Housing benefit

Thousands of people have been wrongly identified as being liable for the 'bedroom tax', including some who now face eviction or have been forced to move to a smaller property, according to a report in the Guardian newspaper. This is a result, says the paper, of an error by the Department of Work and Pensions.

The error is said to affect working-age tenants in social housing who have occupied the same home continuously since 1996. An oversight by the DWP when drafting the legislation means that the housing benefit regulations dating from 1996 were not updated when the coalition legislated for the bedroom tax.

Housing experts believe as many as 40,000 people could be affected by the mistake. But the DWP claims only a 'small number' of tenants are affected, which it estimates number 5,000. All could be eligible for refunds, worth on average at least £640 per claimant and therefore costing millions of pounds in aggregate.

More than four out of ten social housing tenants know very little or nothing about the coalition government's controversial 'bedroom tax' policy or how it will affect them, according to a survey carried out for Viridian housing association in London and the south east.

Ipsos MORI conducted a survey of 201 residents (including 101 identified as being affected by the bedroom tax), together with 15 single/paired in-depth interviews with residents affected by the policy. Research was undertaken in April and May 2013, a month after the tax was introduced. The survey explored tenants' experiences, attitudes and behaviour in respect of the bedroom tax and other reforms to the benefits system.

Public discussion of housing benefit is heavily influenced by negative attitudes towards claimants, according to a report from the Fabian Society think tank. But it says there are also ways in which a more positive debate could be fostered, and makes a series of recommendations for anti-poverty campaigners.

A woman who was threatened with the 'bedroom tax' on unoccupied rooms in social housing has committed suicide. Stephanie Bottrill, aged 53, died in the early hours of 4 May after being hit by a lorry on the motorway near her home in Solihull in the west midlands.

Mrs Bottrill left a note to her family saying: 'Don’t blame yourself for me ending my life. The only people to blame are the Government, no-one else'. Her family said she had been worried about how she would afford an extra £20 a week as a result of housing benefit cuts. She lived in a three-bedroom house on her own. Government changes mean families deemed to have more living space than they need are faced with having their housing benefit cut – the so-called 'bedroom tax'.

Mrs Bottrill's son told a local newspaper: 'She was fine before the bedroom tax. It was dreamt up in London, by people in offices and big houses. They have no idea the effect it has on people like my mum'.