Backlogs in the assessment process for the new Personal Independence Payment (PIP) have led to delays and uncertainty for claimants in the areas where it was introduced in April last year, according to a report from the National Audit Office, published on 27 February.

PIP is a non-means-tested benefit to support disabled people with their daily living and mobility costs. It replaces Disability Living Allowance for working age people and aims to match support more closely to claimants’ needs. By 25 October 166,000 people had started new claims for PIP.

Six men have been sentenced for conspiring to breach the Data Protection Act while working for a private investigation firm which tricked other organisations into revealing personal details about their customers, while a seventh is awaiting sentence.

Two of them – Adrian Stanton, 40 and Barry Spencer, 41 – ran ICU Investigations Ltd in Feltham, Middlesex.

The pair were convicted last November for routinely fooling organisations such as utility companies, GP surgeries and TV Licensing into revealing personal data about individuals they were trying to track down.

Specialist landlord and agent lawyers Property Reclaim, a division of Moore Blatch solicitors, estimates that a recent ruling at the Court of Appeal*, could save landlords thousands of pounds, as the Court ruled that just two calendar months’ notice is required to end an Assured Shorthold Tenancy after the end of a fixed term.

For the last 25 years it was universally believed that, to end a tenancy once a fixed term had expired, landlords had to use s.21(4)(a) of the Housing Act 1988. That section requires a minimum of two months’ notice ending on the last day of a period of the agreement – meaning that, if the rent is payable on the first of each month, a landlord wanting to give notice on the 2nd has to give two full months’ notice plus however many days remain in the month (29 for January), i.e. the earliest the notice could require possession is after 31 March.

This decision means that belief is wrong – landlords only have to give two months’ meaning the landlord could serve notice on 2 January requiring possession on 2 March, 29 days earlier than under s.21(4)(a).

The National Audit Office has criticised the government’s implementation of its policy to deny criminals the proceeds of their crimes by confiscating their assets.

According to a report to Parliament issued on 17 December, government has no overall coherent strategy for confiscation orders and that fundamentally undermines the process for confiscating assets. Decision-makers across the criminal justice system, such as senior police officers, are often not prioritising confiscation. In 2012-13, 673,000 offenders were convicted of a crime, many of which had a financial element; yet only 6,400 confiscation orders were set.