Assembly Roundup: Summer 2015

A round up of housing related questions answered by the Minister for Social Development during summer 2015

New Shared Future Developments

To ask the Minister for Social Development to detail the number of new-build shared housing schemes under the Together: Building a United Community strategy, which are in addition to schemes that were already proposed under the Northern Ireland Housing Executive’s Shared Future Housing Programme. Mr Stewart Dickson  (APNI - East Antrim) AQW 47779/11-15

The Department for Social Development’s Housing Group has lead responsibility for delivering the Together: Building a United Community strategy commitment to create 10 new shared neighbourhoods. To date, one site, Ravenhill Road in Belfast, has completed. The development has a total of 67housing units, and Apex Housing Association is currently finalising the allocation of the units. A further 5 schemes have commenced; Ravenhill Avenue, Belfast; Felden Mill, Newtownabbey; Crossgar Road, Saintfield; Killard School, Newtownards; and Burn Road, Cookstown. These schemes are all in addition to the 11 schemes delivered to date under the Housing Executive’s Shared Future Programme. DSD Housing Group is currently liaising with the Housing Executive to identify further schemes to deliver the commitment for 10 new shared neighbourhoods.

Release date for the Supporting People Publication

To ask the Minister for Social Development, pursuant to AQW 41683/11-15, for an update on the review of the Supporting People Policy and Legislative Framework; and the expected date of publication. Ms Claire Sugden  (IND - East Londonderry)  AQW 47290/11-15

My Department is currently carrying out a review of the Supporting People programme, including its policy and legislative framework. The evidence gathering phase of the review has now been completed and the emerging findings are currently being analysed. A final report with recommendations will be produced in the Autumn which will identify the future direction of the programme.

DSD’s responsibilities in tackling Child Poverty

To ask the Minister for Social Development to outline his Department’s responsibilities in regards to achieving child poverty targets. Mr Stewart Dickson (APNI - East Antrim) AQW 47744/11-15

The Office of the First Minister and deputy First Minister currently has lead responsibility within the Executive for tackling child poverty. However, my Department has responsibility for many of the policy and operational levers to address poverty and disadvantage on the ground, thus it has a key role in contributing to the achievement of child poverty targets. These policies and programmes include: the Neighbourhood Renewal Strategy; the provision of decent and affordable housing; action to address fuel poverty; improved child maintenance arrangements and the delivery of comprehensive social security arrangements.

My Department has committed to a number of important high level targets and supporting actions within the proposed new Child Poverty Strategy 2014-2017. Examples include the delivery of new social and affordable housing, the provision of specialist housing and debt advice to households having difficulty paying their mortgage, the provision of childcare places to assist parents in low income families to increase their skills and gain education and training to avail of paid employment; the support of 30 Nurture Units in local primary schools; and delivery of projects designed to promote social, economic, physical and community renewal in 36 Neighbourhood Renewal Areas.

We have also committed to contributing to actions being led by other departments and organisations. As part of our work on improving the uptake of benefits, the Department is developing a Household Income Administrative Database to assess eligibility for means tested benefit. This database should improve our capacity to better target those eligible for additional social security and other benefits. My Department is also responsible for the measurement of poverty in Northern Ireland. The Northern Ireland Poverty Bulletin 2013/14 was released on 25 June 2015 and provides annual estimates of the percentage and number of people, children, working age adults and pensioners living in low income households in Northern Ireland. The estimates are used to monitor progress towards United Kingdom targets to reduce poverty.

Total maintenance expenditure on NIHE properties in the past 5 years

To ask the Minister for Social Development to detail how much has been spent on the maintenance of Northern Ireland Housing Executive properties, broken down by (i) division area; and (ii) the nature of the maintenance, in each of the last five years. Mr Mike Nesbitt (UUP - Strangford) AQW 46590/11-15

The information is not available in the format requested as the Housing Executive does not collate information by division area. However, the (tables attached) provided by the Housing Executive, detail the nature of their maintenance expenditure in each of the last five years broken down by Housing Executive District Office.

New Advice Strategy release due Summer 2015

To ask the Minister for Social Development when he intends to publish the strategy for the delivery of generalist advice services 2015-2020.  Ms Claire Sugden (IND - East Londonderry) AQW 47872/11-15

The new advice strategy “Advising, Supporting, Empowering – a strategy for the delivery of generalist advice services in Northern Ireland 2015 – 2020” will be published in summer 2015.

