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:

• Housing Benefit (HB) – including Local Housing Allowance (LHA)
• Council Tax Benefit (CTB)

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

Site structure

Based on the LA Omnibus survey in 2007 we’ve made the changes our LA customers wanted, which were to: provide a better site structure; improve navigation; review all the content; and make the site more user friendly.

This new look site is made up of the following sections and sub-sections:

• HB - What's new
• User communications
  • HB Direct/More Direct
  • HB/CTB Circulars
  • HB/CTB Bulletins
  • HBDMS Newsletters
  • Publicity materials
• Claims processing
  • Operational manuals
  • Claims guidance
  • Local Housing Allowance (LHA)
  • Closer working with DWP
  • HB Information Flows Programme 
• Security
  • Data matching HB/CTB records with Credit Reference Agency data
  • Voice Risk Analysis (VRA)
  • Error awareness
  • Right Benefit Toolkit
• Performance and good practice
  • HB/CTB Good Practice Guide
  • HB/CTB performance statistics
  • Subsidy guidance manuals
  • HB/CTB Caseload Statistics
  • Returning data to DWP
  • HoBOD (Housing Benefit Operational Database) – LA level statistics
  • 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 Electronic archive for more information.

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Contact us with your comments

We hope LAs and other HB practitioners find this new look website useful and are keen to know what you think. So if you have any comments, feedback or suggestions about the structure, content or usability of the site, then email us at: CaxtonHouse.LA-Feedback@dwp.gsi.gov.uk