London RSLs set up £1m project to help benefit claimants open bank accounts

London & Quadrant Housing Trust will lead the group. It also comprises Circle 33, East Thames Housing Group, Threshold Housing & Support, Metropolitan Housing Trust and housing associations Family, Hyde, Gallions, Springboard and Orbit Bexley.

The Department for Work and Pensions aims to get most welfare benefits – apart from housing benefit – paid into bank or post office accounts by April next year.

But about 3.8 million people have not responded to DWP letters telling them they need a bank account to receive the payments.

A spokeswoman for the DWP said some of the people who did not respond would already have bank accounts but many would not.

“We estimate that nine out of 10 of our customers have an account they could use so we are using housing associations to get the one in 10 that are hard to reach,” she said.

“Local housing organisations have direct contact and practical experience in dealing with customers who wouldn’t respond so well to a letter from us.

“We are working with a range of groups including Carers UK, [deaf people’s charity] the RNID, the Citizens Advice Bureau and Women’s Institutes.”

The DWP has also run television and radio advertisements and held roadshows in shopping centres across the country.

We are in a good position to provide local support to people who haven’t yet made a decision on what to do

Andy Chaplin, Change

At the start of the project in October 2002 there were 14.2 million people who did not have their benefit paid into a bank account.

So far, 8.5 million claimants have provided bank details.

The London project will be funded by a DWP grant of £1m, which will be shared between the 10 associations once it is finalised next week.

They will hire 30 new staff to offer tenants advice on changes to benefit payments and on opening bank and Post Office accounts.

The London project will be managed by Change, L&Q’s financial inclusion arm, which provides low-cost loans and accounts to tenants who may have been turned away from high-street banks. L&Q runs Change with Family and Metropolitan.

Andy Chaplin, programme manager of Change, said: “We know that 34-39% of our tenants do not have a bank account. We will work with the DWP to pinpoint them.

“The DWP sees that we’re in a good position to reach residents who haven’t yet made a decision on dealing with benefit payment changes and bank accounts, and provide locally delivered support to help them decide what to do.”