Discretionary Housing Payments in Scotland: as at 30 September 2022

Management information expenditure figures are for the actual spend on DHP awards from 1 April to 30 September 2022.

Table 5 and Chart 3 shows the proportion of DHP actual spend by award purpose. For examples of DHP award purposes see the Background Notes.

The majority of funding was spent by local authorities to mitigate the Removal of the Spare Room Subsidy (£32.6 m, 87.0%), with smaller proportions used to support claimants affected by the introduction of the benefit cap (£1.0 m, 2.7%) and reductions in Local Housing Allowance (£1.4 m, 3.8%). A further £2.1 m (5.5%) was spent on Core (non-welfare reform) awards and around £391,000 (1.0%) on awards that covered a combination of purposes.

Chart 3: Management Information - Proportion of DHP actual spend by funding stream

Table 5 and Chart 4 show the total actual spend as a proportion of the estimated funding allocated for each funding stream.

Local authorities spent a much smaller proportion of their funding on the Benefit Cap than the allocated funding for this purpose (£1.0m, 13%). Conversely, local authorities spent 137% (£2.1m) of the estimated allowance for Core funding (£1.5m).

Chart 4: Management Information - Proportion of estimated 2022/23 funding spent (actual) by funding stream

Chart 5 shows the expenditure profile of each local authority, with some spending more than their share of the estimated total funding for certain streams, such as on Local Housing Allowance and Core, whilst spending proportionally less or nothing on other funding streams.

Whilst the Scottish Government provides funding under the different streams, this is a notional split and local authorities have discretion around how they use their funding. This variation in the recorded actual spend is due to local demand, plus differences in recording methods between local authorities.

Chart 5: Management Information - DHP actual funding spent by each local authority broken down by funding stream