With the government talking about rolling out the Housing Benefit Local Housing Allowance on a national basis, Housing in Wales spoke to Conwy County Borough Council to find out their experiences of being the only Welsh local authority involved in the pathfinder.

Conwy County Borough Council were selected as one of 9 pathfinder authorities to pilot the Local Housing Allowance scheme.

Conwy CBC went live on the 9th of February 2004 on a phased approach giving them 12 months to convert all the existing caseload onto Local Housing Allowance. Other pathfinders like Brighton and Hove City Council went live in a ‘big bang’ approach – all at once.

Despite all the concerns before going live, Conwy have not had any major problems with everything slotting into place when it should. The only minor problem they have experienced are a few glitches in the software, but these are to be fixed by Academy in the next software release due shortly. The key to whether the pathfinder has been a success or not seems to lie in the planning, and Conwy are happy to admit that the extensive planning prior to the launch has ensured smooth running, whereas some of the other pathfinder authorities experienced major technology problems in the early days.

It’s no surprise that Conwy CBC have had a success at bringing the Local Housing Allowance in, as Conwy’s Housing Benefits department were rated by the Audit Commission as a ‘good service with promising prospects for improvement’ in April 2002, making it one of the most highly rated Housing Benefit services in Wales.

Carys Bedford, Pathfinder Communications Officer for Conwy CBC, feels that it’s particularly important to speak regularly to the landlords involved in the pathfinder.

‘In a recent landlord meeting we asked the landlords if they had any major problems and not one of them had anything negative to say, although, they did comment that not many of their tenants were on the scheme and that it was still early days. But to think that they were all very negative and were going to evict all their HB tenants, they certainly have warmed to the new scheme. There hasn’t been a significant increase in Homelessness in Conwy as a result of the Local Housing Allowance’.

With the pilot due to run until 2006, all pathfinder authorities involved are constantly being evaluated. With dates being quoted by the government for between 2006-2010 for a possible national rollout date for the Local Housing Allowance, all landlords and Housing professionals alike should be looking at the pathfinder results when they are published.

For more information click here for the Local Housing Allowance page of the DWP website.