Numbers of properties with Affordable Warm Homes Scheme

To ask the Minister for Social Development to detail (i) the number of properties that have been completed under the Affordable Warmth programme in this financial year; (ii) how this compares with the same period in 2014/15; and (iii) the reasoning behind the difference in figures in 2014/2015 and 2015/2016. Mr Phil Flanagan (SF - Fermanagh and South Tyrone) AQW 47575/11-15

To date in 2015/16, 123 homes have had energy efficiency measures installed under the Affordable Warmth Scheme. The Affordable Warmth Scheme was launched in September 2014 and became fully operational in April 2015. Therefore, there is no comparison that can be made between the first quarter of this financial year and the first quarter of 2014/15.

The Information provided in this response is governed by the Principles and Protocols of the Code of Practice for Official Statistics. This is enforced by UK Statistics Authority.

NIHE subletting cases since April 2014

To ask the Minister for Social Development to detail the (i) number of Northern Ireland Housing Executive tenants that have sublet their properties, broken down by housing division area; and (ii) penalty awarded in each case for each of the last three years. Mr Samuel Gardiner MBE(UUP - Upper Bann) AQW 46810/11-15

I assume the Member is referring to unauthorised subletting. The information is not available in the format requested as the Housing Executive introduced a Tenancy Fraud Register in April 2014 to record all instances of tenancy fraud and statistics are not available prior to this period.

The Housing Executive advises that it has investigated 64 cases of unauthorised subletting. In 13 cases their investigations resulted in the tenants terminating their tenancies. The Housing Executive has also advised that, at 10th June 2015 where there is some suspicion of subletting, a further 17 cases are under investigation.

In relation to the penalties awarded, in one subletting case (included in teh 13 above) the Housing Executive, via the Public Prosecution Service, was successful in obtaining a summary prosecution under the Social Security Administrative (NI) Act 1992 for the defendant failing to tell the Housing Executive of his change of circumstances. The defendant was sentenced to the maximum sentence of three months imprisonment suspended for 12 months. 

The Information provided in this response is governed by the Principles and Protocols of the Code of Practice for Official Statistics. This is enforced by UK Statistics Authority.

Housing Benefit statistics of claimants broken down by council area

To ask the Minister for Social Development to detail the number of claimants in receipt of (a) full housing benefit; and (b) partial housing benefit broken down by council area. Mr Ian Milne
(SF - Mid Ulster) AQW 48227/11-15

The Housing Executive has advised that it is not possible to provide a full/partial split for Housing Benefit “rates only” cases, which comprises just over 1.5% of total Housing Benefit caseload and these have therefore not been included in the table.

The Housing Executive has provided the table attached detailing the housing benefit cases which have a Housing Benefit rent entitlement, which accounts for over 98% of the total housing benefit caseload.

Affordable Warmth Scheme

To ask the Minister for Social Development how many homes does he estimate will benefit from the Affordable Warmth Scheme by 31st March 2016; and how that figure compares with the number benefitting under Warm Homes in the last full year in which it operated. Mr Gregory Campbell (DUP - East Londonderry) AQW 46880/11-15

In the last full year of operation (2014/15) the Warm Homes Scheme improved the energy efficiency of 7,004 homes.

The Affordable Warmth Scheme and Warm Homes Scheme are fundamentally different and the two schemes cannot be compared on a like for like basis.

The Affordable Warmth Scheme offers additional energy efficiency measures such as boiler replacement and window upgrades which were not available under the Warm Homes Scheme. The targeted approach is finding houses which need significant work to improve their energy efficiency and the additional measures available have resulted in a higher average grant level of £3,400 for the Affordable Warmth Scheme compared to £1,440 under the Warm Homes Scheme.
Officials recently briefed the Social Development Committee on the Affordable Warmth Scheme and discussed the budget and the Programme for Government milestone commitment. It was suggested that the current Programme for Government milestone commitment to assist 9,000 homes each year may need to be reviewed to reflect the higher average grant level and the budget available. My Department will develop and bring forward a new milestone target which reflects the new scheme more accurately.

The Information provided in this response is governed by the Principles and Protocols of the Code of Practice for Official Statistics. This is enforced by UK Statistics Authority.