Controversial changes to the benefits system will make more people homeless and put added pressures on county council services.

The Universal Credit reforms will hit Denbighshire services according to a report presented to councillors on the communities scrutiny committee on Thursday.

The reforms have been completed in the county earlier this year.

A statement from the Homeless Prevention Team in the report said: “We anticipate potential increase in notices being served by landlords due to rent arrears, lack of income to support their households, stress due to limited ability to budget monthly.

"For the service we anticipate potential increase in homelessness applications and demand for services, increased demand for supported housing, increase spend on temporary accommodation and prevention budget.”

The changes have been rolled out so that new claimants and those already claiming but have a change of circumstances will be on the new system.

People wishing to apply for the benefits will have to do so online.

They will then see their money paid in one month in arrears in a way similar to wages.

Claimants for housing benefits will see their money paid directly to them and it will be administered by the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) instead of the council.

With members of the public needing to make applications online there was also concern that there would be added pressures to library services.

“We anticipate an increase in people seeking digital access which could impact on the availability of PCs and the load on the Wifi signal. To mitigate, PCs can be booked in advance, the WiFi was boosted in 2017, and users will be advised to save their work often.

"We also anticipate a greater demand for assistance from staff to help with digital access by people with low digital skills and other barriers. DWP funding will help offset some additional staffing costs,” the report added.

Prestatyn East councillor, Julian Thompson-Hill, the cabinet member for finance said a lot of work had gone into preparing council staff to deal with the changes and he was confident enough had been done to cope.

He said: “Universal Credit was introduced by the UK government which amalgamated what had been six previously benefits. It’s now has been rolled out on a full service basis in Denbighshire. That will impact on benefit claimants within in the county.

“We don’t know what we don’t know. It was only rolled out in full last month.

“We’re not expecting to see full numbers for some time yet. We think we’ve put in place enough to give some assurance as well as suitable training and advice across a wide range of services to cover what we anticipate will happen.”