Stephen Timms – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Stephen Timms on 2016-05-26.

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment his Department has made of the potential effect of the loss of local authorities’ access to housing benefit claim data on their ability to target services and support tenants effectively; and if he will make a statement.

Justin Tomlinson

Local authorities are the data owners of Housing Benefit data. DWP shares customer data with local authorities in order for them to assess claims more effectively and quickly and to help them to keep claims right. We have contingency arrangements in place, should those interfaces fail.