Money Moral Dilemma: Should residents turn over their Winter Fuel Payment?

lilia_fellini

Actually, Jorok is right I think. A fuel voucher would be a better idea, this way it would be spent as intended or not spent at all.

matelodave

Lets have rent vouchers, council tax vouchers, water vouchers etc. It would stop all these people wasting their money on non essentials

Stevie_Palimo

matelodave wrote: »

Lets have rent vouchers, council tax vouchers, water vouchers etc. I would stop all these people wasting their money on non essentials

Why not just go the whole hog and put every single UK resident into a crèche.

Next weeks money saver asks :

Is it okay to go to the toilet.

Richie-from-the-Boro

Moral answer to a moral question.

You are not asking clients of sheltered accommodation to 'hand over' their Winter Fuel Payment to your organisation, you are asking general taxpayers to allow their hard earned money to be redirected, without the taxpayers knowledge into your personal and collective coffers.

- as are 'food banks' they are claiming a moral right to a place in the trough
- 100,000 expats ditto
- etc etc

ButterflyLC

I assume the residents pay rent for their accommodation? So if heating is included in their rent, do you charge less in Summer than you do in Winter? I suspect not. If this is the case, why would you ask them to hand over their allowance, which is to help with bills. If they are paying rent, with all bills included, then they are already paying for heating.

JuliusCaesar

I assume that the charitable status of the housing association is not really relevant to the question, and that the residents pay monthly rent which includes the cost of the heating, which is averaged over the year. In this case, the residents are still paying for heating but it is not a separate charge. The Winter Fuel Payment is intended to pay for heating, so they are entitled to keep it.

If the accommodation is being paid for or subsidised by charitable donations, that it is a different matter, although perhaps the fact that people do receive Winter Fuel Payment has been taken into account in setting the monthly rent. This is really a question for the Board of the Charity to discuss, not a MoneySavingExpert forum.

bebewoo

No, grinch

Tall_Ian

I am amazed at some of the responses on this thread. We have little information, and a lot of presumptions that the question is about housing associations, with very assertive and dogmatic statements based on those presumptions..

I am a trustee of a 300 year old Almshouse trust which provides heaviuly subsidised accomodation for elderly people with all heating and hot water included. The trust is able to heavily subsidise the housing because it has owned the Almshouses for hundreds of years and it has various investments generously given to it over the years to enable it to meet its aims. There may be more Almshouses still fulfilling their historic charitable objectives than many people reading this thread realise.

The charity is run by volunteers who give their time for free (and some of them lots of time). The total rent is pitched so that residents on housing benefit get all their rent paid, so their fuel is paid for out of their housing benefit. Those not on housing benefit are getting heavily subsidised accomodation, which younger people poorer than them would be very jealous of.

We ask residents to donate their winter fuel allowance (although few actually do so), because in effect they are not paying for their fuel, it is being provided for charitably. If others are giving generosuly towards the charity, why should the residents not also be asked?

To those who try to cliam that "winter fuel" has some bizarre different meaning unconnected with normal usages of the words in the English Language. It is not a fixed sum every winter, it is triggered by cold spells and by prolonged cold spells - the amount paid varies depending on how cold the winter is. That seems a very odd way to give an increase to the pension by the back door!

If people are paying market rernts for their property - then yes I agree, the fuel costs are factored in so keep the cash (an assumption mamy of the responses seem to make). But if the charity is charging subsidised or even heavily subsidised rents - then morally I think the residents should hand the money over.

Of course, the charity cannot demand the money, it is a gift to the person concerned from the government for them to do with what they want. But this is a moral question - and I think that morally the money should go to the charity which in reality is paying for the heating.

shropshirelady

Tall_Ian wrote: »

To those who try to cliam that "winter fuel" has some bizarre different meaning unconnected with normal usages of the words in the English Language. It is not a fixed sum every winter, it is triggered by cold spells and by prolonged cold spells - the amount paid varies depending on how cold the winter is. That seems a very odd way to give an increase to the pension by the back door

That is a 'Cold weather payment', awarded to people on certain benefits. Winter fuel allowance is a fixed amount paid to all pensioners and, I believe, some others on certain benefits.

Freddysunshine

The answer isn't that simple. I live in sheltered housing but we have to pay our own utility bills. However, where utilities are included in the "service charge", this is most probably not covered by housing benefit. For people that do not need the WF, then they should decide whether or not to donate this to charity. I think stop winter fuel to people that do not reside in the U.K, and leave it as is for everyone else.