Service standards for housing benefit
Every five to six years, the calendar makes it so we have 53 Mondays instead of the usual 52. This coming financial year, 2024 / 2025, is one of those special years.
If you get Universal Credit, the Department for Work and Pensions will only pay for 52 weeks of your rent in a year. In a 53 week financial year, this means there will be one week of rent that will not be covered by Universal Credit.
Find out what we're doing to help and what to do if you're affected and already struggling with the cost of living.
It also summarises our recent service performance figures.
Housing benefit service standards
-
We process new benefit claims and make decisions in respect of backdating within ten working days of receiving all necessary information.
-
We process notified changes in circumstances within five working days of receiving all necessary information.
-
We respond to complaints within 10 working days.
-
We process appeals within 28 working days.
Your feedback is important and helps us to make improvements to our services. You can give us your feedback in a number of ways:-
-
use our online form for comments, complaints and compliments
-
write to us at Your Feedback, Lewisham Council, Laurence House, London SE6 4RU. This is a FREEPOST address.
Service performance figures for 2019/20
-
Average time to process a new claim is 9.64 days
-
Average time to process a change to an existing claim is 3.69 days
-
Target time to process new claims and changes is 7 days.
-
Average time to process new claims and changes is 4.06 days.
Percentage of complaints processed within ten working days
-
Target 2010–20: 90%
- Achieved: 96%