Discretionary Housing Payments in Scotland: 1 April 2024 to 30 September2024

Management information expenditure figures are amounts actually spent on awards in 2024-25 up to 30 September 2024.

Chart 2 shows expenditure by funding stream. The majority was spent mitigating the Removal of the Spare Room Subsidy (£37.1 million, 86.8%), with a smaller proportion used to support claimants affected by the benefit cap (£2.0 million, 4.6%), and Local Housing Allowance which was uprated in 2024-25 (£1.2 million, 2.8%). A further £2.3 million (5.4%) was spent on Core (non-welfare reform) awards and around £169,000 (0.4%) on awards that covered a combination of purposes.

Chart 2: Management Information - Proportion of DHP actual spend by funding stream
Table 5 and Chart 3 show the total actual spend as a proportion of the estimated funding allocated for each funding stream.

The amount of expenditure has increased in the key areas of Bedroom Tax mitigation and the Benefit Cap, although proportionally, local authorities have spent slightly less than at the same time last year on the Benefit Cap due to an increased allocation, and Bedroom Tax expenditure is slightly higher this year at 50%.

Local authorities spent £2.0 million (26%) of funding allocated for Benefit Cap mitigation, as similar amount as in 2023-24 (26%), although there is a wide range of take-up across local authorities.

Local authorities are free to spend “Other DHP” funding at their discretion, because they are best placed to respond to local housing needs. Allocations of “Other DHP” funding is therefore notional.

Local authorities have so far spent lower proportions than in 2023-24 for Local Housing Allowance (33%, £1.2 million), and also for Core funding (54%, £2.3 million).

Chart 3: Management Information - Proportion of estimated 2024-25 DHP funding spent (actual) by funding stream