Discretionary housing payments allow local authorities to help housing benefit claimants who face difficulty in meeting their housing costs. Central government has significantly increased its contributions to the scheme since 2011, when benefit reforms cut the income of many claimants. Partridge said: “To date, we have received £673,000 from the government for 2016-17 to fund awards of discretionary housing payments following the national welfare reforms. Local authorities across Britain spent almost £100m last year making up the rents of families affected by the bedroom tax and benefit cap, official figures have revealed. But many English councils chose to spend much more than their allocation from the DWP.

Source: The Guardian July 08, 2016 06:00 UTC