Discretionary Housing Payments in Scotland: 1 April 2023 to 31 March 2024

Official statistics show that, as of 31 March 2024, local authorities had spent 101% (£84.9 million) of the £83.7 million estimated total funding required for DHPs at the beginning of the year when allocations were made for 2023-24 (Table 4). At the same point last year, we estimated that local authorities had spent 94% of their £84.1 million funding for 2022-23. Because of the rollover of funds from 2022-23 of £3.9 million, local authorities are not out of pocket.

There is considerable variation across the local authorities in the percentage of initial funding allocation which was spent between 1 April 2023 and 31 March 2024 (Chart 5 and Table 4).

Twelve local authorities spent more than their initial estimated allocation, with the excess spend ranging from around £1,000 to around £670,000 at local authority level. Cumulatively, these local authorities spent £3.3 million more than their initial allocations (Table 5).

Twenty local authorities collectively spent around £2.2 million less than their total estimated funding. Annual underspends varied from £16,000 to around £391,000 at local authority level (Table 4).

After accounting for these overspends and underspends, and taking into account the rolled over funding from 2022-23, any remaining underspend will be redistributed fairly between local authorities.

Chart 5: Proportion of estimated 2023-24 DHP funding spent as at 31 March 2024