FI17048
Request
I am seeking information about housing benefit payments where the claimant is living in a static caravan or park home.
Q1: Can you tell me how many of your housing benefit claimants live in this type of accommodation and how much the council paid out in housing benefit for their homes in each of the last five years?
Q2: Also how many housing benefit claimants did you have in total in each of these years - so I can understand the proportion that lived in static caravans/park homes?
Q3: Lastly, is it possible to also identify how much was paid (directly or indirectly) to each of the three landlords of this type of accommodation who received the largest sums?
Response
Under Section 1(1)(a) of the Freedom of Information Act, we have established that this information is not held. This is because Dover District Council internal reports, nor the Single Housing Benefit Extract hold the specific data to confirm if a property is a static caravan or a park home. It is not possible to analyse every Housing Benefit property to establish if it falls into one of these categories, or not. As a result, we cannot answer any of the three questions you have asked.
You may also wish to consider that a number of customers who are working age, could be in receipt of Universal Credit and so we would not hold about their housing costs. You could consider contacting the Rent Officer (now part of HMRC) who may hold some of the information you require. They may be able to tell you how many cases for static homes or caravans they have made a decision on.