Tenants on Universal Credit can now use a new online system that allows rent payments to be paid directly to Private Rented Sector (PRS) landlords.
At the moment, it takes around three weeks to process a privately rented tenant using the Alternative Payment Arrangement (APA), which sends rents straight to landlords.
The new automated online system replaces the two existing UC47 paper forms for APA and cuts the processing time down to just two hours, reports Express.co.uk.
Normally, the housing element of Universal Credit is paid into the claimant's bank account, once or twice a month in Scotland, along with the rest of their benefits payment.