Ruth Barnett July 03, 2011 11:10 AM
The leaked letter between civil servants that laid bare how 40,000 families could become homeless as a result of the coalition's welfare reforms was sent six or seven months ago, I'm told.
Old news, then, probably a bit irrelevant by now. That's one angle and arguably the one Government figures would like.
The concerns in the memo clearly didn't escalate into a full-scale row between ministers and departments - I understand Eric Pickles (whose private secretary wrote it) didn't even raise the issue at Cabinet.
But far from successfully distancing the Government from the document, this time lag could draw David Cameron and the Department for Work and Pensions further into the row.
This document has been floating around since January - so it existed before the DWP wrote an impact assessment which fails to make any mention of how many people will become homeless or how much it could cost the public purse.
It said "some" of the 50,000 affected families could be turfed out of their properties and they "may" need more pricey temporary accommodation but "it is not possible to quantify these costs".
Well the Department for Communities and Local Government were able to quantify them - their modelling suggests 20,000 more households will become homeless, on top of the 20,000 the letter says the Government already expected as a consequence of the overhaul.
Considering 50,000 families are set to be affected by the change, this implies 80% of them could lose the roof over their heads - not most people's definition of "some", I reckon.
If these figures are factually wrong no one has, to my knowledge, said so.
The document also reached the Prime Minister's office before the bill had its first reading in the House of Commons in February yet its contents were apparently never shared, never discussed round the Cabinet table, never raised in Parliament.
It called for child benefit to be added on top of the benefits cap, not included within it, in order to mitigate the impact on larger families. The Government's own numbers suggest more than 90% of those who will be hit hard have children, often several.
But the Bill doesn't make this exemption.
It also means the Government has known for six months the £270m per year saving expected by 2014/2015 the benefits cap was meant to deliver could well be phantom. That extra money will have to come from somewhere if Iain Duncan Smith and Eric Pickles are to stick to their spending plans.
Keep your eyes peeled, then, for an extra cut in the pipeline otherwise the departments could miss their targets.
Welfare is set to be one of the hottest topics throughout this Parliament. Get it right, and the coalition will have achieved the political holy grail of stopping the benefits bill spiraling forever upwards but get it wrong and there will be huge human and financial penalties.
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