Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, when he expects the universal credit landlord portal to be available in areas with full digital universal credit service.

Following successful pilots of the ‘Trusted Partner’ scheme and the ‘Landlord Portal Service’, DWP are rolling out both initiatives together. We are enrolling more landlords in stages, in tandem with the expansion of the Universal Credit Full Service. We have started with the largest landlord groups, in order to ensure the highest possible number of tenants are able to benefit from the schemes, as early as possible. This means that all Trusted Partner landlords have access to the Landlord Portal. We have also already introduced this to the landlords involved in our Trusted Partner pilot.

The Trusted Partner scheme allows social landlords to play a key role in engaging with their tenants who are Universal Credit claimants, helping those who can’t manage their housing payments to access the support available. The Landlord Portal provides social landlords with the ability to submit information directly to the Universal Credit online system, which supports timely and accurate payment of housing costs to Universal Credit claimants.