Jugaad

Aki that is a fantastic illustration of how you work these things out on the ground. You do have to get around people whose mindset might not be that helpful at times but you also encountered people like Leanne Tasker and even the head of housing benefit who was prepared to work with you.

Council's will work with private landlords and agents if they know that they are professional and not crooks, which is clearly the case here. I dont mean you will necessarily get welcomed with open arms, people are people and you have to kiss a few frogs as it were.

What Localism is doing, or has done already is to throw councils into the private arena to a certain extent. Councils are even allowed to sell services at a profit but many council types having figured this one out yet and baulk at the mention of profit after years of conditioning (You have to call it 'Income Generation' in meetings and then everyone relaxes haha)

This is why I keep banging on about getting to know your local EHOs, TROs, LHA staff, attend landlords forum meetings and if your council doesnt have them, approach them saying you would like them to start one. I've trained Sandwell council, they have some good people in there.

Dead right on the CU front too, they are going to be an essential component when UC comes in next year, especially in the north of england when Bedroom tax is introduced and the landlords dont have anywhere smaller to move them too. Thats the next disaster we have in the pipeline that we should be preparing for

Ben our willingness to work with people and to devise solutions rather than put up with problems has seen both me and my brother to become heavily involved with our local councils and various associated committees.  l chair the W-ton landlords steering forum and also the W-ton council housing benefit workshop.  l feel using our experience we can help our local landlords no end and keep them up to speed on the changes that Welfare Reform is constantly forcing upon us.

Leanne & Aki proving once again that in the West Midlands we find solutions to problems that remain unsolved elsewhere. I am very proud to be working with these guys because they are way ahead of the game and offer landlords and tenants good services.

The new processes that have been devised for CU and LHA payments will be as like manna from heaven for LHA LL.
Indeed they would most probably wish to have this setup now, so as to be ready for UC.
I particularly like the TPS method as it is UK wide.
LL in the know could well insist that the TPS mehtod is used or no tenancy or even no continuation of tenancy.
As for the monthly fee for making a payment, the rent would be £503 rather than £500 per month!
Having the CU is essentially a firewall between the LL and the council.
I like that idea, it removes a massive risk to LHA LL in the event of attempted clawback.
Is there an issue though to ensure that payments are also ringfenced for utility bills.
Putting all remaining funds on a pre-payment Visa card would enable the utility bills to be spent on drink and drugs, supplies would be cut off in the property.
This would concern me as a LL if the property is not kept warm and utility supplies are maintained then the fabric of the property could degrade.
As a LL I would like the other regular payments in addition to rent also being ringfenced so that the claimant cannot use those funds for anything else.
There will also be resistance from LHA tenants who have monies paid to their own bank account.
However if the choice is to have a CU adminster the LHA payments or no tenancy,  most tenants will agree to change to a CU methodology.
Most LHA tenants are probably completely unaware of the issues surrounding clawback as it would affect the LL.
This is still a massive risk to LHA LL.
CU is the way to go NOW.
TPS seems to me a brilliant idea due to the constraint of common bond being resolved.

Paul, your comments are very encouraging. Obviously we are concentrating at this time on the rent aspects, and making sure our systems for that are impeccable but I have certainly been researching the possibilities of paying energy bills with this system with the introduction of UC. Obviously with recent and imminent increases to energy prices this is certainly something TPS would not want to overlook! I am sure that it would make our service even more valuable to both tenants and landlords. As I said in my earlier post, most benefits claimants are only too grateful of this sort of help, as many will freely admit that their budgeting skills are not great and they require assistance.

How about some sort of commercial relationship with an energy provider for all CU clients.
There would be an obvious saving on deliquent accounts, to the extent that energy providers could actually provide CHEAPER prices for LHA claiamants as all the monthly payments would be ringfenced.
I know that doesn't help pre-payment metods, but perhaps the deal could be such that it would be worthwhile for energy providers to offer credit meters knowing they would be paid as the LHA tenant wouldn't be able to spend the energy monies as they would be righfenced.
I would imagine that energy companies could easily offer a CU tariff.
There would be a consequent benefit to CU as energy companies would pay a small amount of commission. tenants would get a better deal than at present, less admin for the energy companies chasing recovery which they will never get from a benefit claimant, 
It seems the more one thinks about it,  the benefits for a vast amount of people to run their financial affairs via a CU seem overwhelming.
Perhaps if they had been used more extensively in the past we would not have the massive consumer debt this  country is labouring under.
It is almost as though a CU could be perceived as a proxy parent even to supposed adults.
They seem to be the only financial organisation that has the ability to impose some sort of financial discipline.
At last there seems to be an effective way of an 'adult' being told NO you can't have it because you don't NEED it and you need the monies to pay your bills.
Very boring to hear but that is what vast amounts of the population NEED to be told.
It strikes me as bizarre though that such an effective instiution as the CU is not more widely publicised by the govt.
One could be cynical in thinking that lots of people might migrate to CU's from present banking arrangements, which would clearly have an effect on the big banks' profits.
And then  the PM's city chums might not be very impressed.
But no, surely not, profit put before assisting people!!?

I agree Paul. Someone has likened those possibilities to a DSS version of the old Secure Homes account. I don't think this was ever available to benefits claimants (I may be wrong) but as you stated, if the government are ever going to actually attempt to resolve the issue of financial exclusion, and the lack of financial management by people on benefits there needs to be services like ours in place to accommodate the needs that are clearly out there. These problems are huge, which is why we are doing what we are doing. As we are currently the only company concentrating purely on LHA tenants, there are alot of avenues for us to cover!

@Taskerpaymentservices:disqus  and @Rent_Me_Now  thank you both very much indeed for your excellent contributions and welcome to Property118

I heard on th radio the other day of people forming small compnaies of a few hundred people to get gas and electiricity cheaper as they are buying in bulk. There seems at the moment to be a disagreement about the legality of it I think but a sound principle.

And my favourite initiative that I read of about a month ago (cant find the link this morning) was of a group of housing associations in the North West who have formed an online tenant shopping service where they can get fridges, cookers, home furnishings at roughly 50% discount because the organisation has enough buying power to get things at bulk discount and pass savings on.

Jugaad again

Or another word co-operative.  I can still remember my mums divvy number now 381116 and at Crhistmas choosing treats because she had saved her dividends - brilliant idea. And they did home delivery which people think of as a hi tech thing - bicycles with basket low tech low carbon emisions

My aunt and uncle built their own home as part of a co-operative too.

I was involved with two co-ops the first was a baby sitting group where we used tokens worth an hour each but costing nothing. We would pay and buy with our tokens and everyone got out only what they put in.  The second was when I had an allotment where we all worked our own plot but  helped each other.  One guy would go and get a load of manure from a local stable while we dug his plot. We shared the produce because we all grew too much, we watered for each other so that we could go away... it was a great team spirit.

I can also remember a head popping around the back door asking my mum to "watch the kids" while a neighbour went to the shop. We all felt very safe and if we hurt ourselves we would run to the nearest house where someones mum would sort us out. We had a strong sense of community and cared about each other and we were afraid to do anything wrong because there were too many pairs of eyes watching us. The words "wait until I see your father" was all we needed to hear. There was someone who delivered the babies and another who "laid people out" I didn't know what that meant in those days.  I remember being told that Jackie would be having tea with us from now on because her mum "had a little cleaning job to help out". Each neighbour fed one of the children and I am fairly sure that no money changed hands.

All this seems like another world now.

Its seems lwe once used Jugaad thinking in this country I wonder where it all went? Have we all become too selfish for this to work now?  Perhaps we lost the need and now that need is returning? We can learn a lot from the past