Find information about community support and our services during the coronavirus pandemic, on our information for residents pages, our information for businesses pages, and our community support hub page which has guidance to help coordinate community organisations.
See a summary of our Local Outbreak Control Plan and read our frequently asked questions.
Coronavirus: Council Tax, Benefits and Financial Assistance
We realise that you have many questions around processes for people who are self-isolating and the services that may be impacted due to the coronavirus and the information currently available from DWP can be found below:
- Understanding Universal Credit - coronavirus and claiming benefits
- Gov.uk - support for employees, benefit claimants and businesses
A Universal Credit guide finder has been published by the government to help you find the information you need. This provides links to all the current guidance available.
April 2021 Rent Increases for Sovereign and other Housing Association Tenants
If you are a tenant of Sovereign Housing association and currently receiving Housing Benefit, you may have received a rent increase letter advising you to bring that letter to the Council Offices in order for your Housing Benefit to be reassessed. For your safety, and ours, we ask that you only send information to us where necessary and avoid trips to Council Offices at this time.
Instead, if your Housing Benefit is paid directly to Sovereign you are unlikely to need to take any action. In accordance with previous years, we are expecting Sovereign to send a file directly to us providing details of rent increases where Housing Benefit is paid directly to them. Please only contact us if your new rent is not correctly stated within a Housing Benefit notification you receive from us in March 2021, where the reason for issue is identified to be 'Annual Uprating'.
If you are a tenant of another Housing Association and your Housing Benefit is paid direct to your landlords, the likelihood is that your April 2021 rent increase will also be advised to us directly by the Housing Association. We would also advise against bringing rent increase letters into the office as this may prove unnecessary. Instead, you may wish to wait for your Annual Uprating letter to arrive in March to see if your new rent is already included within the Housing Benefit assessment. If you wish, or need, to send your rent increase letter to us, please scan and email this to benefits@westberks.gov.uk, wherever possible.
If you are a tenant of a Housing Association and Housing Benefit is paid to you rather than your landlords, or you receive your annual uprating letter which does not include your April 2021 rent increase, we would still advise against bringing rent increase notices to our public offices unless you have no other option available to you. Instead, please scan and email rent increase letters to us at benefits@westberks.gov.uk.