Discretionary housing payments a ‘postcode lottery’, as 7 per cent underspend is revealed
Authorities leave £1.3m in benefits cash unspent
Councils failed to spend nearly 7 per cent of a fund designed to plug shortfalls in the housing benefits system.
Figures requested by Inside Housing from the Department for Work and Pensions show local authorities did not spend £1.3 million of the
£20 million fund for discretionary housing payments in 2008/09.
The underspend in 2006/07 was £2.1 million from a £20 million pot.
Charity the Snowdon Awards Scheme, a bursary programme for disabled students, has criticised the system because some councils cannot afford to pay all the claims they receive, while others do not hand out all of the cash.
People whose local housing allowance, housing benefit or council tax benefit does not cover their rent or tax payments can apply to councils for DHP, but there is no guarantee that they will be awarded money.
Paul Alexander, chief executive of the Snowdon Awards Scheme, said: ‘Discretionary housing payments are budget-limited so some people will get them and some won’t. It is a postcode lottery.’
The DWP has said disabled people who need an extra bedroom for a carer should apply for DHP to make up the shortfall between local housing allowance and their rent.
Unspent cash in the national budget for discretionary housing payments is redistributed to councils at the end of each year, with the authorities that spent the most often receiving the largest share. A spokesperson for the DWP said: ‘It is up to individual authorities as to the awards that they make, and therefore they will not know until the end of the year whether they are likely to spend their total allocation.’
Maureen Neave, benefits manager at Vale of Glamorgan Council, said housing benefit legislation should be reformed to help people who needed extra room because they were disabled or single fathers whose children stayed at weekends. She added that many local authorities, including her own, top up their DHP allocations with significant amounts of their own cash and that demand for the fund had increased because of the recession. She added: ‘The biggest problem is that it is not advertised enough so people do not know it is there.’
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Readers' comments (2)
Melvin Bone | 20/11/2009 8:44 am
'Unspent cash in the national budget for discretionary housing payments is redistributed to councils at the end of each year'
What is the problem here? £20 million is allocated to be spent and £20 million is spent.
The councils that underspend are at fault.
Use it or lose it.
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Mark Duignan | 27/11/2009 11:07 am
The £20m allocated appears to have adequately covered requirements and is preferable to having no funds left to cater for genuine needs.
The 'spend it or lose it' attitude is wasteful, often resulting in absurd last minute spending at the end of the financial year.
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