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‘Fairness’ is an oft-used gauge to which the government refers when judging how well its welfare system performs.

Work and pensions secretary James Purnell has indicated it would be this measure which decided whether his plans to reform the housing benefit regime are successful.

‘You have to have a system which combines protection from homelessness but which is also fair to the taxpayer and fair to people who are in work,’ he said.

‘We want to see how we can improve the work incentives for housing benefit. The key priority is how it can help people into work.’

The blueprint for how he hopes to shake up the system is outlined in the Department for Work and Pensions’ welfare reform white paper, Raising expectations and increasing support. That title hints at its carrot and stick approach.

The paper points out that a high proportion of the 4 million housing benefit claimants are in receipt of some other kind of welfare payment.

‘Nearly three out of four customers are also on income support, income-based jobseekers’ allowance and pension credit,’ it states. ‘It is a stand-alone benefit, designed and administered separately from other benefits, but there are close and often complicated links with other benefits and credits.’

This link was not lost on former housing minister Caroline Flint, who made the suggestion that tenants should commit to finding work before being given a social home. She later asked June Barnes, chief executive of housing association East Thames, to pinpoint ways to encourage tenants to come off benefits and get into work.

Ms Barnes told a conference last week that she disagreed with tying security of tenure to employment.

‘People want to feel they are in a secure place to live [and] want continuity around tenancy. Linking this to work is not a good idea,’ she said.

Helping tenants into work would also require a wide range of approaches, she added. ‘The government’s idea is to link benefits with work. They think that this is the solution. A third of our residents could go back to work but a third have got good reasons why they can’t.

‘Also, a third of people are not in a position where they can work. They have mental health issues and need other investment before employment or training.’

Kitty Ussher, parliamentary under-secretary of state at the DWP, said the government wanted all tenants helped to ‘participate fully in society’.
‘We need to make sure that housing benefit reform is done in line with other reforms. We should be asking what help people need in getting back to work and promoting financial independence and asking whether it is best value for money for taxpayers. We will be gathering opinions on this.’

The creation of a system which discourages long-term dependency on the welfare state is even more crucial during an economic downturn she added. ‘In the last recession, people were almost encouraged to go on incapacity benefits. Twenty years later they are still there. It was thought for ages that they weren’t capable of working.’

Tim Dwelly, director of the Live Work Network, argued that welfare reforms would be less effective unless the social housing system was changed.
‘They are doing the easiest bits first,’ he said. ‘Leaving the social housing allocations system means it will be a damp squib. We want to see the government tackle the welfare nettle and it’s not.’