Report of Director of Service Delivery

Lead Cabinet member: Councillor Ron Maskell

(Key decision):

To adopt the revised policy for Lewes District Council, subject to the removal of bullet point 5 at section 4.1 of the policy, as recommended by the Scrutiny Committee at its meeting on 7 February 2019.

The Cabinet considered the report of the Director of Service Delivery asking them to review the revised Discretionary Housing Payment (DHP) Policy for Lewes District Council.

It was clarified that the Central Government allocated funding of DHP had been fully utilised in previous years. The funding allocation was 2019/20 was £209,143.

The recommendations of the Scrutiny Committee at its meeting on 7 February 2019 were appended to the report and detailed at section 4.1 of the report.

The Cabinet were unanimous in supporting the adoption of the policy, subject to the removal of bullet point 5 of section 4.1 of the policy, as recommended by the Scrutiny Committee.

In response to a question from Debbie Twitchen, Tenants’ Representative in relation to which food banks were consulted through this process, it was clarified that only those that were involved with appeals for DHP had been consulted.

Resolved (Key decision):

To adopt the revised policy for Lewes District Council, subject to the removal of bullet point 5 at section 4.1 of the policy, as recommended by the Scrutiny Committee at its meeting on 7 February 2019.

Reason for decision:

To ensure that the Discretionary Housing Payment scheme is administered consistently across the District.