The latest Monday Discussion Group opened with Malcolm Gardner posing a stark question: is the temporary accommodation crisis mainly a housing supply problem or a financial systems problem? The answer from the panel was clear. It is both, and councils are being left to manage the consequences of failures far beyond their control. Kirsty Brooksmith…
Category: Housing Benefit
Subscription Spending, Household Budgets and Consumer Behaviour
Recurring digital payments have quietly become a fixed feature of household finances across the UK, Europe and the United States. For revenues and benefits services, understanding their scale, their cross-national consistency — and their ambiguous status as essential or discretionary spending — is becoming increasingly relevant. Revenues & Benefits Intelligence · Briefing Note The Scale…
When Systems Collide: Supported Housing, Reorganisation and Poverty in Local Government
The Independent Revenues and Benefits Monday Discussion Group on 30 March ranged across three familiar but connected themes: supported housing, local government reorganisation and the latest poverty figures. What tied the conversation together was a persistent sense that national systems are still passing risk, cost and confusion down to councils, while expecting local services to…
Independent R&B Monday Discussion Group: CTR judicial reviews, transitional protection, and scheme governance
Meeting note for 9 February 2026 The slide pack is too large to send by email this week. Please download it from is page, alongside the recording and other related reports. The pack is large because it contains significant slides on CTR case law and the Gunning principles. Malcolm Gardner opened with tributes to John…
Independent R&B Monday Discussion Group: Blue Monday session roundup
19 January 2026 (12:02pm) The group marked “Blue Monday” with a mixture of humour and hard reality: policy change arriving at speed, year-end pressures stacking up, and councils trying to keep services stable while funding assumptions shift under their feet. Malcolm Gardner chaired the session, with contributions from Naomi Armstrong, Kirsty Brooksmith, Nicki Duckworth, Michael…
Independent R&B Discussion Group: Benefits, Work and the Future Workforce
At the latest Independent R&B Monday Discussion Group, chaired by Malcolm Gardner, members took a deep dive into the stubborn issue of unclaimed benefits, the challenges of Universal Credit, and the shifting dynamics of the local government workforce. Billions Unclaimed Malcolm opened with the headline finding from Policy in Practice: £24 billion in benefits goes…
Monday Discussion Group Returns: From Reshuffles to Rents and AI
The Independent Revenues & Benefits Monday Discussion Group was back on 8 September, with Malcolm Gardner welcoming everyone after the summer break. Smiles all round, though the mood paused for a moment as Malcolm paid tribute to Leigh Barber from NEC, who recently passed away after a long battle with cancer. Leigh’s determination and his…
Mid-Break Highlights from the Independent Revenues & Benefits Discussion Group
1 September 2025 We’re on our summer pause, so instead of a live session this week we’ve shared the second mid-break slide pack. It’s a chance to catch up on what’s happening across revenues and benefits while we recharge. We’ll be back together on Monday 8 September. So, what’s inside this week’s pack? Plenty to…
Tensions in Council Tax Collection: Balancing Policy, Affordability, and Public Perception
Revenues and Benefits Discussion Group 7 July 2024 At the latest meeting of the Independent Revenues & Benefits (R&B) Group, members grappled with a familiar but still unresolved dilemma: how to reconcile the administrative and political pressures of council tax collection with the realities of household poverty, affordability, and fairness. Council Tax Write-Offs and Public…
24/03/25 Assessing Welfare Reform: Insights from the Independent R&B Discussion Group
On 24 March 2025, a diverse panel of experts and practitioners convened for a robust discussion on the latest developments in the United Kingdom’s welfare system. With topics ranging from the migration to Universal Credit and Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) claimants to the broader implications of pathways to work reforms, the session provided a…