Who gave what: DHP allocation analysis Last year, councils were allocated special funds to help housing benefit claimants struggling with welfare changes. Exclusive analysis of DWP figures by the New Policy Institute shows how London’s boroughs spent this money. Since April 2013, local authorities were allocated special funds by the government to help housing benefit claimants struggling with welfare changes. Exclusive analysis of Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) figures by the New Policy Institute shows how London’s boroughs spent this money, revealing differences with the rest of England and within London. Discretionary Housing Payments (DHP) - emergency hardship funds - are provided by local authorities to housing benefit claimants experiencing difficulties with their housing costs. In 2013/14, funding for DHP was increased to support those affected by the overall benefit cap, the under-occupation penalty or changes to Local Housing Allowance (LHA) affecting tenants in the private rented sector. Here we examine how DHP funding in 2013/14 was allocated in London, showing how local councils are helping their residents cope with the impacts of welfare reforms. In total 25,000 DHPs were awarded in Inner London and 26,000 in Outer London in 2013/14. The graph below shows the proportion of awards that were linked to each welfare reform compared to the rest of England. It shows that the welfare reform accounting for the largest share of DHP awards was the under-occupation penalty (better known as the bedroom tax or, occasionally, the spare room subsidy). Proportion of awards by welfare reform NB: The total of the bars for each area is 100%; OBC – overall benefit cap; UUP – under-occupation penalty. LHA – Local Housing Allowance cap The main way in which London differs from the rest of the country is the balance between the under-occupation penalty and the overall benefit cap. The overall benefit cap accounted for 23% of DHP awards in Inner London and 29% in Outer London compared to 3% for the rest of England. This is not surprising given that 52% of households affected by the benefit cap in 2013/14 lived in London. But even allowing for this, London households affected by the overall benefit cap were much more likely to be awarded DHP than those in the rest of England – 79 DHP awards were made for every 100 households affected in London, compared to 46 in England. The next graph shows the average value of a DHP for each reform. For every reform the average award in London was around double the average for the rest of England. This reflects London’s higher housing costs and therefore the deeper cuts to housing benefit entitlement. Likewise the high average award for the overall benefit cap in London at £1,400 (more than double the average for those affected by the under-occupation penalty) reflects the nature of the reform and the typical cut in entitlement. Clearly cuts through the overall benefit cap are being countered by large DHP awards bringing into question just how much money the reform actually saves the taxpayer. Average award by welfare reform NB: OBC – overall benefit cap; UUP – under-occupation penalty; LHA – Local Housing Allowance cap. Returning to the first graph, it is surprising that only 13% of DHP awards in London were linked to the LHA changes given the high number of LHA claimants. But as the second graph shows, in Inner London the value of awards for LHA are just as high as those for the overall benefit cap. The DWP impact assessment showed that the LHA changes would affect a large number of people by a small amount, but in Inner London there would be a small number of families seeing significant cuts. It’s possible that the DHP awards for LHA have only been given to the small number of families experiencing the biggest cuts. So how did each borough spend their money? The data shows that 40% (13) of London’s 32 boroughs exceeded their DHP budget for the year 2013/14, this compares to 30% of councils across the rest of England. The map below shows the proportion of the DHP budget that was spent in each London borough. It is clear that the areas spending more of their DHP are not necessarily the ones where demand is highest. For example, Westminster only spent 80% of its DHP budget despite this being the borough with the highest housing costs and containing more than 1,000 households affected by the overall benefit cap. Proportion of DHP budget spent in 2013/14 While the London-wide trends can be explained by the different caseloads and costs in the capital, within London the administration of DHP is hugely varied. It seems that in reality, if, why and how much DHP Londoners get depends as much on their home borough as it does their individual circumstances. Overall 51,000 DHPs were awarded in London in 2013/14 to help families struggling with their housing costs and demand shows no sign of abating. At the start of 2014/15 12,000 families were affected by the overall benefit cap and 50,000 by the under-occupation penalty. But DHP funding across Great Britain has dropped by £15m to £165m. With no evidence yet of a reduction in need, the funding cut raises the question as to what will happen to families struggling with housing costs but unable to access this last resort. Number of awards by associayed borough Have your say insidehousing.co.uk/home/analysis/who-gave-what-dhp-allocation-analysis/7006551.article
Posted on: Wed, 29 Oct 2014 21:53:15 +0000
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