Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

57. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government if he will recruit new staff to ensure each local authority has a housing assistance payment, HAP, team that will provide practical assistance to applicants to find tenancies; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [8948/17]

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

A key principle of the Housing Assistance Payment (HAP) scheme is that eligible households source their own accommodation in the private rented sector, which best suits their needs in their area of choice. Local authorities do not source accommodation for HAP supported tenancies. However, a dedicated placement team, the Dublin Placefinder Service, has been established to engage directly with property owners and support homeless households to find suitable tenancies under the Homeless Pilot of the HAP scheme which is being operated in the Dublin Region on behalf of the four Dublin local authorities.

Cork City Council has established a Cork City Homeless Placefinder Service which will entail a dedicated resource that will operate together with the established HAP delivery team in the local authority. It will be charged with seeking out potential properties suitable for households currently identified as homeless by Cork City Council by establishing relationships with local property agents and landlords and liaising with individual households to establish their specific housing needs. The Service will also support homeless households to negotiate the tenancy agreements and where necessary, secure a deposit and up-front rent payment. I have no plans currently to expand this service beyond Dublin and Cork.

With regard to the recruitment of staff for the operation of the HAP scheme, under section 159 of the Local Government Act 2001, each Chief Executive of a local authority is responsible for staffing and organisation arrangements necessary for carrying out the functions of the local authorities for which he or she is responsible. In this regard, it is a matter, in the first instance, for Chief Executives, to ensure that the appropriate staffing and staffing structures are in place.

My Department works closely with all local authorities and all have been invited to submit staffing sanction requests to facilitate the delivery of housing services. Each staffing sanction request is examined, on a case by case basis, having due regard to the continued delivery of key services in the context of staffing and budgetary constraints.

To date, My Department has approved 83 staffing applications from local authorities in relation to the Housing Assistance Payment (HAP) scheme. This includes sanctioned posts related to staffing needs of the central transactional shared service being provided by Limerick City and County Council to all local authorities operating the HAP scheme. The HAP Shared Services Centre, which is the primary administrative support to HAP local authorities, is responsible for a range of functions including monthly payments to landlords and the collection of weekly differential rent from tenants and provides a range of efficiencies in the operation of the scheme.

In order to cover staffing and administrative costs arising from the operation of the HAP scheme in their area, local authorities are provided with a direct once-off administrative payment of €150 per household set up under the HAP scheme. Some €1.8m was paid by my Department in HAP administration costs directly to local authorities in 2016. This stream of funding continues to be available in 2017.