December 2013</p></td><td><p>2014</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>Cases Received</p></td><td><p>4,619</p></td><td><p>7,688</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>Cases Locally Resolved</p></td><td><p>4,395</p></td><td><p>7,604</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>Of the Cases Locally Resolved, number of complaints resolved locally</p></td><td><p>5,429</p></td><td><p>8,017</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>Cases Formally Resolved</p></td><td><p>224</p></td><td><p>84</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>Of the Cases Formally Resolved, number of complaints resolved locally</p></td><td><p>231</p></td><td><p>79</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>Of the Cases Formally Resolved, number of complaints resolved formally</p></td><td><p>211</p></td><td><p>49</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>Of the Cases Formally Resolved, where the complaint was resolved at a formal level, the number of complaints that were maladministration</p></td><td><p>119</p></td><td><p>21</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>Of the Cases Formally Resolved, where the complaint was resolved at a formal level, the number of complaints that were no maladministration</p></td><td><p>91</p></td><td><p>25</p></td></tr></tbody></table><p> </p> answering member printed Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon question first answered 04/03/2015 14:02:59 answering member 4210 label Biography information for Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
tabling member	143 label Biography information for Baroness King of Bow

222745

registered interest
date	23/02/2015
answering body	Department for Communities and Local Government
answering dept id	7
answering dept short name	Communities and Local Government
answering dept sort name	Communities and Local Government
hansard heading	Homelessness
house id	2
legislature	25277 pref label House of Lords
question text	To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have to review the way in which local authorities collect data on homelessness, so as to better account for the spectrum of ways in which homelessness is manifested.
tabling member printed	The Lord Bishop of St Albans
uin	HL5086
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 09/03/2015 answer text <p>The United Kingdom Statistics Authority has designated Statutory Homelessness statistics as National Statistics, in accordance with the Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007 and signifying compliance with the Code of Practice for Official Statistics. Designation can be broadly interpreted to mean that the statistics:</p><p> </p><p>• meet identified user needs;</p><p> </p><p>• are well explained and readily accessible;</p><p> </p><p>• are produced according to sound methods; and</p><p> </p><p>• are managed impartially and objectively in the public interest.</p><p> </p><p>My hon Friend the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Kris Hopkins) wrote to the United Kingdom Statistics Authority on 30 January 2014 inviting further assessment of the Department’s statistics, and in response to his request the Authority has committed to assessing the Department's other statistics on homelessness covering homelessness prevention and relief, and rough sleeping.</p><p> </p><p>This Government has increased spending to prevent homelessness, making over £500 million available to help the most vulnerable in society and has kept strong protections to guard families against the threat of homelessness.</p><p> </p><p>Every person has the right to approach their local authority if they consider themselves homeless or at risk, and local authorities have a statutory duty to secure accommodation to all those who they decide are eligible, in priority need and not intentionally homeless, and will be counted as homeless.</p><p> </p><p>Any local authority who is approached by someone they have reason to believe is homeless or threatened with homelessness must make inquiries to see whether they owe them any duty under Part 7 of the Housing Act 1996. This assessment process is important in enabling housing authorities to identify the assistance which an applicant may need either to prevent them from becoming homeless or to help them to find another home. Under section 179, authorities also have a duty to ensure that advice and information about homelessness and the prevention of homelessness are available free of charge to anyone in their district.</p><p> </p> answering member printed Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon question first answered 09/03/2015 16:53:18 answering member 4210 label Biography information for Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
tabling member	4308 label Biography information for The Lord Bishop of St Albans

222746

registered interest
date	23/02/2015
answering body	Department for Communities and Local Government
answering dept id	7
answering dept short name	Communities and Local Government
answering dept sort name	Communities and Local Government
hansard heading	Homelessness
house id	2
legislature	25277 pref label House of Lords
question text	To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have to review their policies and resources which support relationships, in the light of recent research by Ipsos Mori on behalf of the Salvation Army which suggests that relationship breakdown is the most common cause of homelessness.
tabling member printed	The Lord Bishop of St Albans
uin	HL5087
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 02/03/2015 answer text <p>This Government has increased spending to prevent homelessness, making over £500 million available to help the most vulnerable in society and have kept strong protections to guard families against the threat of homelessness. As part of this funding we have maintained investment in local authority homelessness prevention services, providing £320 million since 2010/11 which has helped local authorities to prevent over 730,000 cases of homelessness. Almost 38,000 of these were helped to stay in their home through mediation and conciliation schemes.</p> answering member printed Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon question first answered 02/03/2015 15:15:55 answering member 4210 label Biography information for Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
tabling member	4308 label Biography information for The Lord Bishop of St Albans

222766

registered interest
date	23/02/2015
answering body	Department for Communities and Local Government
answering dept id	7
answering dept short name	Communities and Local Government
answering dept sort name	Communities and Local Government
hansard heading	Local Government
house id	2
legislature	25277 pref label House of Lords
question text	To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to support and champion England’s traditional counties.
tabling member printed	Lord Lexden
uin	HL5107
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 10/03/2015 answer text <p>England’s traditional counties date back over a thousand years of English history, but many of the counties have been sidelined by Whitehall in recent decades, whether by the bland municipal restructuring of Edward Heath’s Government in 1972, or by the imposition of artificial regional structures by the last Labour Government based on the EU’s Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics (the appropriately-named “NUTS” Regulations).</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Yet the tapestry of England’s counties binds our nation together, and is interwoven with our cultural fabric – from our cricket to our ales. So this Government has taken a series of steps to champion our traditional counties:</p><p> </p><p>• We have amended planning regulations to allow local and county flags to be flown without planning permission, and published a plain English guide to flying flags. Previously, flying a county flag on an existing flag pole required a princely sum of £335 to be paid to the council.</p><p>• We have supported the Flag Institute in publishing a new guide for would-be vexillologists to encourage a new wave of county and other local flags to be designed and flown. http://www.flaginstitute.org/wp/british-flags/creating-local-and-community-flags/</p><p>• My Department has flown a range of county flags in Whitehall to mark different county days, including Cumberland, Huntingdonshire, Westmorland and Middlesex. We have also flown flags to celebrate other historic localities such as those of the Ridings of Yorkshire and of Wessex – the kingdom which gave birth to the united English nation.</p><p>• We are changing highways regulations to allow traditional county names to appear on boundary road signs. The previous rules prevented unitary councils like Blackpool from having a road sign saying ‘Lancashire’, or Poole saying ‘Dorset’ – since they were not considered to be part of the ‘administrative county’.</p><p>• We have a new online interactive map of England’s different county boundaries. http://communities.maps.arcgis.com/apps/Compare/storytelling_compare/index.html?appid=7b0e661ef66b4a7aacb5a9acf55108ac</p><p>• Ordnance Survey, the Government’s National Mapping Agency, now provides a dataset of current, ceremonial counties (counties retained for the purposes of representing Her Majesty by Lord Lieutenants and High Sheriffs). http://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/business-and-government/help-and-support/products/boundary-line.html</p><p>• I can also announce to the House today that from May a dataset of the traditional, historic counties based on 19th Century boundaries will be available on the OS OpenData portal. These datasets are compatible with the OS Boundary-Line product which is available to all free of charge. Ordnance Survey is also going to provide a viewing map window on their website showing both the historic and ceremonial County boundaries on top of a base map.</p><p>• Later in the year, Ordnance Survey is hoping to publish a paper map of the Historic Counties of England, Scotland and Wales (as defined in the Local Government Act 1888 for England and Wales and the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1889 for Scotland), which will be available to the general public to purchase and proudly display.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>We are stronger as a nation when we cherish and champion our local and traditional ties. This Government is proud to wave the flag of St George and Union flag alongside our county flags. Whatever one’s class, colour or creed, we should have pride in our English identity within the United Kingdom’s Union that binds us all together.</p> answering member printed Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon question first answered 10/03/2015 15:07:14 answering member 4210 label Biography information for Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
tabling member	4202 label Biography information for Lord Lexden

222772

registered interest
date	23/02/2015
answering body	Department for Communities and Local Government
answering dept id	7
answering dept short name	Communities and Local Government
answering dept sort name	Communities and Local Government
hansard heading	Judaism
house id	2
legislature	25277 pref label House of Lords
question text	To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon on 10 February (HL4418), whether they intend to ask Jewish faith leaders in the United Kingdom to make clear the ideals of Judaism in respect of religious extremism.
tabling member printed	Baroness Tonge
uin	HL5113
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 04/03/2015 answer text <p>Her Majesty's Government expects all faiths' leaders to robustly challenge extremism in all its forms, wherever they find it.</p> answering member printed Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon question first answered 04/03/2015 14:03:50 answering member 4210 label Biography information for Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
tabling member	200 label Biography information for Baroness Tonge

222778

registered interest
date	23/02/2015
answering body	Department for Communities and Local Government
answering dept id	7
answering dept short name	Communities and Local Government
answering dept sort name	Communities and Local Government
hansard heading	Small Businesses: Non-domestic Rates
house id	2
legislature	25277 pref label House of Lords
question text	To ask Her Majesty’s Government how many businesses have received assistance through the small business rate relief scheme.
tabling member printed	Lord Tope
uin	HL5119
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 04/03/2015 answer text <p>Approximately 600,000 businesses are benefitting from Small Business Rate Relief with approximately 400,000 paying no rates at all.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Measures in the Localism Act made it easier for small firms to claim the business rate relief to which they are entitled. We announced at the 2014 Autumn Statement an extra £650 million of support for 2015-16 business rates bills in England, bringing the total support from 2013 and 2014 Autumn Statement measures to £1.4 billion in 2015-16. That includes amongst other things:</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>· the doubling Small Business Rate Relief for a further year (2015-16);</p><p> </p><ul><li>increasing the temporary discount for shops, pubs and restaurants with rateable values below £50,000 from £1,000 to £1,500 for 2015-16;</li></ul><p> </p><p>We have also given authorities powers to grant their own local discounts and we now fund 50% of any local discount granted.</p><p> </p><p>We also announced at Autumn Statement that we will review the future structure of business rates. The review will report by Budget 2016.</p><p> </p> answering member printed Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon question first answered 04/03/2015 17:29:23 answering member 4210 label Biography information for Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
tabling member	1703 label Biography information for Lord Tope